It’s been a busy few weeks, but then again it always is at this time of the year – aside from the farm, the garden is in full bloom and the veg patch is bountiful which means I’m in my element in the kitchen cooking new dishes with seasonal produce.

There are weeds to keep at bay, plants to be transplanted, seeds to be sown and harvests to make.

Although, over the past month, we’ve seen no rain. It’s meant things have been a bit more frantic than usual – watering is on the up and the countryside and garden are visibly wilting.

And on top of it all we’ve also welcomed a new calf onto the farm.

We’ve gone from a luscious landcaspe at the beginning of June to a scorched one only a month later.

Our grass was cut and baled in the space of four days (unprecedented here) and the crop was the biggest we’ve seen for many years. This is great news, however, we had to put the first bale of hay into the cattle paddock this weekend – more than three months earlier than last year. The grass in the paddocks went from knee deep and green to scorched and patchy within four weeks.

We’re just not used to this extreme weather and the consequences are now making themselves known – with no significant rain forecast until September, things could really get tricky down the line…