Good evening,
It is a glorious time of year to be farming. Long days, seeing the animals bask in warm sunlight and watching our lush grass grow faster than the cattle can graze it reminds us how lucky we are to work outdoors.
On top of that, we are looking forward to welcoming you and the 3 Bros for lunch on Saturday. The boys will be grilling beef & vegan burgers and you are invited to tuck in on the farm or take home with you. The Moo Bar will be open and stocked with cider & apple juice.
Long days bring long working hours and this month we’ve been making silage. Making silage consists of cutting the grass at the peak of its quality and baling it in airtight black plastic. We then cart this back to the yard and stack the bales in piles.
The aim is to pickle the grass to preserve it until it’s needed. If properly airtight, bacteria will anaerobically ferment some of the sugars to produce lactic acid. To help things get started we spray lactobacillus on the grass just before it goes into the mouth of the baler.
When the pH is low enough, the bacteria and fungi cannot survive and the grass is safe to store until the cattle eat it in the winter. It is the traditional way to feed our animals rich homegrown food when the days are short and the grass won’t grow.
In order to get an anaerobic ferment and prevent rot, the plastic needs be perfectly sealed. We’ve already been visited by a family of starlings who have started pecking at (and kindly crapping on) the plastic. We tape up the holes as soon as we spot them, and will take it in turns doing our best scarecrow impressions until they move on.
Today Andrew has been spreading farmyard muck onto the freshly mown fields, which feeds the grass nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. We get to utilise what the herd bless us with and minimise our need for artificial fertiliser and means we can return to cut the grass in about 6 weeks time for a second crop.
Covid regulations may be delayed but farming continues to dance to the tune of the seasons.
Collecting eggs has quickly become my favourite chore in the yard.
The girls haven’t all worked out that the nesting boxes are for nesting, and some seem to prefer a dark spot in the corner of the egg-mobile or an extra grassy patch outside, but they’re getting there.
We’ve ordered some curtains for the nesting boxes to give them a little more privacy and hope that will help.
The eggs are also now my mainstay lunch and I haven’t eaten this well in ages. Even in a rush, there’s time to quickly scramble in butter or grab from the jar of soy-marinated eggs in the fridge.
We have eggs available to order online and collect on Saturdays.
