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farm-reared
     pig can have forty piglets a year, an amazingly proficient baby machine. She can keep this up for four years, after which
     she is slaughtered before productivity declines.
    The piglets have their tails docked and their teeth broken with pliers when they're two days old. Even so, cannibalism breaks
     out in overcrowded pig pens and pigs have been known partially to eat each other in the crazed desperation that results from
     living in such unnatural conditions.

    Inthe autumn, we connect the duck pond up to the spring which flows under the farm, so the water is now clear and moving freely.
     The ducks instantly appreciate the change, wagging their tail feathers in glee as they glide on the water's surface, black
     feathers turning blue and green in the changing light. Even the chickens seem to enjoy the pond, tip-toeing down the wooden
     ramp to drink instead of using their water containers. The geese continue making their enthusiastic racket, screeching and
     hissing whenever anyone comes through the gate and keeping up the din as you walk alongside their wire fence. Once you are
     inside the chicken run, they waddle quickly towards you, beaks ajar, blue eyes steady. If you turn round and walk away, they
     come up behind and peck at the backs of your legs. But at heart they're just bullies and cowards: swing back to them and start
     walking forwards and the retreat is rapid.
    The only one who is really scared of the geese is our black Labrador, Dylan. He's actually frightened of the low-lying, green
     electric wire which encircles the coop, but he pretends it's the geese that cause him to tremble. One afternoon in the summer,
     when the wire was being redirected to go round an extra section of cage, it was lying only a couple of inches above ground.
     In his eagerness to annoy the pigs, he went too close to the fence and sat down bang on the wire, only to leap up immediately,
     yelping, after being zapped by a powerful electric charge. Now he flattens his ears as we approach the gate and will walk
     up the gravel track that separates the chicken coop from the vegetable garden only if he's safely on a lead. But, once at
     the other end, he more than makes up for his attack of the jitters, rushing frantically towards the gate into the ladies'
     pen, barking furiously and making attacks and feints at the curious sows that seem to look scornfully on his manic behaviour. I'd trust Dylan to defend any child, or grandchild, of ours to the point of death, and his huge anxiety about the fence is both
     touching and endearing.

3
    The Luck of the Tailor of Gloucester

    It's a very clear, still day in the middle of November. Last night there was frost and the water is still frozen in the puddles
     at three in the afternoon. From inside the Dairy House it looks as though the day should be warm: the trees still have most
     of their leaves and the sky is a deep blue, not yet the watery thinness of winter. Inthe nursery, the vegetables look limp and defeated after three nights of hard frost, but there's no frost for a full metre
     inside the north wall of the garden. The bricks retain sufficient heat to keep it at bay, which is good news for the newly
     planted fruit trees, espaliered against the wall. Dillington House has been ordering thirty kilos of sprouts a week and soon
     we won't be able to keep up with the demand. One big patch of carrots is useless because of ringworms eating away at their
     surface, leaving little thread-like black lines running through the orange flesh. They're unsightly and we won't be able to
     sell any of them, so the pigs are getting a treat and we're all going to be eating carrots at every meal. David has just learned
     that the worms stay away if you plant onions in between the rows of carrots: great information, just much too late for this
     year's harvest. But, to date, November has been a good month: by the 18th we've sold £504.02 worth of produce to Dillington
     House.
    The chickens,