Welcome to our little home on the net. We are Steve & Rosemary and live in Buckinghamshire, UK. This is a blog of our life, sometimes interesting, but mainly boring. It is very picture orientated as Steve loves to take pictures, especially of wildlife. Sometimes he has his arm twisted by Rosemary and takes the odd snap of a weed.
Visit to Addingrove Farm to see a robot milker
21st July 2023
A group of us visited Addingrove Farm to see their new robotic milking parlour. We arrived at Chilton and were taken down to the farm on the back of a couple of tractors and trailers. On route we drove through a “closed” road, where Thames Water was endeavouring to fix a leak. At the farm, we were divided into two groups to look at the milking parlour.
The barn has room for 200 cows, plus a few more dry ones. Normally they are able to go in and out of the barn and graze the fields, as they wish We were told that many of the cows preferred to stay inside, and when it rained there was a stampede for cover. The barn had feed on both sides. In the centre were the cows water beds where they could lie in comfort. The cows were on slats which robots patrolled, scraping the excrement through the slats into a special processing system down underneath.
There were four milking cubicles, and the cows would enter these of their own accord and be automatically milked. They could be milked up to four times a day. If they entered the milking parlour again, they were not fed, and were ejected. Those cows who chose not to be miked in 24 hours could be identified on the computer screen and action taken to persuade them to be milked.
In the evening, the lights are dimmed to a red glow.
It all seemed to work smoothly, we saw cows entering and being milked, and others, who were trying it on, being ejected.
After the visit we were transported back to Chilton, where we bought beers from the Chiltern Brewery and BBQed burgers from the local butcher. They were excellent burgers, and I did go in for a second round. The money raised went to the church
Following the burgers, we finished the evening at George’s drinking Scotch. As we left at 10.10 I spotted a bright moving light in the sky. I later checked. It was the International Space Station.
Video of the Automated Milking Parlour
Gallery
Packwood House and Warwick
14th July 2023
We met up with friends (Bill, Viv, Norman and Valerie) at Packwood House. This was our first visit to this National Trust house. (But why? It is an easy drive from home for us.) The weather was atrocious with torrents of rain. We arrived early and went straight to the cafe. It was a genuinely nice National Trust one which opens at 9.am and was very well used. Many people were there seemingly just to meet up with friends.
Bill and Viv arrived, followed by Norman and Valerie. Having had hot drinks and yummy cakes, we headed out to the house where B&Vs daughter Jenny came to join us and introduce her baby son to us.
Packwood House is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house in Packwood on the Solihull border near Lapworth, Warwickshire. The NT has owned it since 1941. The house began as a modest timber-framed farmhouse constructed for John Fetherston between 1556 and 1560. The Fetherston family owned the house for more than 300 years, until the death of the last member of the family in 1876.
In 1904, the house was purchased at auction by Birmingham industrialist Alfred Ash. Alfred Ash was a bit of a character. He was known for his sharp wit and his love of practical jokes. One of his favourite hobbies was to play pranks on his guests. One of his favourite pranks involved the house’s very narrow, spiral staircase. Ash would often hide at the top and wait for his guests to come up. When they did, he would jump out very suddenly to scare them.
Alfred Ash’s son, Graham Baron Ash, inherited the house in 1925. Graham Baron Ash was also a bit of a character. He was a philanthropist and conservationist. Like his father, he had a good sense of humour.
He decided to restore Packwood House to its former glory, so he spent the next two decades buying antiques, of the correct era, reclaimed salvage. and appropriate artwork. He had the house decorated in a traditional Tudor style. He also worked on the gardens, having them restored and adding a number of new features, including a yew garden and a lake.
Graham Baron Ash was a generous man, and he decided to leave Packwood House to the National Trust in memory of his parents. In his ‘Memorandum of wishes’, Baron Ash stated that all furniture should be kept in the same position, that no extra furnishings should be added, and that freshly cut flowers should be placed in every room. The National Trust has been careful to preserve the house and gardens in their original state. And we duly noted the many vases of cut flowers.
Here are some funny facts about Packwood House:
- The house has a secret passage that leads from the library to the chapel.
- The yew garden is home to a number of topiary shapes, including a dog, a rabbit, and a sheep.
- The house is said to be haunted by the ghost of a former housekeeper.
