Freedom Farm in the East Anglian

 

The East Anglian Daily Times has just published a nice article on what Celia and I have been trying to achieve at Freedom Farm.

Click to view the article!

New Trees

 

Planting trees is something we should all do.

This is one of the circles in the new paddocks that has been planted with a selection of native trees.


If you plant trees there is an extensive and very complicated Grant scheme that subsidises the trees. It is a waste of time unless you are planting thousands and have the mind of a bureaucrat.

It would be far better to give the grower a subsidy on every tree they sold, probably dependant on size. That would be easy to police as you'd only need to deal with registered tree growers and the public or the plants would probably get larger trees for the same money. Bigger trees are more likely to survive as they are easier to care for and less resistant to attack by deer.

But that sort of scheme would cut the number of civil service jobs used to administer the over-complicated current scheme.

The Simple IP Camera

 

It looks like being another glorious February day here today and the picture shows the view from a new camera on the drive.


The picture is displayed in the Daisy Presentation Browser, which is a simple program, that can be used to print and display web pages in a clean format without the baggage of Internet Explorer. For example, if you want to print a web page without the top and bottom headers to frame for your office wall, then this is the program.

The picture below shows the camera and the aerial that links the office network to the house.


This camera and the aerial were purchased from Solwise.

The camera uses a Sony camera tube, is IP65-compliant and is installed by just plugging one cable into the network and the other into a 13-amp socket. When it is first installed it sets itself up on your network with a default IP-address of 192.168.0.20. You just log in to this from your browser and adjust the settings of the camera accordingly.

It takes you longer to screw them to the wall, than to get them to work properly.

If you want to setup a camera at a remote location, all you need is to pair the camera with a wireless AP/bridge and arrange a suitable aerial that links to your main network. It is very easy to setup a range of about fifty to a hundred metres.

Watch, Cook and Eat

 

One of the great advantages of using IP cameras instead of CCTV is that you can watch the pictures on any computer.

Here, I'm using a laptop, whilst I'm cooking my supper.


I prefer the second picture, as all the hard work has been done.


The software on the laptop is currently showing up to four cameras. If required it can show up to sixteen.

Racing Days At Freedom Farm Stud

 

Most people love a day at Newmarket races. It is a great way to relax and the great advantage is that racing can be very much a family day-out, with something to appeal to everyone. Note too that children go free at the race course.

Why not couple a day at the races, with a visit to Freedom Farm Stud?

A typical day might start at say eleven, with a tour of the stud, to view the horses and what we are doing to create an energy efficient stud.

Note that as the stud has a wireless network and full business facilities, why not hold that important business meeting and then go off and enjoy yourselves?

We can provide refreshments, from a picnic to a full lunch, if required and also organise someone in the know to mark your card.

But above all what we do is flexible and geared very much to the needs of the client.

First Foal

 

Our first foal is now successfully on the ground.

It's always a good thing when this happens, as you know the New Year has properly started and the nights start to get shorter and hopefully a bit warmer. Not that it's been anything other than freezing for the last few days.