Wet Winter At Rails Farm
The rain stopped only for a short time in December with a very cold spell, never experienced in the 10 years we are living in Dorset. The lowest temperature was about 10 degrees below zero and the landscape looked beautiful. However, for a smallholder the beauty brings worries, our livestock need to drink. At those temperatures every water trough freezes but even worse the rain water supply stops as well. Hence, we needed to carry buckets of water to the animals across the field. Secondly, the grass as a food source is also significantly limited, thus lots of hay needs to be carried to the sheep and alpaca shelter. Looking on the bright side the field was frozen and that enabled us to drive across the grass without destroying the surface. Now being back to horizontal rain changed the landscape into a very large bog.
Avian flue, and safe but sad birds
Avian flu has unfortunately also arrived in early December. Being law obeying citizens we netted in all the birds. Hens, geese and ducks are not impressed but rather depressed. It really stresses them and animal welfare is rather in question. Of course, it is a responsibility for all of us to take precautions but do our few birds really pose a danger to society? What about the thousands of pheasants released into the wild? First of all they don’t belong here, they take space and food needed for native species, and secondly these birds are bred and fed close to farms and then classified as wild birds. Does the lack of logic have anything to do with providing ‘entertainment’, whilst creating income for farmers who breed these birds? There are far smarter solutions to support our very hard working farm community. What about paying farmers for protecting the environment, as they know how and where?
New year, new ways to think Eco friendly
Finally, what plans do we have for the New Year? Further reduce our energy consumption, by putting an extra jumper on, keeping the heating as low as possible. We are thinking twice about using hot water for dish washing or using the dishwasher. Changed to a smaller fridge, the more packed they are the less energy they use. Retired our old upright freezer and changed to a chest freezer. Set the heat pump to only one hour in the middle of the night to generate hot water. Set up small renewable energy generating units to learn how to install and integrate into our electricity consumption, pointing the cottage with lime plaster to tackle the damp problem. Of course planting more fruit trees and hopefully managing to grow potatoes successfully.
Don’t forget our monthly Saturday’s ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’ German breakfast.