88mm of rain but nearly 40 mm of that fell over a 36 hour period.

As I have mentioned in the past, the River Dane is one of the fastest rising rivers in the country in periods of heavy rain.

This deluge helped to demonstrate the point rather dramatically.

This picture is of the gate at the bottom of the cattle drive opening onto the left hand meadow.

You have to remember that it is around 250m to the rivers edge from the gate normally.

If we had had cattle down there we would have had to have undertake an emergency evacuation to higher ground.

These Canada geese seemed to be enjoying themselves however.

We had around 12 hectares of flooding but as usual it went nearly as quick as it came and the fields were dry again within 5 days.

After all that we were then able to do yet more muckspreading yet as January approaches it looks like a wet spell coming on.

Next job will be splitting open the Universal tractor in order to do the clutch.

This will all have to be done before the 30th as Robert at Northern Rural Training is using us to run a course.

Just before Christmas I visited Peter Pans pre-school nativity production along with Daisy the fold up cow and some chicks. We all had a good time and thanks to Linda for inviting us.

Daisy the cow is the most travelled amongst us as she has been out on the road herself promoting dairy products for our milk co-op the Dairy Farmers Of Britain’s roadshow down in the South West and next month they are off to Bristol. See more at www.dfob.com .

Apparently she has been a real hit. Currently Daisy and our own Roadshow commence on May 10th 2008.

Speaking of the coming year one change you will see is my “blog” in it I am aiming to offer you a more daily account of our comings and goings at Greenheyes Farm and offer a “potted summary” at the end of each month.

The Blog I hope will bring more comments and perhaps some discussion on some of the more topical issues of the day.

My Christmas present from Dorothy is a full membership of England’s Barmy Army (he's on about cricket, yawn:-o ) view more at www.barmyarmy.com February/March will see them crushing the New Zealanders.

Christmas was great, Dorothy and myself were so full of cold we had a real "baah humbug" time not going anywhere. We didn’t feel fit to.

Finally click here for Andy’s nature report

Happy new year PHIL.

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