Darkest Before the Dawn is the fifth in a series of 5 novels beginning with Dreams of Home
when a young soldier returns from the war and struggles to get a start in
farming. Each book follows the progress of the Caraford family. Darkest Before
the Dawn brings the series up to present day with the third generation of
Carafords. Two of the characters are preparing for university with problems
belonging to their generation so it could almost be a young adult novel,
although I did not set out to make it that way. However it also brings farming
up to date with robots for milking cows, arguments between the generations
about changes, as well as an unexpected, and rather satisfying love affair for
two of the mature characters.
Blurb - Joe
Lennox becomes bitter and deranged and blames Billy Caraford when his son is
killed in a car accident, but Billy has lost his best friend and is badly
injured himself. Despite the misgivings of his parents he is still determined
to be a farmer. He summons his courage to go to university but he knows he can
never be the active and admired young sportsman he was. There are days when he
is constantly reminded of his injury and he doubts if any woman will love him, even
less want to marry him.
When her
father dies Kimberley Wilshaw becomes an orphan and she and her aunt move to
Scotland. She is nervous about changing schools until Billy helps her find new
friends. Both Kim and her aunt become involved in the affairs of the Caraford
family and as Kim grows into a lovely young woman she develops the strength of
character to confront problems and fight for the life and the love she craves.
http://amzn.to/16JMAhl
In my novels the events and characters are entirely fiction and readers would be bored if I used time and space to explain how things work, but I like to think my farming facts are accurate. For anyone who is interested the photos show how cows are housed and fed and how they can go in and out of the milk robot themselves.
http://amzn.to/16JMAhl
In my novels the events and characters are entirely fiction and readers would be bored if I used time and space to explain how things work, but I like to think my farming facts are accurate. For anyone who is interested the photos show how cows are housed and fed and how they can go in and out of the milk robot themselves.
 | |
| Cows eating silage in winter |
 | |
| cubicles where cows sleep |
All the cows have an electronic tag to identify them. This determines how much cake to allocate when they enter the robot to be milked and it records the yield and other information.
 |
| Cow in robot being milked while eating cake |
 | |||||||||||
| Cow leaving robot after milking |
 | |||||||||
| Some farms have electronic gates which allow the cows to go out to the fields to graze and come back in when they are ready for milking - contented cows at grass |
.jpg)
