It has been quite an eventful couple of weeks, in a ‘theoretical’ sense as well as a practical one. Firstly, to the animals and there has been much to-ing and fro-ing in and out of the barn as we try to juggle which hooves can still be out in the pasture and which need to be in now. We have the suckler herd in properly, along with a group of 10 steers we are hoping to sell in the next week or so. The rest of the young stock group which consists mainly of heifers and a few younger steers, are still out. Having noticed a real decline in lamb growth rates we sent off some faecal samples to the vets for analysis. Sure enough – liver fluke found. Our wonderful vet Anne has been certain that we would get liver fluke on our (generally quite wet) farm ever since we arrived 20 or so years ago, and she has finally been proven right! Liver fluke is a parasite which attacks the liver, and consequently compromises the animal’s immune system. We will be discussing with Anne how best to manage this going forward, but it will probably involve selecting breeding animals that have a natural resistance. It has been a bad year for us with worms, as we had an attack of Barber’s Pole worm earlier in the year – barbers pole and liver fluke being amongst the most aggressive intestinal parasites.
Anyway, enough of that! Hope you weren’t reading this over your breakfast…
In terms of the weather, it has been something of a roller-coaster, with a very welcome cold snap blanketing the farm in snow for a few days. This was much needed and will have hopefully finally killed off the biting insects for the year. It has been an exceptionally mild winter so far. So mild that we still have tomatoes ripening in the greenhouse. Sure enough the snow receded and was followed by Storm Bert. We escaped lightly, with only a lot of rain causing the brook to break its banks for the first time this year. The fields have dried out a little, but we look to be in for another wet winter as the water table is already full.

The main (and unexpected) excitement came last week on a quiet Sunday morning when Chris received a call from a disgruntled neighbour saying, ‘your cows are in my garden’! Brendan and Alice were halfway round checking the animals, so headed over to the field in which the group of cows was meant to be. All gates had been cut open and unbolted, there were sheep in the wrong place and no cows to be seen. What is particularly odd is that this happened on the night of storm Bert, in fields that are well inside the perimeter of the farm. Looking at footprints, it seems that the group of cattle (the bull, a pedigree bull calf and 4 big steers) had been driven through all the fields and out on the drive, where they then made their way down the road an into the neighbour’s farm. Whether it was an attempted theft that went wrong or a practical joke, it left us all feeling very peculiar. It was clear that the gates had been opened on purpose, and boot prints that didn’t match any of the farm team were all over the fields. With help from Tom and Boots, we managed to walk the group of cattle back through Gannow Wood, which borders the neighbour’s farm. The cattle seemed unbothered by the excitement, but following a visit from the police we have stepped up security.

Away from the farm and we made an important purchase, a lovely red catering trailer – coming soon to a layby near you! Not really of course. The trailer will be our ‘prep-kitchen’ for the new on-site cafe, as well as enabling us to do much more comprehensive catering for events on the farm. Brendan collected the trailer from Sheffield, which made for a long day in the car. Other progress on ‘the Pantry’ as our cafe and farm shop has become known, includes a new paint job and some carpentry. We are begging and borrowing wood, tables and equipment from 20 years of accumulated stuff, but rustic charm never goes out of favour. We are still on track to open in January 2025, and we look forward to seeing some of you there! There will be a hot drink on the house for blog readers of course. Many thanks again to Tom, without whom this project would still just be an idea.

Brendan and Alice attended a fascinating 2-day course at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, put on by Pasture for Life. It was lovely to re-connect with various attendees and meet some new people. The course was centred around using regenerative farming principles to create a resilient and productive farm business and contained some excellent and informative site visits. Much inspiration for the Rush Farm veg garden as well as the livestock operation. For Alice, it was nice to revisit the RAU, as she was last there as a graduate student a few years ago. It seems that the times they are a-changing, as interest in regenerative farming grows in the mainstream. The RAU now has an organic, no-dig veg garden as well converting its tenanted farmland to a fully regenerative system. We are looking forward to welcoming a cohort of students from the RAU to the farm next week, and hope that we can work together much more in the future! 

We were also kindly invited by a neighbour to the Bromsgrove and District Farmer’s Club annual dinner at Worcester racecourse – a nice chance for (some of) the farm team to get out their glad rags! It was a lovely evening, and nice to meet some other local farmers as well as indulge in some terrible dancing! The party mood continued as Alice and Brendan hosted a wonderful Thanksgiving meal for everyone on the farm.

Thistle, as ever living her best life, is confident that the future looks calmer!

Sonet 97, William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.