Kids Connect campaign blog

An update from 12-year-old Emily Baker:

I’m going to start by telling you a little bit more about me.

I live on a farm in Buckinghamshire. I live in a 300-year-old house with my Mum and Dad, sister-Rachel and brother- Nicholas.

I have a dog (Spooky), a cat (Snowy), a rabbit (Mickey) and a guinea pig (Ozzie).

On the farm we have cows and ducks, though most of them have been killed off by the fox. We farm oilseed rape, wheat and barley.

Earlier this year we converted two barns into holiday cottages which my mum runs. My dad’s parents live on the farm too and take care of everything when we go away on holiday.

We also have a field which people come and stay in their caravans and camper vans. My life is very interesting… I hope you enjoy hearing about it in this blog.

Emily writes:

The rain has finally decided to hold off long enough for us to start harvesting. Today the combine harvester came in and stared harvesting the oilseed rape. This is shown in the photo.

What is oilseed rape?

* Oilseed rape is like poppy seeds, they’re small, black and round.

* The seeds are usually made into vegetable oil but ours should be made into bio fuel (an environmentally friendly way to run cars).

* All of the seed is used. Some for oil etc and some for animal feed.

I’ve been off school most of last week because of a fire in the drama block.

I went in our swimming pool for the first time because it stopped raining and it was quite warm but when I got in I got so cold, mum hade to warm me up with her hair dryer (just kidding but I did get pretty cold!)

That’s the low down on my life at the farm for this week anyway.

Emily writes:

This week I was going to write about the village fete but it was called off because of the rain.

We still had the party that we always have afterwards though. There were little people running everywhere and climbing on the bales we lost two of them when it got dark (the children, I mean, not the bales).

We went for a walk today in the field that had just been combined. The river running around the field had overflowed and there was water everywhere.

My dog almost got swept away by the current when he went for a swim. My sister was very silly and wore shorts on the walk. My dad had to carry her on his back because she didn’t want to get stung by the nettles.

We found two huge feathers that look like red kite feathers. We get a lot of them round here circling overhead.

This is a picture of my brother wading in the floods that we usually get in winter.

Emily writes:

I have finished school at last!

As I write, this is the second day of my holidays and the weather hasn’t improved at all, but I’m making the most of the sunshine by wearing my bikini and sunbathing on the trampoline.

This week I’m going to talk about the pigs that live down the road and I like to go and visit them.

I’m not sure if they have names but me and my sister have called them Pippin and Cox - they are both girls.

They are a special breed of which I don’t know. When I went to see them to take pictures they had a male with them. This is because the farmer is hoping to breed and have piglets.

My sister, who has an obsession with pigs, wants one of the piglets when they are born but my mum said they would dig up the garden and eventually have to be sold for pork. This my sister took as a no.

Here is a picture of Pippin and Cox. Pippin is on the right and Cox on the left.

Emily writes:

This week one and a half fields of grass have been made into hay. Also my dog Spooky is on a diet.

We got the combine harvester in to harvest the wheat but my dad did the moisture test and it turned out to be too wet so the combine had to stop.

I’m not sure how the moisture test works, but I think the wheat is grinded up and if the moisture level is higher than 15% then it is too wet.

Emily writes:

I am very sad because rabbit was put down due to a problem with his brain.

But on a happier note, my uncle came today and he brought his toy helicopter.

Basically my uncle is a big kid and loves his toys. His garden is too small so he brought it here. The first time it flew it went on the road but we found it before it got squished.

After about a million flights I finally got the hang of it, my dog went chasing about after it and like he does rabbits.

Emily writes:

Hello from Wales!

My family and I have driven to south Wales to see my grandparents.

They live in an 18th century farmhouse and live next to the highest point in south Wales called Pen-y-Fan it is just under 3000 ft and we climbed it last year.

They have a lot of rain and sheep round where they live. They have a dog called Ludwig (my grandpa named him after Ludwig Van Beethoven the famous composer).

Emily writes:

I don’t know if you remember but I told you a couple of weeks ago that my rabbit had died. Well we have a new baby bunny that's less than five months old.

We’ve named him Joey and he’s gorgeous.

We also went to the Windsor evening races which were totally fun. There was one race that we saw start and we had to run over to the other side of the track to see the finish, my brother fell over in the process of doing this which was very funny.

