Our yields were some of the worst we have ever seen, just through a lack of rain. On the plus side we had an easy harvest and it has been simple to establish the crops that we will harvest next year and so the cycle begins again  The crops do look well and I think that the application of compost is starting to show positive results.

Another positive impact of the unusually dry autumn and early winter is that we still have cattle outside at the beginning of winter thus making a saving on expensive winter feed and labour. Most years we have to bring all the cattle inside during October.

By now all the sheep on the farm should be in lamb. Our first group will lamb in February during February half term and as these were all mated the same week we are due to be busy! These sheep are now getting a supplementary cereal based feed every day to provide enough energy for the pregnant mother and her unborn lambs.

The remaining sheep are still just eating grass as they will not have their lambs until Easter.

At this time of year we cut the hedges around the farm. Historically we used to cut all the hedges every year but latterly we have only been cutting a proportion each year in order to benefit the wildlife. One thing that is noticeable around the estate is the increase in wild birds of prey. As part of our stewardship scheme we now leave a 6m grass strip around most of our fields to provide habitat for various creatures. One benefit is supposed to be the increase in small rodents on which the birds of prey rely. I wonder if this is why we are seeing more and more of these beautiful birds?

It was with great sadness that we said goodbye to ben our shire horse Ben who had lived here on the farm for about 20 years. Up until a few years ago he was a popular feature in the Farm Village. Ben had a wonderful life here at Willows and must have been stroked by over a million people visitors during his lifetime. For the last few years he has lived at the bottom of our garden and Anna has fed and looked after him every day. We will miss him.

Anna is making good progress with her new dog Castro, he is very obedient and showing real promise working with the sheep.

Finally may we take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We have also completed harvesting the Oats which yielded 8t per hectare, which was better than expected, again the price at £154 per tonne is very good as Oats are less expensive to grow than other cereal crops. Unfortunately we have not been able to bale the straw yet as we keep having heavy rain. We bale the straw from the Oats to feed to cattle in the winter and also for our horse tenants to use as bedding as Oat straw is very soft.

The wheat harvest is a disaster in terms of yield, due to the very dry weather earlier in the year.  We have completed about 25% of the harvest so far and the yield at about 5.5t per hectare is approx. 35% down on our normal average.   There is also less than 50% of the straw we would normally expect and as such we have purchased straw from a neighbour to help ensure we have enough for the winter.

One thing the recent heavy showers have benfited is the potatoes that we are growing for the september weekends Potato Shindig event on the Farm Village.  I had a look recently and the potatoes are filling out nicely so everybody should enjoy digging their own spuds!

Over the last month we have also mde a lot of hay and silage and to to this  we start by cutting the grass with a 3m wide mower.  The next day, if we are trying to make hay, we spread the grass out to get the sun to dry it.  For silage we leave another day and then we rake it into rows and the baler rolls it into round bales of approx 1.8m diameter.  We then wrap these bales with plastic to make them airtight and they then 'pickle' to turn into silage.  The hay we keep turning until it is completely dry and then bale into square bales and stack into the shed.

Our maize crop is catching up after a late start and will hopefully produce some good cobs by the end of september when we will chop it up for silage for the cows for winter.

As soon as we have cleared the fields we will get contractors in to spread the compost from our processing plant onto the fields which we will then plough into the ground. This will help fertilise next years crop and we hope retain moisture during dry times. 

Livestock News

All lambs are now weaned i.e. separated from their mothers.  They stay with their mothers and drink milk for 12 – 16 weeks and after this time  they are ready they go to market or  if they need a bit more finishing they will graze grass until they have put on sufficient weight and have good confirmation.  It is important that the ewes are weaned so that they have a rest before we prepare them ready to go to the ram again in the Autumn. We check the ewes to ensure that they are sound in their udder and have good feet and teeth; if these things are all in order then we will breed from them again, if not then they would be sold.

We have a few Polled Dorset ewes who have been running with the ram since the end of June; this breed are capable of lambing out of season, which means that given a 5 month gestation period  they will lamb at the end of November ready for our Nativity story.

We had an eventful evening when some of our Manx Loaghton sheep decided to see what the grazing was like on the busy A1081 dual carriage way and then decided to give us the run around; there were 4 police vehicles and several policemen assisting in an attempt to prevent them causing an accident! 

