Pigs in heat

I'm going to write about our current extraordinary weather so that there is a record of it on this blog. It is currently 38 degrees centigrade here (yesterday's peak was 37 degrees). It was already 33 degrees by 09:30am.

I have to go out at regular intervals to check on the livestock for whom the temperatures yesterday and today are troubling. They have shade, the water troughs are regularly replenished. The pigs have temporary pools to wallow in to try and keep cool. I also hose them down from time to time. There is not much else to be done other than to sit it out. 

The greenhouse crops have a good watering early in the day before it gets too tropically hot inside. We are having bumper crops this year. Outside it has been necessary to selectively water crops that are more vulnerable in the heat, such as salady things.

It is proving a  difficult smallholding summer overall as we have had hardly any rain for weeks and the grass for grazing has failed to re-grow with any conviction. It is the earliest I have ever had to put out hay for the sheep, although they have not taken up the opportunity yet, still nibbling what they can from the field. I put out some fresh, leafy prunings from a willow tree which they were keen on.

Of course, we can expect more of this in the ensuing years. I note none of the Tory Party leadership candidates, one of whom will be our new Prime Minister in a few weeks time, has much to say about global warming. There are some who are anti Net Zero among them and most of them have been part of a government that have approved several fossil fuel developments (coal mines included) since last Autumn's COP26 Conference in Glasgow. Or is that COPOUT26.