Well that’s that then

This morning was a free for all in the breakfast room again and as we sat there eating both Bob and Mary appeared and started to try and give us jobs to do, then had a big argument about what should be done by us. Very tempting to get out the popcorn…

Davies and Scarlett very wisely spent pretty much the entire day in the woodland making a camp complete with labels and signs and everything. I have some pictures on my phone I will upload at some point – it was excellent :).

Ady and I cleared a large pile of cut ivy from a stable yard which involved loading it into wheelbarrows and pushing it along the lane up the hill to the top field into a bonfire heap. We must have done about ten trips altogether today, which meant my arms and legs were aching by the end of the day, which they have not done for ages. They are tiny and still hidden in a layer of fat but I do actually have visible muscles in my arms now 🙂 Another 12 years of WWOOFing and I might end up with that Sarah Connor in Terminator physique I long for… 😉

We’ve also chopped more firewood and bagged it up ready for campers to buy this weekend including pushing a barrow with five full sacks of logs and carting them down a flight of stairs which I did myself as Ady was helping Bob move something with the tractor. It did make me laugh that he had been saying how he makes up smaller bags to sell to women camping on their own who can’t manage the full sacks while I was humping them about!

We all helped drive the cattle down into the barn this morning, including Davies and Scarlett which was a new (and slightly scary) experience for them, armed with sticks and told to pay very close attention to everything going on. Molly the barking dog slipped her lead and ran along with us which unnerved the cows a lot and they chased her a couple of times. I did get turned on by one of the feisty ones too but a shout at her and grabbing a metal gate and holding it infront of me and advancing back towards her drove her off. It probably looked like I was being brave but it was that or be crushed really – the kids thought it was exciting though, they were the right side of a gate watching! We also walked the whole of the farm with Bob and got shown the old lead mines, quarry and other landmarks of his land which was cool.

At lunchtime Bob and Mary were both out so we headed into the kitchen to see what had been left for us and found… nothing! We were just debating what to do when Bob arrived at about 115pm and apologetically found some pasta and various sauces and sat down to join us for lunch. Mary looked really hacked off when she came in at about 130pm and saw us all eating.

In the afternoon we helped Bob weigh, check the temperature of, medicate with injections and oral medicine a few of the calves who were looking a bit poorly. That was interesting. Cows really are very huge and pretty unpredictable. I’m not scared of them particularly but I don’t feel any great desire to work with them every day, although a house cow might still be appealing if it had been milked and handled from early on and was the right temprament.

Bob got food for our dinner for us – Ady reminded him at about 4pm incase stuff needed to be defrosted and we were given bacon, sausages and bread, some tomatoes and onions. We had some eggs leftover from yesterday so we had breakfast for dinner cooked on the fire which was lovely 🙂 It did lack a cup of tea although beer washed it down well enough 😉

We had another lovely evening = Bob came over and had a cup of tea with us and brought over a load of paperwork all about Organic standards, mapping of his farm, Single Payment Scheme forms and entitlements, details of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and various other grants and payments. He showed us cow passports, sheep movement forms and other Defra paperwork. We’ve definitely learnt loads of that side of farming and land management from Bob and he’s been a really nice host. Maybe it is unfair to be blaming Mary for everything odd, strange or bloody out of order that has happened here but we do blame her.

After Bob left we lit the fire and got dinner cooking, the kids came and sat with us and my Mum rang. After dinner when it was properly dark and the moon had come out – new full moon tonight, the moonrise was beautiful – we lit the bonfire we’d been building all week and watched that – it was magnificent, really big and crackling and dramatic 🙂

The night ran away with us rather so it was gone 11pm when I came in with the kids for a quick chapter of story – I do worry we have forever spoilt them for normal bedtimes and sensible routines ever again but they are loving it 🙂 Ady watched a badger walk around Willow after we’d come in (clearly he imagined it) and we’ve seen bats swooping about every night.