Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Well, today was everything the forecasters said: gale force winds and torrential rain hit us early morning and by the time we were heading down to the barn at 8am, all the drains and gutters were working at fever-pitch!! This view of the poultry paddock clearly shows a flow of water making its way down to the pop-hole.
The good news is that David's trenches did do quite a good job of taking a lot of water down the side of the barn as opposed to in it. Trouble was, whilst in theory these trenches should join up with the drainage by the concrete apron, as we explained yesterday that is not working. So a lot of the water simply poured into the main paddock itself. Having said that as no animals are on the paddock - nor likely to be for a while - the water was better there than in the barn!!
Not so great was further ripping of the polythene covering the polytunnel. We again patched up as best we could but as we type this, the winds are still really strong and we are VERY worried about what we may find in the morning. BUT the animals are safe, and warm and dry (the bedding is SO thick that the wet stuff underneath is not rising up through). Compared to many many people, including lots of farmers and smallholders up and down the country, we are escaping very lightly indeed!