Mrs Down's Diary April 15 2009

BY the end of the summer I might have a crop of wheat in the back garden to rival anything seen in our fields. To entertain Ollie, our grandson who has a fixation with the last big heap of corn in the grain shed, I filled an old 'turtle' sandpit with a couple of buckets of wheat.
By The Newsroom
Published 9th Apr 2009, 12:13 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 04:14 BST

Two years ago that would have made a very expensive toy resource. At today's rapidly dropping prices, it's not so bad. Ollie has loved it.

As he is autistic, sensory experiences are very important to him. To see him watch and feel the trickle of the grain, fill and refill his trucks, push his trains across a mountain of corn, bury the lot and then tip the whole works onto the lawn is great. It has absorbed his attention significantly more than any other of the toys, trampoline and climbing frame that are there.

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And, it has absorbed significant amounts of my time endlessly refilling the sandpit ,scooping the grain back up off the lawn and sweeping it out of the dining room and kitchen whence it has made its way into every little nook and cranny.

Next week we shall be having Jessica. As the sibling of a child with learning and communication difficulties, it is important to give her time that is special to her, without the often destructive (unwittingly I may add) force of her brother.

Ollie loves being taken to the big play barns that are now on the outskirts of may towns where children can run riot up and down slides and hide in their padded depths. Far away from their parents and grandparents ( who seem to make up the majority of accompanying adults).

Some challenging moments this week was when he decided to strip at the highest point of the climbing area and fling his clothes over the sides and into an area no-one could get to and where he shot ahead of me and climbed into the goat pen at a play barn with a Pet's Corner.

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"Watch out that billy goat butts" an attendant yelled at me. It butted me first rather than Ollie I am glad to say before I grabbed hold of him. Good job I have a well padded rear. And the hugs and kisses I get are total reward for the sleepless nights , back ache and trashed farm house.

We are now down to the last few ewes to lamb. The lambs this year, are amongst the best we have had. Co-incidentally, the calves we have had over winter have also been the healthiest. John puts some of this down to the change in preventive feed measures he has taken with the provision of more mineral licks for both sheep and cattle.

For the cows and calves, the high protein licks contained an ingredient, for which we needed a vet's prescription, to prevent coccidiosis. This is a parasite that gets into the intestinal tract of cattle and causes severe dehydration and weight loss.

Last year by the time we realized what was happening, several calves were lost. This year, when added to the fact that the buildings were steam cleaned after the herd was turned out, we have had no problems ( touch wood) at all.