Last night Rhona, one of the three cows in the field, gave birth to a wee calf. Which seems to have disappeared. Admittedly I haven’t been working in their field today but the two times I’ve gone to have a look I’ve seen Rhona and the other cows but not her calf. It’s probably sheltering under a tree or something and I don’t want to investigate in case I worry Rhona, but it’s slightly frustrating. I was looking forward to seeing it stagger around endearingly but all I’ve seen so far is a very small brown shape lying in the grass in the distance first thing this morning.
More babies are on the way. Some of the chickens are broody again and one of them has been given duck eggs (M reckons she can corner the market in selling ducklings as no-one else bothers) while Ayisha, one of the Bengal cats is heavily pregnant and might, just might, give birth before I leave on Saturday.
Over lunch M was looking through the DEFRA guidelines for moving livestock and moaning about the petty regulations. Apparently Fred employs someone just to deal with all the admin stuff. I can’t really give an informed opinion on this but it does seem to come from another planet. I must have a good look through the DEFRA website at a later date.
After building a small perch for the chicken run to give them another dimension I spent most of the day weeding the flower beds which was quite nice as it was a small, contained job. Clearing a field of weeds is on such a massive scale that to just do a bed means you can really get down and eradicate. The end result is satisfyingly fascist compared to the anarchic organic wilderness of the rest of the farm. Though at the end of the day I know what I prefer.
I also spent an hour showing M how to scan stuff into her computer, something I’m more than happy to do (I always enjoyed IT training at work) but it’s quite an effort bridging the unintuitive whims of Windows and a non-computer oriented mind. I know that using a Windows PC is one big bodge requiring more mental sidestepping and abstract mapping than a walk across central London but the “average user” doesn’t expect to need to do this or have the time to develop such maps. So I have to try and explain that it’s not their fault while not getting them disillusions with the whole thing and giving up. I’m a bit out of practice and it was hard work but we got there in the end. Computer training is a bit like teaching adults to walk or eat – it’s easy if you’ve had years of practice but…
Hahahahahahah, good luck!!! It’s in fact rather depressing that off the top of my head I knew DEFRA stood for Department of Farming and Rural Affairs… But seriously anything from the damned government (for whom I am a cynical and seething cog) is incomprehensible, unfindable and unthinkable and usually written by someone with no idea whatsoever of what they are writing about. If the standard trend in regulating bodies is anything to go by the chap who wrote the regulations that M is complaining about probably couldn’t tell the difference between a cow and a pine tree other than they both make a whacking great dent if you run in to them with your bentley… why oh why do I work for local government… oh yes, I remember now, they pay me, I knew there was some reason…