08.07.11 Pilgrim the pedigree Longhorn bull arrived, he is here for the next few months to mate with our cows, they will then calve in the Spring. We have 4 Longhorn cows, so hopefully we will breed some pure heifer (female) calves, they will then become replacements for our herd. The other breeds such as Highlands and White Park,  will produce cross-bred calves.

31.07.11 Bobby a male (jack donkey) arrived, he is here to mate with our two female donkeys Gracie and Jasmine.

Our Saddleback pigs continue to produce big litters; we usually hand rear some in Farmyard Favourites and have retained the last 3 gilts (female pigs) as replacements; because they are hand reared they are very friendly. We will look after them now until they are old enough to run with the boar, we will need to sell the boar we have and buy a new one so that they are not related. They are in a pen near the house, so get any food waste such as potato peelings and fallen apples which they love in addition to their cereal diet.

We stopped growing vegetables over 10 years ago and although we had kept our irrigation license, we had not used many of the underground pipes for some time. Getting it all going was a nightmare but once we had started we were not going to stop!! At the time of writing we have been irrigating 24/7 for about 3 weeks. It  takes approx 23 hours to cover 4hectares (10 acres).  We started by watering the wheat on the lightest land, as this was starting to die, and we are now watering the maize that we grow for feeding to a local dairy herd.

To be able to irrigate you need to have a license to abstract water and these licenses are not only difficult to obtain, but also very strictly regulated in terms of the amount of water you can use each day and in total.  Fortunately on the 6th June we had nearly 25mm of rain which is more than we have had in total since Feb!!! This will help but more is needed and we will continue to irrigate where we can.   Although Farming has changed beyond recognition over the last century one thing that will never change will be how the weather affects us.

As well as the crops we grow to harvest like Wheat, Oilseed Rape and Maize, we rely on grass to feed our animals.  At present we have over 200 cattle and 200 sheep all of which graze the grass fields at this time of year. The lack of rain has also affected the grass growth and in some fields we are having to give supplementary feed to keep the animals growing.

We made our first hay of the season last week and managed to get it all baled and under cover just before the rain came. The yields were about half normal due to the drought but hopefully if we get some more rain we will be able to cut again.

In the Farm Village the maze maize is growing now, having benefitted from both irrigation water and the rain, and the potatoes for our new Potato Shindig are just peeping through.

We took the decision to sell off some of our sheep due to the lack of rain and so 162 ewe lambs with 216 lambs headed off to Wales where they have plenty of grass as it always rains in Wales!!

Now that all the cattle and sheep are outside we are catching up with cleaning out of the sheds where they spent the winter This muck is heaped on the side of the fields and will be spread back onto the land and ploughed in to fertilise next years crops and so the cycle continues.

One of the effects of the drought is that Wheat prices have risen significantly This in turn has an effect on livestock farmers, in particular Pig/Poultry and dairy farmers where bought in  feed costs have a big effect on overall profitability.   There is a lot of talk in the press about food inflation and food prices are rising, but on the other side of the coin every pig sold in the UK is losing the farmer over £12 (15%) and every litre of milk produced is being produced at below the cost of production. This has resulted in a steady exit from the industry by Pig and Dairy farmers and this exit is speeding up as a result of high feed costs and prices that have not kept up with these increased costs.

Nature has a way of balancing itself out so lets hope we do not get rain throughout the summer holidays!!

Land that was ploughed ready to plant the maize has beencultivated amidst a dust storm, there is just no moisture in the soil; whilst this situation is concerning we still have time and are hopeful of sufficient rain to allow us to get the maize planted, as without the moisture the seed  just will not germinate.

But our visitors enjoyed the sun…

Whilst as farmers we need the rain, visitors to the Farm Village have been enjoying the fine, dry weather and picnics in April! We had our usual Easter egg hunt in the Easter Garden and Bunny Hunt around the Farm Village which were enjoyed by the children. During the Royal Wedding weekend we held our Royal Sheepstakes, the runners and riders taking on a royal theme, withPrince Wool-liam and Kate Mintsauceton dressed as the bride and groom. One of our White Park cows calved on the day too, so real cause for celebration!

News from around the farm…

Walking the dogs often takes me pass the bird watching hide and I usually stop and read the list of sightings, which this month included the names garganey and gadwall, neither of which I had heard of. Aquick search on the internet revealed that they are both described as dabbling ducks. There was also a sighting of the cuckoo, but I am yet to hear it; it is usual for us to hear it in early May in this part of Hertfordshire. This morning I saw a brambling, a small bird belonging to the finch family.

