Mud Men Series 3, School Visit, Growing Puppies

We have just had a busy day with a film crew from ITN making a programme for the Mud Men series for the History Channel.
A crew of eight turned up this morning including the two presenters of the programmes, Johnny Vaughan & Steve Brooker. The reason they were here on the farm was for the Farmer to show them the care of sheep for a programme about the medieval wool industry in England & Wales. They had already filmed at the National Wool Museum which is only 10 minutes down the road from us and came to the farm for some hands-on experience with real live sheep.
 It all went well & after lunch which I provided (soup, home-made bread & cheese & bara brith...very easy) they went on to film a sequence involving a sheep carcase (which in true Blue Peter style the Farmer had prepared earlier...or at least off camera!) and locating & removing the bladder to demonstrate how it was inflated for medieval football type fun & games for a seperate episode in the series about the history of sport. The bladder was inflated using compressed air and we were all quite impressed at how much a sheeps bladder would inflate, though not really big enough to play football. I think in medieval times the bladder would have been stuffed with hay & dried rather than blown up, I should check that out really.
Mud Men is a programme we had not heard of, but apparently is very good & has quite a following, hence the 3rd series being made. It is based around finds from the mud of the Thames by the mud men and then follows through the history of items and their uses and the wider stories of the industries & occupations for which they would have been made.

Tomorrow we have a visit by some pupils from a high school in Cardiff which should be interesting. We have had only primary school visits up till now and it will be good to have older children to talk to and show round the farm.

The puppies are growing apace at nearly 6 weeks old.and are now everywhere...terribly sweet & funny but bit of a nightmare out on the yard when they cluster around ones ankles making progress somewhat tricky without causing them to squeak as you try to avoid treading on their toes. Their long suffering mother will be very glad to see them leave for their new homes in a couple of weeks time. She really does not enjoy puppies unlike the old dog Poppy who just adopts them all and allows them great liberties with her kennel and her person.

Sometimes I sits & thinks & sometimes I just sits.