Monthly Update - July 2026

I have to confess I have been suffering from Dry-itis as a direct response to the hot and dry conditions which have prevailed this year.  The first time I had it was in 1976. We had planted autumn and spring crops well and the farm and stock looked a picture. By the middle of May we were into the 80’s (29 C) and it did not rain here until mid-September, when it would not stop.  Our house had just been built, dark bricks and isolated in the full sun, with limited windows. It heated up wonderfully during the day and hot nights were reinforced by our only form of cooking, an oil-fired Aga. And harvest hardly existed, with lots of straw but very little grain. So back comes the Dry-itis, and in spite of being retired for 11 years my heart goes out to farmers trying to grow corn and rear cattle and sheep when pastures look like Indian Test Cricket grounds.

The garden and growing vegetables hasn’t been much fun, with radishes going tough and woody, peas ripening with tiny pods and squirrels eating green tomatoes.  You can see cucumbers and courgettes gasping for breath in our polytunnel which has become an oven. For children here it has been different with staff carrying spray guns, a fine mist for cooling perspiring faces, more direct fire for those tending to lose concentration or drifting off.  River studies have been great. The canopy of trees throwing shadows on the constantly cool water of the Pang; just slightly smellier and sweatier waders at the end of each day.  Cool walks through the woodlands with shade becoming a premium when feeding chicken or chasing our pet lamb Woolliam or the two chicks which survived our latest hatching.

All this is a long way from our original ideas of education in the countryside. We now realise that just being here is such a special experience for those coming to Rushall Farm. It is a day away from phones and the often sterile, cramped school environment, a day which can arouse curiosity.  One group watched smoke ascend to the sky from a bonfire in the woods.  The smoke went straight up with not a hint of a breeze. It split the rays of sun and the children sat and marvelled and as the sun turned red through the smoke one child exclaimed “Is Jesus coming back!”