October 2024
It has been a busy few months on the farm, the Summer has flown by and we find ourselves rapidly approaching Christmas and the end of the year.
We opened our Sunflower field at the beginning of August when the flowers were looking magnificent, and the sun was shining. We had a (very) last-minute decision to convert our old low loader trailer into a mobile café. We knew we needed to improve on our little gazebo from last year which kept blowing away, and after a few unsuccessful tries at getting an outside caterer in, we decided to go for it and convert one of our own trailers. We then hired a ‘proper’ coffee machine, bought some ice-creams and other snacks, baked a few brownies and we were ready to go. So we opened our gates and welcomed everybody in. It was lovely to see a lot of returning visitors from last year, as well as plenty of new faces and several holiday makers in the area for a short time only. Our little Dahlia patch was popular too, so hopefully we can grow on this next year and have a bigger area to pick from. Another highlight was a visit from our miniature Shetland, Tinks who came up to say hello and have a wander around the Sunflower trail!
Since we closed at the end of August, it has been pretty wet! We managed to get some Oilseed Rape in early at the start of August and then the rest of it in early September. The early drilled fields had a great start and are looking very well. The later fields struggled in some very wet conditions and took a while to get going, also facing a big threat from slugs which seem to be everywhere this year, munching their way round any crops they can find. With the price of slug pellets a lot higher this year, it has been an expensive exercise to keep them at bay.
We have managed to get all the Winter Barley in and just have one field of Wheat left to drill, which is progress despite the struggles of relentless rain and slugs. Thankfully we are now in a relatively dry window, there is plenty of mud around still but at least we haven’t had to bring the cattle indoors early, which is what we thought we might have to do if it carried on raining.
We have just had our 6 monthly TB test which the herd passed so that’s always a relief. In other exciting news, our old favourite, Number 1 has had her calf! We never quite know when she is due as she keeps the bull company for longer than the others so she’s always a bit out of sync but we knew it was becoming overdue and were a little worried, as she’s quite old now there are always more risk of complications, but we have a healthy calf so all is well! Not wanting to break tradition, it was another boy (she’s never had a heifer calf!). I think she can take retirement after this calf is weaned, she will stick to nannying duties, grazing and nudging us for carrots from there on.
We have also bought a new Sawmill to cut up some of our wood, it will make it a lot easier and quicker to create planks and then Ryan will be busy making things in his workshop. He has just made a lovely chopping board and we are looking to get a stencil machine to make some personalized gifts as well. He has also been asked to make a bike rack out of a log which will be interesting!