Our ewe lambs have almost finished lambing, there are just ten to go and they are now out in the paddock so that we can keep a close eye on them. It has been one of the best lambings we can remember, the weather has been kind and we have had very few losses.

In early April we sold some of the ewes that lambed in February and we were delighted to top the market, achieving £220 for each ewe with twins.

The mallard that we told you about last month successfully hatched nine ducklings in the flower trough and they have all made their way down to the lakes. Despite the lack of rain the lakes still have plenty of water and have been fishing exceptionally well.

Rain dancing could well be featuring on our visitors list of activities if we don’t soon get some…

A large acreage of the farm is on exceptionally light land and in a ‘normal’ year (whatever one of those is!) the land dries out very quickly. The hard winter has laid bare large areas of grassland which then become infested with weeds, and therefore means less grass to both graze and conserve, this coupled with the lack of rain is not ideal. Most of the cattle that were housed over the winter have now been turned out, as we have very little forage or straw left to maintain them in their winter quarters; we would have liked to have been turning out to more grass, but hopefully the rain will come….The additional land that we have taken is permanent pasture; it can all be grazed, but some also lends itself to be mown and made into hay or silage.

March also saw the framers old enemy the mole spring into action; the soil that the moles push up when they are creating their runs contaminates the grass that is being preserved for next winter’s feed.

The grassland has been top dressed, this means that fertilizer has been spread to encourage the grass to grow, but it also requires rain for it to be effective.

The oilseed rape is well in flower, almost a month earlier than usual. The ground has been ploughed ready to plant the maize and the pumpkins but the warm weather is baking the soil hard, so it needs rain to soften it before it can be worked ready to create a good seedbed.

Castro our sheepdog pup is now 6 months old and full of energy; he will sit, lie, stay and come on command, so progressing well towards being able to introduce sheep into the equation!

We are both keen to educate and encourage young people to share an interest in farming and the countryside and this month hosted the local Young Farmers Club who came to learn about recycling household food and green waste and the benefits of spreading it back on the land to improve both the soil structure and the soil indices (soil fertility).  Anna also went into a local secondary school to talk about farm diversification.

We have a wild mallard who insists on nesting in one of the flower troughs right in the middle of the Farm Village, subjecting herself to hundreds of people passing by her daily; fortunately she is well camouflaged and shouldsoon be due to hatch her eggs.

 Following the release of new guidelines for animal contact on open farms we have reintroduced animal feeding and have created some designated animal feeding areas with new signage and additional hand wash facilities; our visitors are pleased to be able to get close to the animals again as it is an important element of educating children about farming and the countryside.

Amongst the new activities we have introduced this Easter are Rabbit Racers, this is a small wheeled seat which is hand propelled across a small arena and our new JCB Young Drivers Zone, which has ride on JCB tractors; our launch day was attended by our local JCB dealer who show cased some ‘real’ JCBs and a large inflatable for the children.

The un-seasonally warm weather has meant that we have had to provide the pigs with a large wallow, to stop them getting sun burnt and they have been making good use of it! Let’s hope the nice weather lasts during the day and we can have some rain to water the crops in the evenings; perhaps I am being a little too optimistic…….

During February we have been 'Freeze Branding' some of the cattle, using liquid nitrogen to  brand a number onto the rump of each animal. The liquid nitrogen makes the black hair go white and then for the rest of the animals life we can easily recognise its number. This branded number is matched with each animals ear number so that we have an accurate record of each animal.

At this time of year I start to work out if we have enough straw, hay and silage left for all our animals to get to turnout day. Turnout depends on the weather and how dry the land is, how much grass growth there is  and how cold it is at night. Turnout too soon and the cattle make a mess of the fields, too late and the grass can get too long and they end up wasting a lot of the grass.

There have been many stories on the TV of the national shortage of hay and I have never known the prices to rise so much. Hay is approximately double the price of last year so I am hoping we will have enough to get us to the next hay making time in June.

We were so pleased to see so many of you in the lambing marquee over February half term.  We had over 150 lambs born during half term week and most people were able to either see a newly born lamb or one actually being born. The lambs are doing well and growing quickly. The weather forecast is for a couple of weeks of dry weather now so these sheep will be turned out in early march into the fields around the farm.

Back on the farm the coming dry weather will give us an opportunity to spread all the remaining compost onto the fields prior to ploughing the land. These fields will then be planted with maize in late April/early May.

