On The Farm

 We went round the farm on a big trailer pulled by a tractor with Peter the farmer driving. At intervals Peter would get down from the cab and tell us what we were seeing.




The farm covers something like 1,050 acres. Back in the Middle ages the land belonged to the Augustinians at Michelham Priory. Peter is the third generation of his family to farm here- and is in the process of handing over to the fourth. His grandfather moved the family south from Nottingham just after the war.

It's a dairy farm, but they also grow maize. The river Cuckmere runs through it- and they're taking steps to stop run off from their fields getting into it- and to eliminate the North American mink who are doing their damnedest to kill off all the native riverine wildlife.
Theyre building a new milking parlour with a a huge central turntable which will speed up milk production no end. They're trying to be scientific, they're trying to be ethical.....



I looked through the skeleton of the new milking parlour and many miles away were Windour Hill and The Long Man. I ran my telephoto up as far as it would go.....

Briefly

 It was hot yesterday and will be hotter today. Tomorrow we're promised some blessed rain.

"Have you ever worked in a hayfield?" asks Damian apropos of nothing. And I say, "Yes, once in Kentucky- where it gets a lot hotter than it does here. I lasted for a morning; had I carried on it would have killed me- and I mean that literally."

Mike is working a concrete mixer in the front yard. "How do you know when you've got the mixture right?" asks Ailz. "By the colour" he says.