August 2011 Archives

After one archetypal harvest scene - a harvest crew having tea in the field - here's another: a dog on a bale. Thanks to Moira Laurie from Fife for sending it to me.

If you've got an image that you think sums up summer, do please email it to me.

Seeing as we've been on the subject of unusual animal pairings like the otter and kitten, I though I'd share this photo from a zoo in China.

It scores double points. Firstly, the animals are the result of a male lion breeding with a female tiger (they're called 'ligers, apparently). Secondly, having been abandoned by their mother, they've found a surrogate one - in the form of a dog.

Picture: Quirky China News/Rex Features

Really like this photo. It captures a side of harvest that anyone who's ever worked on a farm in the sumerm will empathise with.

Daniel Wilde sent us the picture and titled it: "Dinner at Little Linton Farms, Cambridge, with good kit and a good team - with 3600 acres done in five-and-a-half weeks, we have time for dinner."

It's amazing how popular local food is.

The animals at Dudley Zoological Gardens eat local products whenever they're available - the soft fruits, for example, come from Worcestershire, the cereals from Staffordshire and the root vegetables from Shropshire.

And a new arrival has prompted primate keepers to pile up the fruit and veg baskets.

I've come across a great, soulful short film - which really captures the spirit of harvest. It was shot in Surrey by a guy who's knows as 'The Film Artist'. 

You can watch it here on Vimeo.

This looks positively painful - a cow stuck on a roadside barrier.

Maybe it should have taken a lesson from this showjumping bovine.

At the risk of overdosing on twee (it wasn't that long ago, after all, we featued the otter-and-kitten combo) here's an extraordinarily cute photo on the Telegraph's website of a deer and a cat.

I promise to only feature more agricultural animal combinations from now on - like the fox and the squirrel.

Here's a quick way to make keeping abreast of all the news on Field Day even easier.

See that box that says 'Subscribe by E-mail' towards the top of the blog on the right hand side?

If you type your email address in there and click 'go', you'll receive an email telling you whenever there's a new post. So you'll never have to run the risk of missing one.

You wouldn't, for example, have missed the 115kgs calf or the cowman who sailed round Britain or crocodile farming in Cambridgeshire or even the bullock with its head stuck in a  ladder.

Go on, you know it makes sense...

Like sheepdog trials?

Well, they're coming back to national TV, with More4 due to screen the World Sheepdog Trials in Cumbria next month.

The popular pooch pursuit disappeared from national TV when the BBC controversially axed One Man And His Dog more than a decade ago.

Right, who wants to be on TV?

Someone from a firm called Magnum Media has been in touch with Field Day - they're looking for a farming family in the west country to get involved with a new show they're making for Channel 4.

They want someone to put comedian Jack Whitehall up for the night for the entertainment programme called 'Hit The Road Jack'.

It will see the comic travelling around the country to find out more about some of the places he's never visited before.

The idea is that the young comic gets put to work on the farm - the joke, reckon the people behind the idea, will very much be on Jack who (complete with his skinny jeans and silly hair) will be filmed as he tries to cope with rural life.

In particular, the programme makers want "a fun-loving family, proud of their West Country heritage who could show Jack just how hospitable people from the West Country really are".

If you fancy giving it a go, fire off an email to them.  

One-time Brit Pop bad boy, Blur's Alex James, is as famous for his cheesemaking as his music-making these days.

This picture isn't funny. A bullock with its head stuck in a ladder isn't even remotely humorous.

OK, maybe it's mildly amusing - but only because the story had a happy ending.

Think this picture's great.

It was taken by 15-year-old Hanna Land from Withleigh Young Farmers Club in Devon and scooped third place in the NFYFC photography competition celebrating British Wool Week.

There some good news regarding otters in the media today - their numbers have risen as water quality in river has improved.

And in other otter news (which is not something you hear said every day) a six-week-old baby orphaned one has becomes friends with some orphaned kittens at the Secret World rescue centre in Somerset.

You can see them below. It you like otters and/or like cats, it is a quite extraordinarily cute picture.