We have recently rented some more grassland locally as we are always struggling to produce enough forage for our ever increasing number of animals The snow we had pre christmas meant we had to feed all of our sheep hay for about 6 weeks and when like us you have over 500, that is a lot of mouths to feed! The extra land (approx. 170 acres) will take the pressure off a little

You will notice a lot of work going on at Willows Farm Village if you visit during March, as we prepare for Easter. We are always thinking of new ideas to keep everyone entertained and we are sure you will approve of the changes we are making.

As always please say hello if you see us walking around we really do enjoy talking to you all and we thank you for all your ongoing support.

We have been preparing a further 200 sheep that will lamb in April. Pre-lambing tasks involve footbathing which helps to keep the hoof wall hard and prevent disease, they are also injected which provides passive immunity to protect the lamb and we also pregnancy scan them so that we can feed them according to how many lambs they are carrying and it helps us at lambing if we have lambs that we need to foster. 

These sheep are ewe lambs and it will be the first time they have lambed, so we only like these sheep to rear one lamb as they are still growing themselves. From the scanning results we know that we have a lot of twins due so will have invested in a milk machine to rear the spare or cade lambs, as last year we had nearly 50 lambs that required bottle and then bucket feeding which was very time consuming!

Castro, our new sheepdog, is 5 months old now and a typical ‘teenager’  his ears only work when he is on his own, so lots of patience required! His training currently involves sitting, staying and coming when called.

The weather is still cold for the time of year, so the grass is slow to start growing. The snowdrops have finished flowering and the daffodils are just out and the nights are drawing out, so Spring is nearly here hurrah!

We have a had a Dexter calf born this month, which visitors will see when the cattle are turned out and we have 2 Jerseys due to calve within the next few weeks, so they too will be out in the fields for Easter.

We have had a large pheasant who has taken up residence in the garden, so he must be finding lots to eat. Luckily when I went to shut the chickens up the other night I had taken my torch as there was a large hedgehog enjoying a late night feast which I stumbled across. We also have bats that live in an old tree trunk, lots of small birds including various tits, goldfinches, robin, wren, nuthatch, green woodpeckers and too many magpies, squirrels and rabbits! We are not fans of the magpies as they are predators to the small garden birds. Over the winter I have been providing extra feed for them and making bird cakes using fat, seeds and dried fruit.

As farmers, the weather has more effect on our lives than anything else and 2010 saw extremes in January and again in December when we saw more snow than we have been used for a number of years.

In the run up to the festive period the snow was coupled with the lowest tempretures we can remember for nearly 30 years. In times of very low tempreture there is extra work in feeding the animals that are outside, but the biggest challenge is is getting water to all the animals.

The temperatures were so cold that in the Farm Shop the chiller that is necessary to keep the Christmas  orders at the  right temperature was essential this year to stop the meat and turkeys from freezing!

Despite covering all the water pipes with straw, we had a few yards of cattle that we had to water by hand as with wind chill taking temperatures  to minus 18c, pipes were quickly frozen.

In February last year the river overflowed and flooded the bottom half of the park, just as the sheep in the marquee were getting ready to give birth. This was the second year  we have had to move the heavily pregnant sheep just before lambing time so this year we are taking no chances and are moving the lambing marquee to higher ground!

We then had a very dry few months, again probally the driest here on the farm for 25years. This has resulted in lower than expected yileds of silage and hay and our wheat yiled was down by 25% on a normal year. On a postive note the price of wheat is at a record high and this will more than make up fior the lower yield.

Lets hope the weather is kinder to us and the animals in 2011.

New additions
In early December we got our new puppy ‘Castro’ who was  bred on the farm.  His father is Andrew’s dog Ted and his Mum is Jess. Collie’s are often given a name with one syllable which is short and easy to repeat but we decided to call him Castro after the Leicester Tigers rugby prop! He has been to the vet’s for his vaccinations and at three and a half months weighs 8.6kg. He has a lovely nature and enjoys being with the other dogs and will already sit on command.

On the 8th January our Saddleback sow Matilda gave birth to 15 piglets.

Our other new addition is a mule –  not the animal version but a utility vehicle  for general use around the farm. We went around the whole estate on it and even where the ground was very wet it travelled well and did not make a mess of the ground.

Planning for lambing
Anna and I went around the whole farm the other day and the crops and stock are all looking very healthy for early January.   The snow protected the crops from the worst of the very low tempretures and  although the amount of grass is running low, it should not be long now before it starts growing again.