Unfortunately, not all the rooms in the house were open; some of the downstairs rooms were closed due to being “rested”. There were an extraordinary number of longcase clocks. The National Trust room guides were very informative, and good humoured.
After touring the house, we walked out into the rain and visited the garden (complete with fantastic herbaceous borders), spending a significant amount of time in a summerhouse out of the rain. We did manage to view the topiary shapes, and cloud hedges,
We dried off in the cafe before heading off to Leamington Spa for an excellent supper and the night at Bill & Viv’s. We admired their recently refurbished sash windows and the evidence of Viv’s green fingers. After supper, we played a wooden memory game that V&N had recently discovered, Trickier than it first appeared.
The next day it was bright and sunny but with large rain clouds. At any moment it could be sunny, or it could pour. After a good, hearty breakfast We headed into Warwick on the bus, and after the mandatory visit to the charity shops, we headed to Saint Mary’s Church. Norman had worked here on an archaeological dig in 1975 after leaving Cambridge. This beautiful church is full of history & interesting features after standing for 900 years. The Norman crypt is the oldest part of the church, dating back to the 12th century. It is a vaulted space with pillars and arches, and it is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monk. There was part of a medieval ducking stool on display.
The church has three organs, of which two are operational and used at various recitals.
The Beauchamp Chapel is a magnificent example of 15th-century Gothic architecture. Built to house the tomb of Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, it is said to be one of the most important tombs in England.
The church has connections with the armed forces, with old military flags on display. St Mary’s Church hosts regular services for military personnel and their families. These services are a way for people to come together to pray for those who are serving, and to remember those who have died in service.
Not so nice was a plaque to the memory of Enoch Powell. Apparently, Powell was a regular worshipper at the church. After his death in 1998, he was buried in the adjoining churchyard.
We ate lunch in a small cafe called the Thomas Oken. Oken was a wealthy Mercer who died in 1573 leaving his fortune ‘for the relief in need’ of Warwick residents. It was full inside, so we sat outside and ordered drinks and food. Then it started to rain. Thankfully, space became available inside. The weather soon improved, and we were able to continue our tour of Warwick in the dry,
Once we had finished, we walked down towards Warwick Castle and visited a small private garden called The Mill Garden. This was super special, quiet, secluded spot. It is a privately owned, half-acre informal cottage garden located on the banks of the River Avon. Julia Measures, is the current owner. Her family has owned the gardens since 1938. Her father Arthur worked on it for 60 years.
We headed back to Leamington Spa on the bus, and then, after a restorative cup of tea & biscuit at B&V’s, we drove home
Wells Farm, BBOWT Reserve
12th July 2023
We visited Wells Farm in Little Milton. This was an organised trip by BBOWT. The reserve is a working farm, managed on a traditional rotation basis. The hedge margins are more than six meters wide, giving plenty of habitat for insects and birds. The fields have a mixture of soils. from chalk to sand and wet clay. Walking the fields, it became obvious as the soil types changed.
We were given tea and coffee in the Little Milton village hall. A wonderful village hall with an integral community run post office, shop and cafe.
The fields had many flowers and insects. The bird life was sparse, but then there was a group of 40 plus people walking around. It would be interesting to spend time there quietly.
BBOWT have the land on a 999-year lease, on the condition it is managed as an environmental farm. The lease was gifted to them by the previous owner. One does wonder how we could survive if all agriculture was performed in this same way…..
Wedding Anniversary
The Fox Cubs
30th June 2023
It has been a long while since I posted a video about our fox cubs. This five-minute video shows the fox cubs still with the Vixen down at our waterhole. The timeline is from mid-end June.
On the waterhole (pond) you can see a pair of moorhens racing around the pond, and preening. In one shot at about 32 seconds in you can see a fox cub on the bank, and the moorhens in the pond.
At 45 seconds in, a Muntjac (?) deer makes an appearance, after which we see a Vixen and her two cubs walking along the bank in the darkness.
During daylight hours, a grey heron comes fishing and catches a small unidentified morsal of food from the pond.
More fox cubs and their mother appear during daylight and darkness, often to come for a drink from the pond.
A Greater Spotted Woodpecker appears at 3.15. It hangs around entertaining us for a few seconds.
Not so nice is Ratty at 4.45.
Finally, a Jay comes for a drink.