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Low Arvie news 12/23/2010 2:24:25 AM
Hi
A very, very testing two weeks here at Low Arvie. The weather has been arctic and below freezing continuously for all that time now. We are very lucky not to have had much snow - still only about 3 centimetres but the low temperature means that it has stayed on the ground. The days have been beautiful, though, with clear blue skies and bright sunshine. We would have been enjoying the winter except for the freeze-up meaning that R has to carry buckets of water to the cattle as all the outside systems are frozen. Each morning and evening he takes about 30 trips with two buckets at a time to the young stock and Zinnia. Happily he has been able to keep the burn open for the cows and calves to drink, by driving the Matbro (6 tons)into it to break the ice and several times getting quite a way across before the Matbro broke through.
We had a sad, sad blow last week when the Governement announced the closure of the Forensic Science Service which has been Catherine's passion since joining ten or more years ago. She has just been through two hellish years of re-organisation and transformation and was just settling down to start her new job with Violent Crime and Homicide (she has 'done' drugs, burglaries and serious crime!) when this news hit like a bolt from the blue. If anyone out there can use an experienced and passionate Forensic Scientist, please let me know. What her future will be, we just don't know.
On a happier note, we have been waiting anxiously for our last calf to arrive. Lady Olga didn't get in calf to the bull and was AI'd in the Spring to a coffee coloured Dun Galloway bull called Globex Xplosive. We have been quite worried about the best thing to do - calve her in the warmer shed where there are germs or outside where it is clean but, at times, minus 16.5 degrees C. However, we needn't have worried our heads. She produced a beautiful silver heifer all by herself last evening and little Silver Bell is running around in minus 6 degrees of cold as if it were high summer. Mother Nature triumphs again!!
Well, I am off tomorrow to spend Christmas and New Year with Catherine. Morgan is working and we are going to have Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Northampton - well, that will be different. Richard and I celebrated our Christmas yesterday and I feel the C is in need of a mother's hugs at the moment. R doesn't mind at all and will be fine!
So, here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and the best of everything in 2011,