We are just about to start feeding supplementary feed to the sheep due to lamb during the February  half term holiday when we run out February Frolics event.   As sheep progress through pregnancy they need more feed to maintain a healthy body weight, to ensure good sized lambs and that the mother has plenty of milk.

We will start by feeding 250g per head per day and increase by 250g each week over the next month so that in four weeks time when we bring the sheep into the lambing marquee, they will be getting 1kg per head per day.

During January and early February we will clean out the cattle yards of the straw and muck that has built up since we housed the cattle in late October.  We aim to turn cattle out to grass during April but this depends very much on weather conditions

With  lambing just around the corner we’ll enjoy a few weeks of normal sleep before we’re needed to cover the lambing marquee 24 hours a day – but with early morning starts,  plenty to keep us busy during the day on the farm, ensuring all our visitors enjoy their day out at Willows Farm Village and planning for the next season - sleep isn’t a perk of the job of a farmer!

This year, following the dry period, the grass grew very quickly when it did rain and so we have been able to leave the cattle out for longer than usual This means we use less straw and feed which is always a blessing.

Now that the cattle are inside they have to be fed every morning and we keep their lying area clean by spreading straw onto it 3 times per week.

The cattle are also carefully checked every day to ensure they are all healthy

It will soon be lambing time again...
The sheep are all enjoying the abundant supply of grass still available and as such we are not having to give them supplementary feed at present. The rams have been in with the rare breed ewes for a few weeks now so they should nearly all be pregnant and so the cycle starts again.

Back out in the fields...
The crops are all growing as expected and we finished planting on the 30.10.10 this year.
The prices for our crops continues to rise and with prices for next years crops looking attractive, I have forward sold approx 20% of our expected wheat yield for collection in Nov 2011 @ £142 per tonne.

And at Willows Farm Village...
On the open farm like farming we move from one event to the other.
 
Our Pumpkin Festival was very busy again.  We gave away over 18,000 pumpkins during the two weeks and everyone appeared to enjoy themselves.

The building team have been very busy completing  the new grotto and the ice rink and I know everyone is looking forward to them opening.

And in the Farm Shop...
Our turkey supplier from Norfolk is gearing up for a very busy few weeks and we are assured to hear that the birds are all thriving living in the woodland around his Norfolk farm.

The seasonal agricultural activities up here are several weeks behind us in the south; they have only just finished harvest and yesterday we saw a farmer silaging grass, the crop looked reasonable but the ground looked very wet; this always poses a dilemma, as you need enough feed for your animals over the winter, but care has to be taken not to cause too much damage to the soil structure in wet conditions. 

Back home the preparations for our Pumpkin Festival and Santa’s Grotto are well underway with the new ice rink is now in situ and the site works continuing to get this ready to open.
 
Willows Farm Shop
During British Food Fortnight we welcomed a number of suppliers who did tastings and also staged an apple pressing demonstration, where visitors were able to press apples ahead of sampling the juice they had squeezed. We are  planning a similar activity for Apple Day on 21st October.

A small number of Christmas lines are now available in the shop and our staff are happy to help with planning and helping order your festive foods.  Our Christmas Food Fayre in on during the weekend of the 6th and 7th November – a great way to taste some new products and meet the suppliers to help you plan your festive menus.

A Farmers Life
Our maize harvest has been delayed due to the wet weather butwe need to get on with sowing our Winter Wheat. Our 2010 harvest yield was significantly down (approx 25%) due to the drought conditions early on in the season as as many of you will have seen in the press the wheat prices have soared which will help to compensate for the lower yield. At the time of writing we are averaging £150/tonne for feed wheat which is 50% up on last year. It always bemuses me that as a business, farmers are producing commodities but they do not know what price they will be able to command for the finished product until it is sold.

On the livestock front we have just sold some of our Saddleback weaners (8 – 10 week old piglets) to Jan McCourt at Northfield Farm, Cold Overton in Leicestershire. Jan has a business producing and selling meat from rare breed animals, he has a Farm Shop and also sells at the well known Borough  Food Market in London, as well as country shows and events. By being able to successfully sell our rare breed animals we are helping to conserve these native and rare breeds. Jan has just been a finalist at the Farmers Weekly annual awards ceremony for farming ambassadors.

