We enjoy sharing farm life

[25.07.2014]

Organic Farming Activity Picks up Pace

What a busy organic dairy farm we are today…

The contractors are in with their big tractors again, cutting and clamping our wheat. This will give some excellent home grown protein in our cow’s diet over the coming winter season. The ‘whole crop’ is chopped up (ear and stem.) This will be mixed with our organic grass silage, and a mix of organic cereals from before being presented to the cows when the grass stops growing. They love it.

In another field, we have a contractor in pulling a very long umbilical pipe (600m) behind his Massey Ferguson. This is directly connected to the waste water recycling lagoon we built in 2011. It stores up to 1.5m gallons of run off water from the parlour and also the hard standing areas of the farm, for occasions just as this, when the grazing land is in need of irrigation.

At the same time we have straw bales coming straight into us from the fields as they are harvested and baled. These are being stacked for winter bedding. Bales have increased in size somewhat since you perhaps last saw some. To help you picture the scene, these bales are approx. 3m long, 1.5m high and 2m deep and weigh approx. 400kg. Not even the Geoff Capes could have thrown these to the top of the stack!

At the other end of the job the organic milk delivery fleet is dotted around the northern counties, dodging traffic jams and delivering our organic milk to businesses up in Newcastle & Durham and doorstep milk to rural villages to the south and east of Barnard Castle. We suspect a few bottles are being drunk en route to keep the guys refreshed- who can blame them.

Finally the ladies in the office have smoke coming from their pencils as they take your doorstep milk delivery amendments. We wish you happy holidays. For the writer of today’s blog however, an organic farm, full of summer activity takes some beating!

 

Caroline Bell