Welcome to our September newsletter

Pop up shop Saturday 7th AND Sunday the 8th of October 10am – 12pm

Park Farm, Hook Street, Swindon, SN5 3NY

Opening on a Sunday is a trial as we know many people are busy on a Saturday morning, so please do come along if you can.

I’m hoping very much to get a selection of apples picked from the orchard to sell at the shop. We have several old varieties which have completely different flavours to the bland modern supermarket varieties. My favourite is the Pitmarston Pineapple, a small golden apple with a massive punch of flavour, tasting of, you’ve guessed it – Pineapple!

We have all the usual goodies: Bread & sweet treats (We'll be ordering lots more lardy cakes!) our own mutton and lamb in the freezer, our fresh pasture fed beef in the fridges, cheese, dairy products, very local veg, free range eggs, honey from our beehives, Jams & chutneys and more!

We also have the last of our Oxford Down lamb boxes available to order on the online shop and collect on either of those days.

The Farming cycle

I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing but farming is full of points in the year that remind you of the seasonal change and the eternal continuation of the farming cycle.

For me, and I think Lindsay, these are most obvious at the start of our respective crops. For me, the day the turkey poults arrive makes me all too aware that Christmas will come in 6 months time, no matter what, and these turkeys will have to be reared, sold (online shop opens 1st October) and processed. 

For Lindsay, the start of her farming calendar is putting the rams in with the ewes. Once you’ve opened that gate and the ram has marched across the field with his nose in the air (barring a fertility problem) you will be lambing in 145 days time – there’s no going back.

Because good quality Oxford Down rams are few and far between Lindsay breeds most of her own rams. This also has the advantage that we pick the rams that perform well on our system so those genetics are passed on. By keeping one or two ram lambs for breeding each year we have rams to sell and also to use on our flock. The disadvantage of this is you have to keep a close eye on who’s related to who. Lindsay spends a great deal of time in the run up to the momentous day working out the family trees to match make ewes and rams. Occasionally a bought in ram is needed if we don’t have an unrelated ram for ewes.

The disadvantage of this is that we have to have multiple groups, this year we have 4 rams working but this means they don’t have too many ewes to keep an eye on so most should get served in the first breeding cycle which means lambing is not so stretched out.

Anyway, the lads are all out now and we have had some action so if all goes to plan on the 7th of February Lindsay will be watching the first lambs arriving – perhaps on a nice crisp bright morning.

A well needed holiday!

Earlier in the month Lindsay, Colin and I had a much needed holiday to Mull. The weather was amazing and we enjoyed some fantastic canoe and bike trips. The wildlife was plentiful as was the contrast in farming. Much of Mull is tough, remote terrain and it must be tricky to eek out a living.

Getting back from holiday feels like the start of the long haul to Christmas. In the next few days, we’ll be finalising turkey prices and Lindsay will be updating the website. Early indications are that turkey prices will be the same as last year or very similar. The feed (our largest cost) will have reduced a little in price. Electric to heat the chicks is the same but packaging, wages and day old chicks have all gone up.

The on-line shop will be open as ever from the 1st of October for turkey ordering so why not put your mind at rest and get “turkey” crossed off the Christmas to do list as soon as possible.

Great Auntie Joan - The original turkey farmer

Sadly a couple of weeks ago my Great Aunt, Joan Rumming passed away aged 97. She was the original turkey farmer here and grew and processed her turkeys in the barn which is now our house – it still has the lines of nails in the beams where the plucked turkeys would hang. She was thrilled when I started keeping turkeys on the farm again as it was probably 25 years since she’d stopped having them. She always took a keen interest and could see them in the paddock from her house on the farm. She particularly liked seeing us start to pluck the birds and always wanted to see the shape and quality.

She famously always used to be the one to test how thick the ice was on the farm pond, as the steep bank followed by the flat glide over the frozen water was our preferred sledging spot as kids. We never went on until Auntie had deemed it safe.

She travelled all over the world but always loved the farm, we’ll all miss her, especially at Christmas.

A significant day in the turkey farmer’s calendar!

The turkeys have chomped their way through three pens of undergrowth and now they're into the orchard for the first time. The 12 week old birds have been outside for 8 weeks and interestingly are the age at which a supermarket destined bird would be slaughtered. Ours have another 11 weeks of foraging in the orchard for windfalls before December. It's these extra weeks that give our birds the fat that makes them so tasty. The exercise is also important for flavour and welfare.

Christmas turkey ordering opens on the 1st of October on our online shop

Wildlife update

Images above show a Wasp spider and a Roesel's bush-cricket both photographed on our farm

Today the last swallows fledged from Lindsay’s stable. Most of our Swallows and Martins appear to have moved off. The House Martins gathered into a good sized flock of about 300 or maybe more on the 15th of  September, when settled they filled the telegraph wires and many also gathered on the trees behind the pond.

We’ve once again had good numbers of Yellow Wagtails moving through and hanging around the cattle, 19 today. I suspect their gobbling up the Craneflys which are emerging from the soil at the moment.

As I may have mentioned before I’m attempting the impossible task of identifying as many of the species that share the farm with me. Today I found what I think is a Red-legged Shieldbug, nothing rare, but it becomes the 100th  member of the arthropod group I’ve listed. Arthropods are animals which have an exoskeleton made of chitin and have a segmented body with paired appendages. On our farm these fall into 4 groups:

Arachnids - spiders, scorpions and ticks – 5 identified.

Crustaceans - here we have crayfish, shrimp, woodlice and freshwater zooplankton - 5 identified.

Hexapoda - insects and springtails - 87 identified

Myriapoda – millipedes and centipedes - 3 identified    

I suspect we have more than 10 times what I have found so far – but I like a challenge!                                                                                                                                                                          

The great storm - A very full rain gauge!