Mrs Downs Diary - Sept 9 2009

He is having a few problems today calibrating the drill in order to sow the correct rate of grass seed on a field that is going back for grazing as part of the crop rotation and grass management.

A vital little metering device has fallen off the drill and so we are busy trying to convert kilograms to pounds, hectares to acres and then divide it all up by the number of passes he has made over the field power harrowing.

After the first pass with the drill he realised he was going to put too much seed on and not have enough left for the job. Now after my mathematical skills have had a go at the problem, we think the seed is going to be spread too thinly and we'll have some left over.

"But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel" he says as we puzzled with conversion programmes on the computer and the calculator. "The shooting season."

It's true. The other night we went to a shoot dinner, held as a sort of pre-season get-together, what-have-you-been-doing-since-February reunion. Not that we don't see all of our friends regularly, but this is actually getting back into the swing of thinking what they consider life is all about. That and fishing.

The ducks we reared for a friend's shoot are now well on. Eating an enormous quantity of grain. Poor things. Oblivious of the count down.

At home, our first clutch of guinea fowl, hatched in May, are almost mature enough for the table, but I like to see them so much around the yard, I doubt if they are going to make it onto a plate.

I have developed a real soft spot for these quirky little birds. They eat bugs and pests, do not scrat like the hens, cheep and squawk away and make the most marvellous guard dogs for the farm ever. No-one or thing comes through the gate, near the hen house, into the yard without they start panicking at the top of their decibel range. Fantastic.

In the greenhouse and orchard I am now overwhelmed by produce. I am not much of a gardener but can manage a grow bag. Friends and relatives go away bowed down under the weight of tomatoes, plums, apples, peppers and chillies.

My microwave is constantly pinging away as yet another bowl of apples or plums cooks down for the freezer. "Why don't you just freeze the fruit and tomatoes uncooked?" a friend asked.

Because they take up too much space in the freezer that's why. This way I can just defrost a bag of whatever I need and it is ready for fruit pie or crumble or as the start of a casserole.