On the farm my dad has been preparing the ground for the oilseed rape to be planted. Also, all the hay has come in and we have discovered a wasp’s nest in the bales. This has not stopped my brother from climbing them.

Emily writes...
Hello again! The holidays are almost over!
On Wednesday a stray dog followed my dad home from work. We kept him at our house and phoned around to see if anyone had lost a dog, but no one had heard of any missing dogs.
Our own dog was very unimpressed about having to share his bed with this newcomer!
The next morning we took him to the vets, but he hadn’t got a microchip. But we called someone who had reported their missing dog to the dog warden. They came to see if it was him and it was. They took him off.
But they had also lost another dog which has just been found down one of our fields. Our new rabbit is doing fine and settling in, I got some pictures of him with our guinea pig Ozie.

Martha writes
On Thursday my Dad started baling with our new baler. It is a Claas Variant.
He has baled over a thousand bales already and is sick of seeing them come out of the end of his tractor!
We now have them all to bring back to the farm and put into the Dutch barn to keep dry over winter. The hens will be happy as they like to lay their eggs in all the most awkward places, usually where we can’t reach them.
We have finished cutting our wheat and it has done really well. Most of it doesn’t need drying.
When the combined left the fields, the geese and hens have been scratching about in the stubble looking for any spilt grains of wheat.
I have had to go shopping this week as I have to go back to school on Tuesday....which is a shame!

Emily writes:

I went back to school. Sniff sniff - the holidays are over.

Anyway, dad is working late nights to plough all the fields and is hoping to finish it soon.

The oilseed rape is planted. Also, the spring-born suckled calves are being given some creep feed which is rolled barley and minerals.

On Wednesday my sister and I had to help our mum clean the holiday lets to get our pocket money.

I wouldn’t clean them from choice but if I’m earning money from it, I’ll do the best that I can.

Our new rabbit has had his first glimpse of the outside when he went in his run on Tuesday.

Emily writes:

There’s a lot happening.

The oilseed rape is 2cms high and we need some rain to make it grow some more. We’ve almost sold all of the corn off which is good.

The village fete has been rescheduled to the weekend after next because it was cancelled in the summer due to rain. My dog has had a hair cut so now he looks very strange and doesn’t smell as much. We covered the pool over yesterday and now it’s really warm so I wish we hadn’t.

The guests in the hayloft are enjoying the good weather. And to sum it all up tonight we are having blackberry and apple crumble with blackberries from the bushes and apples from the trees in our garden.

Emily writes:

There has been a caravan rally on of the fields that we own.

Each night starting with Thursday and ending with Saturday they had entertainment which we were invited to.

On Thursday we had an Elvis impersonator, on Friday they had another band and on Saturday they had a food festival which had loads of different foods from all over the world. They also had an Ompa band which did loads of different songs.

Also on Saturday we had the fete but it was more like an autumn bizarre. But everyone from the caravan rally came so it was very busy.

On Sunday I did a 10km hike which was very tiring but I finished it. Here is a picture of the fete.

Emily writes:

My dad has been spending a lot of time ploughing the fields but is almost finished.

He took a day off to come to Stowe landscaped gardens with us. It was very nice.

The landscapes looked natural but they were actually man-made. I am very excited because in about two weeks we are going to Portugal for my mum’s birthday.

Also on the hay bales me and my sister have made a secret playground out of ladders, logs and string - naturally Dad checked it was all safe before we used it.

We have a swing, monkey bars and a slide which I spend hours on after school and on the weekends. All fun and games really.

Emily writes:

Nothing much is happening so I thought I would tell you about someone close to my heart. My dearest dog Spooky (he would have written it himself but having no thumbs this was going to be a difficult task).

When he was a puppy he got abandoned with his brother and sisters in a graveyard and was found and taken to the RSPCA.

Emily writes:

I've had my birthday - I had a party and my dad did a firework show for us all.

On Saturday one of the calves was found to have pneumonia and we had to inject it. To do this, we had to separate it from the rest of the herd.

This proved a difficult task and in the end a cow was brought in to calm him down (we would have brought his mum in but she was old and died last week).

This however didn’t work and the calf jumped the fence to get back with his friends. The second attempt succeeded and he ran into the field happily.