Another requirement of  farming livestock is to assist with the eradication of TB (tuberculosis) in cattle; nationally this is a major problem, which fortunately is of low risk in Hertfordshire. Depending on the incidence, different counties have to test at varying intervals, we are in a 4 year parish, which means that our herd has to be tested every four years; this is due in October and a vet will come to the farm to test all female breeding stock and bulls. In a 4 year parish farmers can move their stock with relative freedom, farmers in one and two year parishes have to pre-movement test in addition to their more frequent statutory test  i.e  their animals have to be tested every time they are moved. Fortunately in our career TB has never been a major issue on our farm and we have never had a positive test result, however we are sympathetic to the many farmers whose businesses have been blighted by the effects of TB.

Some of you may have seen Andrew and Tuck working at the sheep handling pens on a group of horned sheep; these are called Swaledales and come from high up in the Lancashire fells. They are a breed famous for crossing with a Blue Faced Leicester to produce a breed known as the Mule, which we keep for lamb production. Annually we take these sheep in the Autumn where they come down to graze our surplus grass, as up in the north of the country there is very little for them to eat over the winter months. They will almost double in size before they return to the fell in the Spring; I always smile to myself and wonder what they make of leaving the beautiful Lancashire landscape where they would not see a vehicle for months on end to the extreme of grazing alongside the M25! I guess it’s all relative when you’re a sheep and having a plentiful supply of good food takes priority over the scenery…

Talking of fungi... due to the ideal weather conditions there are an abundance of field mushrooms, together with lots of different toadstools and fungi, including large ‘puff balls’, I am busy trying to identify them, so that we don’t eat anything we shouldn’t!

But what we are enjoying eating are the potatoes, runner beans, rhubarb, onions, and beetroot from the Growing Patch and have lots of apples ripening too.

I enjoyed my annual trip to Burghley Horse Trials, following the three disciplines of dressage, cross country and show jumping.  The weather was very kind to us after all the recent rains and made for very good going across country for all the competitors. I’ve also been to the Autumn Fair sourcing new products for the Farm Shop.

In the Farm Shop we are busy getting ready for British Food Fortnight which is an annual celebration of all that is great about the food we produce in this country; this year it’s being held from 18th Sept. – 3rd Oct.

Ben our retired old Shire horse is at last sound again; he has had a miserable few weeks with foot abscesses which has meant extra care and daily bathing in a very large tub of salt water. Getting a Sire to put his foot in a bucket is no mean feat especially when he’s not over keen!

In mid August Batman our senior male reindeer looked magnificent with the best set of antlers he’s grown to date, within days he had shed a significant amount of the velvet, rubbing it off against the trees and his field shelter. In the wild adult male deer shed their velvet by fighting with other males to achieve hierarchy within the deer herd and hence dominance during the rutting/mating season. At Willows Batman doesn’t have to fight to win Holly (our female deer) over and hopefully she will be in calf again ready to give birth in the spring of 2011.

We are very busy with thoughts turning to Christmas and developing ideas for our new Santa’s Grotto and the new synthetic ice rink we are putting in for the winter.

Farmer Andrew is still talking about the weather...

Well I spoke too soon about how dry it was!

I think some of you must have started rain dances in Mid August as we then had so much rain.  We have been keeping records of rainfall here at the farm for nearly 30 years.  This  August we had 150mm of rain (on average we only get around 600mm all year) and according to our records this is the second wettest month of any month of any year in the last 28years!

So having thought we would finish harvest around the first week of August we actually finished the first week in September.   Thankfully the crops are now safely gathered in and we have already planted next years Oilseed Rape and about 20 hectares (50 acres) of grass seeds.

We are busy ploughing the fields after spreading the compost onto to them and we will start planting wheat around the 20th September.

Although the hours are long at this time of year the machinery is huge and very few people are involved nowadays in getting the harvest in and planting the next crops.

The rain has made the grass grow and so the cattle and sheep have plenty to eat again and hopefully if it is a good autumn we will not have to get them into the buildings too early which will help conserve our winter fodder.

On the livestock front we have been busy selling.   Some of you may have seen Oliver (my son) helping me shave the sheeps faces and then wash them as we got them ready for a breeding sheep sale .  These sheep are sold to other farmers who then use them to produce lambs.

Well the sheep looked great and certainly attracted a lot of interest and they topped the Market selling for £146 each about£20 more than expected.

On the 15th September we are up to a sale at Lancaster where we buy this years replacement sheep We normally buy around 220 young sheep.

We recently went to a special sale of rare breed animals and we have purchased a few more sheep for the farm.

Towards the end of September we will mate the sheep that will give birth during February Frolics – our lambing event during February half term.

So once again all busy on the farm.