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Heat Wave (revised)

A week like this makes you a believer that global warming is an existential threat. Thank God we are not in London, still it's very warm and very uncomfortable for our cattle, especially for our dairy herd.  During the summer they are outside, but now they remain inside the barn away from the sun.   The ventilation systems helps, but still not a very pleasant time for our herd.   The ones that are doing the best are the pigs in the forest.  Chickens not so much, we have tried to place the meat chicken enclosure near the tree lines away from the sun, but we may have to butcher them early, they may die from heat strokes.

One unexpected outcome is the increased efficiency of our biodigestors, thank god because our greenhouse fans are operating 24/7 to keep the temperature down in the greenhouses.  One good thing about the early June weather is that the water table is high.  In fact, the sudden heat has been helpful in drying out our fields that saw massive rainfall in early June.  Some of it we were able to capture, most of it ran off, still we cannot complain, the soil is damp thanks to two solid weeks of rain.   The farm always had massive underground cisterns.  When we inspected them 12 years ago, when we bought the farm they were in good condition.   The same for the farm we bought a few years ago.  There alone we have more than 30,000 gallons in reserves, and our wells are above their historical mean level.   

Back to the weather, we installed large extractors in our roof so that despite the day's heat the house is comfortable.   In addition when we renovated the house we did install heat pumps because of the "free energy" from our biodigestors.   However, we installed a geothermal system because the UK government would not allow us to install a heat exchanger near the house (the facade is grade II listed.  As I wrote on several occasions, energy wise (aside from the diesel) the farm is largely energy independent because of our biodigestors.  

Only our herds have been affected.   Still it's bloody hot!

Note: The animals the most at risk at the cattle, they are the least well equiped to deal with a heat wave.  As for global warming -- a heat wave is not in itself an indication of global warming...although I should note that both my wife and I believe that global warming is a real thing and an existential threat..



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