Good morning,
Our cattle come home every winter when the ground is wet and susceptible to poaching from hefty hoofers. The duration of their stay indoors is determined by how wet the soil is and we’re slowly working to improve our ground’s rainfall retention by building its organic matter and structure. We hope our herd can stay in the fields a little longer this year, also in thanks to the drought.
To get things ready for the big move home, we are walking a 50 cow and 50 calf group back down the lane to fields adjacent to our yard today, and expect to bring them indoors in November.
The last calf of the season was born last week and is still too small to make the journey on foot, so Andrew & Nev spent the best part of an hour chasing her and the new mum around the field yesterday afternoon, trying to give them a lift home in the trailer - and making the whole exercise seem a little futile in the process.
We have also spent this week picking, sorting, scratting and pressing apples from our cider orchard and collections from the apple swap. The apples you have brought us this year have been lovely - clean, sweet and abundant. We’re expecting to fill a 5th bin this Saturday, which is the last day of the swap and we will be culminating with a yee-haw!
This Saturday
The shop is well stocked and the apple swap is running from 11am - 4pm.
We also have fantastic Sam Lambert in the kitchen, serving slow cooked wagyu shin and vegan local veg laksa from 1pm - 4pm.
And to top if all off, we have Square the Circle Band playing live folk music with a barn dance caller to lead us into foot-stomping formation in the rain-proof straw barn from 4pm - 6pm.
The Moo Tap will be serving Silly Moo Cider, Hand Brew beers & Bolney apple juice throughout, and we really hope you can join us this Saturday for any or all of the above to celebrate the harvest.
Our yard pop-ups
We think all the chefs we work with are doing something pretty special with local food, and you seem to think so too as we sometimes sell-out of what they’re serving before the end of the day.
We don’t want to send anyone home hungry so make a good amount for walk-ins, and also don’t want to waste good food so try not to over do it.
If you’d like to make sure we save you a portion, please pre-order online any time up until we start serving at 1pm. If you’d prefer to wing it and see what you fancy when you get to the yard, that’s very welcome too.
