Farm Diary

DRIZZLY, dank November days; depressingly mirror the financial and economic state of the country. Everyone's started talking about Christmas even earlier this year, which is strange, given that we might not enter the consumer festivities with the same vigour as in the past; maybe it's because we need to cheer ourselves up a bit.

It's hard to believe that November has gone; it was a spectacular month earlier, as the trees hung on to their leaves, with yellow being the dominant theme as autumn showed its magnificent display once more. One disappointment was the complete absence of sloe berries, which I can only put down to frost in the spring.

I generally pick sloes each year, and make some sloe gin and sloe brandy, and I can't remember not having any to pick before. Luckily I have some vintages around from the last two or three years, as I tend to admire the colour even more than the taste.

We had a problem with our milk cooling last week, due to electrical works in the yard causing the chillers to trip. Routine checks before milking began were not carried out, and we ended up with a vat of warm milk which the tanker could not pick up.

Luckily, once in action our cooling system is very good and the milk was down to temperature by the next milking, and all quality tests were passed. This sort of problem is not good for my health, and we are currently re-visiting procedures.

Our routine pickup at around midnight has now been changed as milk production in the area goes up, and for the first time in over two years we have a day pickup. The company has also switched to every-other day pickup for the first time, which will save us money on energy and chemicals, due to the cooling effect of chilled milk in the tank and only half the number of tank-washes every week.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette December 3