The long wait

Because of our heavy clay we are so behind with planting for this year's harvest. We have scarcely a month for our last chance of sowing the corn and other crops and there is more rain on the way this week-end! Usually we would have completed the early preparations before Christmas but this autumn/winter season it wasn't to be. Here T has started to plough and though it looks fine it was very heavy and taxing on the tractor which was working too slowly and using far too much expensive diesel for the job. There is so much work to do once the ground dries out. Now we are discussing other ways with different machinery of making a seed bed without using the plough.

Today has been a day of waiting. The vet and the team down in the yard putting each animal through the crush so that the lumps and bumps from the injection a couple of day ago can be measured. If the lump is over a certain size the animal supposedly has TB. Then there are possible reactors where the lump is inconclusive. I was expecting the team to come in for lunch so I couldn't leave the house. It was similar to waiting for news of someone on the operating table and difficult to settle down to anything.

At four o'clock T and J reappeared and the others had gone - Good News and no reactors either!! They had worked right through the whole lot without a break. What a relief! We have been lucky so far but one day the news may be different. A neighbour who only has a couple of rare breed animals had to have hers slaughtered while another is in the clear. One can never tell. There is a farm in Staffordshire whose whole herd was completely wiped out but on examination after the slaughter only a few actually had the disease. What a horrendous tragedy.