Roman Wall

Great excitement last week in one of the COSMIC survey sites the team uncovered a Roman wall. The results of the crop marks and the subsequent geo-phys were whole heartedly confirmed with the excavation of this wonderful wall arrangement. It was probably part of a villa or settlement high up on Bredon Hill where the Romans would have relaxed looking down through the Vale of Evesham. What an amazing thought that they would have been able to gaze down, looking at a similar topography to us. i wonder how different it would have looked?

Wait and See.....

This year I have finally caved in and we are trying some cultivated margins to see if we have any rare arable plants on a couple of headlands on the top of the hill. The area totalling about 0.77Ha has been ploughed, cultivated and rolled. We have just missed out planting the spring barley seeds and putting any seedbed fertiliser on those areas.

We are hoping to encourage all kinds of plants rare to Worcestershire that like the thin brash soil over lime stone which will inheritably have a high ph. Plants that we might expect to see will be poppies, some rare ones (Rough Poppy and Long-headed Poppy and lots of red British Poppies. there could be some Lamb's Lettuce, Venus's Looking Glass and Night-flowering Catchfly.

John Clarke who help us with our arable bird monitoring wee be on hand to help determine what we have managed to cultivate later in the summer. Maybe from may onwards we will have some interesting things to see. If this trial is successful and we don't get swamped with weeds that are not too rare ;Charlock,Cleavers and Brome grasses then we might put this option into our up and coming Higher level Stewardship Scheme. In the mean time please do not walk all over the margin, it is not an excuse to walk on a wider bridle path and please keep all dogs off this area as well, as in time it will provide pollen and nectar for insect which will in turn provide food for young chicks.

Lambing Live

Wow, what a great programme, just watching Kate Humble on the BBC in a lambing shed, hands on (or in) with Adams in the lambing shed (thanks Gordon for telling me about the programme). They should have come to Park Farm for the last month or so! If you want to find out all about it first hand or you think of any questions and it's too late to ask Kate then don't forget the 11th April, when we have our own Lambing Day experience, see the web site.

Walking on a Higher Level

On Monday Paul, Rod and I went to Guiting Power, just up in the Cotswolds to have a look around a farm that is doing lots of really good things for farmland birds. We spent the morning looking at habitat creation for chick feed sources, winter food and nesting sites, then in the afternoon it was off for a walk around the farm to look at some examples in the field.

The trip was organised by Natural England and had some really good speakers, notably Peter Thompson from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust www.gct.org.uk

Still Lambing

A hardcore bunch of ewes have still to produce their wares. It's been nearly a month now and we still have 16 left to lamb down. The grass still isn't really growing yet especially with the very cold nights so we are having to feed some groups hay out in the field. Hopefully the warm weather will be here soon and some well timed fertiliser will give the grass a nice boost in time for the main lambing flock which starts about the 1st April. If you are interesting and want to come and see for yourselves what happens at this time of year at Overbury we are hosting our annual Farm Lambing Day on Sunday the 11th April. Trailer rides will be leaving from the village hall between 10 am and 3pm to ferry people to the lambing sheds. No need to book, just turn up but bear in mind the lunchtime trailers can get a bit full. There will be food and refreshments in the Village Hall as well. Please see our website for more details www.overburyfarms.co.uk