Unfortunately, this year, not many of those with virtually no sloes in our hedges and the blackberries pretty pathetic too. I found enough yesterday to make a big crumble but that’s about it. It is also very hard to believe that it HAS NOT RAINED for several days, an autumnal drought perhaps?
We had a planning meeting this morning, unsure as to how good an idea this is as you end up with a whacking great list of all the things we should be doing for our three companies which may fill you with energy or make you hopelessly depressed. I think I am veering towards depressed as the two most pressing things are a) finishing the autumn edition of Alpaca World magazine and b) getting ready for the Knit & Stitch exhibition at Ally Pally. The list for Knit & Stitch will be startling long when we get into the detail. Broad brush strokes (ha ha) at the moment, we’ve ordered the big white van, good, eldest son Thomas is lending us his spare bed, very good, the cocktails are always excellent chez Tom and Matt.
On farm the autumn round of Fasinex and Cydectin has begun and once that has finished we’ll start weaning cria and sending the mums who are more than 60 days pregnant and have weaned their cria over to their winter quarters. This is a big 14 acre field which has been resting since the spring so there’s loads of grass and it is clean. At the moment it has been invaded by loads of teenage pheasants from the shoot that look pretty ragged as the cocks are almost there with adult plumage but not quite. This means we have to run the pheasant gauntlet every time we drive up or down the lane as they are everywhere. By far the best policy is to drive at them fast as inevitably they will fly into the hedge. I don’t think I have ever hit one.