Remember the 'camel wedding' I mentioned the other day?

Well, the humped animals weren't the only unusual sight at the event. Turns out that local farmers Ann, John and Martin Baylis made this 13ft sculpture from straw, fertiliser bags and silage wrap - it was strategically positioned to greet the happy couple after they left the church.

One for the vintage machinery buffs.

Stephen Robb sent us this shot of a rare 1961 McCormick International F8-63 in County Donegal, Ireland.

You might think budget hotel chains belong in big cities, but perhaps not for much longer. Travelodge has decided to expand quite aggressively into more rural areas due to increasing numbers of Britons holidaying in National Parks.

I'm looking forward to seeing a 30-100 room Travelodge trying to fit in with the local architecture of the harbour town Porthmadog.

(Photo by Micha Theiner/Rex Features. Written by Alex Baldwin)

What's even more unusual than leaving the church after your wedding on a tractor?

The answer's obvious, isn't it. A camel.

Thanks to Ann Baylis for getting in touch to tell us about this recent Warwickshire rural wedding.

Newly weds - and equine vets - Sarah Gasper and Neil Townsend were married at Binton and left riding a pair of racing camels. 
 
 

Tractors are obviously the must-have accessory at weddings this summer.

Argyll farm-boy and budding film maker Douglas Benge sent us this still image from a video he made, along with a heart-warming story which he thought would interest us at Farmers Weekly.

Douglas, with the help of his family, nursed this buzzard back to health after his sister Olivia found the unconscious bird of prey in a small valley at Rock Hill Farm.

"We brought it up to the house where we fed the dehydrated bird some water," said Douglas. "It soon became more and more lively, and later went to an animal rescue centre where it is currently living until it can be released back into the wild."

Hope this helps shed a little light on your Monday afternoon.

Written by Alex Baldwin.

Today is the Glorious 12th.

Here's what William Langley's had to say about it in The Telegraph.

For Field Day readers who are machinery buffs - thought you might like this.

Reckon it must be one of the oldest combines that's been out working this summer.

It was harvesting winter barley with a 33-year-old New Holland 1530 near Cahir in Tipperary.

David Stapleton was driving the combine although it is owned by a neighbour.

"It's still running well and has needed no major repairs in the past few years," says David. "It probably cuts at a rate of slightly under 5ha/hour (2 acres/hour). Perhaps the reason it has lasted so long is that the total acres cut is quite low. It's now about 36 acres per year although in the early days this was higher and included cutting crops of peas and grass seed."

The photo was taken by Joe Pollard who was doing the grain transport during the harvest.

Don't forget you can see hundreds of pictures of this year's harvest in our Harvest Highlights gallery.

An Oxfordshire farmyard is going to be transformed into a theatre this weekend,

Foxbury Farm will become an open theatre on Saturday (August 13) when the Mad Hatter and the March Hare perform live for visitors.

I like birds, but I've never been a fan of seagulls. And when they display this sort of behaviour, can you blame me. Here's an opportunist one, joining in with the looting...

Olympic silver medallist and former world champion hurdler Colin Jackson has visited an organic dairy farm at Wrexham.

A cow has given birth to five calves. Yes, that's right - five!

Once on the brink of extinction, the red kite has made a comeback in the UK.

Three buzzards have been released back into the wild after being found dumped in a box on a housing estate.

What a whopper!

This Simmental heifer calf weighed a massive 115kgs at birth.

The calf, pictured with four-year-old Henry Elkin, was bred out of a Holstein Fresian cow by Henry's dad, Ben, of Hall Farm, Hilderstone, Staffordshire. It was born by caesarean by John Arnott of Lime Tree Vets.

I can't recall ever seeing about a bigger calf than this. Anyone heard of one?

Cotswold cowman Philip Ashwin has sailed single-handed around Britain, achieving a long-held ambition and raising thousands of pounds for Help for Heroes.

The 51-year-old dad-of-two returned to Poole on Saturday (July 30) having sailed 1732 miles in three months in his modestly sized and equipped boat.