The crops benefitted from the recent rain, which was most welcome, but we badly need more. The spring beans and barley are looking less parched, but I fear the weeks of drought will be reflected in the yield at harvest.
We are now fighting natures little and not so little critters. For the past few years, we have had a growing problem with moths. They are now rampant throughout the house despite all efforts to exterminate them with smoke bombs, sticky backed traps, steam cleaning, and placing rugs and clothes out on the lawns on hot sunny days, as my mother used to do.
Our carpets are now thread bare, clothes have holes the size of 50p pieces and there is a general air of hopelessness as all our efforts result in an escalating number of moths.
Outside in the garden which should by now be full of colour with roses, geraniums, and other annuals, it is a sea of green. Not a single rose bud has survived and all the wonderful geraniums which filled the pots and beds around the house have been decapitated, many pulled out and strewn across the lawns. The deer are back with a vengeance; we have never suffered so much destruction.
We are hosting the Church Fete this coming weekend and have a few weddings and other events through the summer. Visitors are going to be deeply disappointed by the lack of colour, despite all the pruning, spraying, feeding, and watering.
We have tried the usual preventative methods, scary objects and paraffin which used to keep them at bay. Latterly I have hung creosote-soaked rags amongst the roses which I am hoping is working. Matthew has spent a number of evenings and early mornings out with his rifle, but was hampered by the many footpaths; getting a ‘safe shot’, is far from easy.
I have also set off rope bangers in the garden, which made us all jump as they went off but whether they kept the deer away for long I am not entirely sure. They will no doubt annoy the neighbours for which I apologies, but in our desperation to drive these vandals away, we will try anything.
My story about our young Sussex steers hating the herbal leys caused a flurry of comments from my farming friends who found this interesting and baffling. To follow up; we decided to cut a couple of fields for hay as they had grown too tall to graze. This we fed to the fat cattle still in the yard. They went mad for it and got through the bales in record time. When we weighed them yesterday, they had put on an average of 50-63kg in just four weeks. Now that is a result. We have taken samples to see if a dose of sodium or other trace elements are needed to improve its palatability.
There are rumours the chancellor will shortly be receiving her P45 as the PM moves her out of No 11, and not a moment too soon. Since her first budget last October, the Bank of England has downgraded its economic forecast for this year from 1.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent, and the office of Budget Responsibility cut its growth estimate in half, from 2 per cent to 1 per cent.
In April, inflation jumped back up to 3.5 per cent (way above the 2 per cent target). In May manufacturing suffered the sharpest drop in new orders in 19 months and unemployment is up 10 per cent since Labour won the GE last July.
Rachel Reeves’s record-breaking £40 billion tax raid has been blamed for Britain’s leading business group cutting its growth forecasts for this year and the next.
We have another four years of this financial incompetence along with Labour’s record of disastrous decisions on: the Chagos Islands, Gibraltar, the EU, repeated attacks upon the farming industry, delays to prosecute the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, and now voting to allow the termination of full-term babies while still in their mother’s wombs. These are just a few examples of the damage this government has already wreaked upon the very fabric of our once Great country in just eleven months. With their huge majority in the House of Commons there is nothing to stop these people destroying what is left before the next General Election.
We are now fighting natures little and not so little critters. For the past few years, we have had a growing problem with moths. They are now rampant throughout the house despite all efforts to exterminate them with smoke bombs, sticky backed traps, steam cleaning, and placing rugs and clothes out on the lawns on hot sunny days, as my mother used to do.
Our carpets are now thread bare, clothes have holes the size of 50p pieces and there is a general air of hopelessness as all our efforts result in an escalating number of moths.
Outside in the garden which should by now be full of colour with roses, geraniums, and other annuals, it is a sea of green. Not a single rose bud has survived and all the wonderful geraniums which filled the pots and beds around the house have been decapitated, many pulled out and strewn across the lawns. The deer are back with a vengeance; we have never suffered so much destruction.
We are hosting the Church Fete this coming weekend and have a few weddings and other events through the summer. Visitors are going to be deeply disappointed by the lack of colour, despite all the pruning, spraying, feeding, and watering.
We have tried the usual preventative methods, scary objects and paraffin which used to keep them at bay. Latterly I have hung creosote-soaked rags amongst the roses which I am hoping is working. Matthew has spent a number of evenings and early mornings out with his rifle, but was hampered by the many footpaths; getting a ‘safe shot’, is far from easy.
I have also set off rope bangers in the garden, which made us all jump as they went off but whether they kept the deer away for long I am not entirely sure. They will no doubt annoy the neighbours for which I apologies, but in our desperation to drive these vandals away, we will try anything.
My story about our young Sussex steers hating the herbal leys caused a flurry of comments from my farming friends who found this interesting and baffling. To follow up; we decided to cut a couple of fields for hay as they had grown too tall to graze. This we fed to the fat cattle still in the yard. They went mad for it and got through the bales in record time. When we weighed them yesterday, they had put on an average of 50-63kg in just four weeks. Now that is a result. We have taken samples to see if a dose of sodium or other trace elements are needed to improve its palatability.
There are rumours the chancellor will shortly be receiving her P45 as the PM moves her out of No 11, and not a moment too soon. Since her first budget last October, the Bank of England has downgraded its economic forecast for this year from 1.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent, and the office of Budget Responsibility cut its growth estimate in half, from 2 per cent to 1 per cent.
In April, inflation jumped back up to 3.5 per cent (way above the 2 per cent target). In May manufacturing suffered the sharpest drop in new orders in 19 months and unemployment is up 10 per cent since Labour won the GE last July.
Rachel Reeves’s record-breaking £40 billion tax raid has been blamed for Britain’s leading business group cutting its growth forecasts for this year and the next.
We have another four years of this financial incompetence along with Labour’s record of disastrous decisions on: the Chagos Islands, Gibraltar, the EU, repeated attacks upon the farming industry, delays to prosecute the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, and now voting to allow the termination of full-term babies while still in their mother’s wombs. These are just a few examples of the damage this government has already wreaked upon the very fabric of our once Great country in just eleven months. With their huge majority in the House of Commons there is nothing to stop these people destroying what is left before the next General Election.
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