Snow Joke

Overbury in the snow

Well mother nature certainly has a great way of bringing us back down to earth with a reminder of who really is in charge! Last week we saw temperatures plummet to -8 degrees with added windchill taking the temperature down into double digits below zero.  Then came Storm Emma sucking Siberian air across Europe and freeze blasting the UK.

In a funny kind of way we were very lucky to only have a few inches of snow, but when the wind blew the trouble started.  Our small roads, bordered with beautiful hedgerows acted as sinks for the snow to settle in. Many of our roads, including the one to the main farm had 5' of snow drifts making them impossible to get through even with a 4 wheel drive truck.

Clearing snow on the Eckington Road

Like many farmers we have some good equipment that could be deployed to help clear the snow. Working on behalf of Worcestershire County Council to clear the larger trunk roads before moving into the smaller lanes to ease up more local traffic.  In total we had 3 team members (Tim, Derek and Gordon) out for 2.5 days clearing snow around Bredon Hill. I think we have been very lucky, lambing is not due to start for another month and my heart goes out to those spending hours rescuing stranded livestock.

If there are a few messages that these events can draw out, they would be that community spirit is not dead, much help was available to clear driveways, collect shopping and shovel snow from valley gutters.

Farmers have an active role to play, not just to produce food and look after the natural resources but also to keep the roads open to allow others to go about their daily lives.  Next time you get stuck behind a slow moving tractor and trailer of hay, or a combine harvester moving around the lanes, just pause for a moment and think they are doing their jobs just as you were able to get through the snow to do yours.

Drifting snow

3 days later we are all back to normal, with only a few farm tracks impassable to vehicles smaller than a tractor and the sun is shining.  Spring feels like it is just around the corner.  We will have to wait and see!

Loosing Our Biggest Asset-or not?

LiDAR Image of the Carrent Catchment - source Environment Agency

Every day is a school day and so we have to keep learning about our environment and how we interact with our natural surroundings.  We are just starting to develop a local group of farmers, with help from Gloucestershire FWAG called the 'Carrant Catchment Restoration Project', with the aim of increasing water quality and biodiversity in the local stream that originates around Bredon Hill.  One of the most staggering bits of information came from our local Environment Agency and uses LiDAR information to look at the erosion risk from farmland.  At first glance this sea of red shows high risk areas all over he top of the hill!  Quite alarming.  We then have to start looking at land use, and some of the red areas are taken out of the equation with woodland and the grassland.  We mustn't ignore the grassland-as significant soil erosion can stem from overgrazed or compacted grassland, but it's the arable area of the hill that is by far and above the largest proportion and so poses the largest risk of erosion.

Surface runoff is caused when the field is at water capacity or when compaction is present, both cause the next rainfall to run downhill taking soil particles with it.  These particles are potentially carrying fertiliser and pesticides off down into the nearest water coarse, causing the very typical brown water often seen after heavy rainfall events.

Winter Barley Rooting Structure on Bredon Hill

Our new system of zero tillage (no till) crop farming is the best way to stop erosion from happening on our fields.  The system means that the soil is not disturbed so it can structure itself to allow more water to enter it, reducing runoff.  By leaving crop residue or by growing cover crops the soil surface is protected form rain droplets, stopping surface compaction from happening.  By not cultivating the land we are not burning the organic content of the fields, reducing green house gas emissions.  From a water storage position the organic matter acts like a sponge so the more we have, the more water we can store before it runs off through the soil profile into the groundwater.  The picture above is from a field that has been in zero tillage for 4 years and is really starting to come to life in many ways.  The crop residue is present and under that a crumbly mixture of roots and soil particles attached to the roots of the plants.  This is just the start of what I hope our soils will turn into over time.

Life on the Margins

It's amazing what you can find while having a quiet wander along the side of the beautiful flower margins on the top of Bredon Hill at the moment.  Many are situated along side public rights of way so there's no need to trample across farmland to view them.  They are created by cultivating the soil to stimulate the wild seeds to grow that have been dormant in the soil for many years.  But the wild flowers are only part of the benefits, the flowers also encourage millions of insects that in turn provide valuable feed for young farmland birds.

The list of spices very evident is long, from bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies, beetles and other pollinator species.  There were also many insect feeding birds such as Skylarks, Yellow Hammers, Goldfinches Meadow Pipits and Linnets, all feeding in the margins and carrying the feed out into the fields or up into neighbouring trees or hedges, where their nests are located.  You may have seen the small bare patches that have no crop in them which provide landing areas for Skylark and today they were singing with joy, that the sun had finally appeared!

Not all of the margins are this successful; in other margins we have had to mow the margin to stop the weed seeds from becoming fertile and adding to the weed seed bank, which is necessary for the long term benefit of the strip.  We hope that you enjoy walking on the hill and looking at what nature is providing and in order to enhance the benefit please do not let your dogs disturb the birds busily collecting feed for their young, by keeping them under very close control or ideally on a lead.

Shooting Wildlife

Over the last couple of days I have carrying my camera around to try and capture some of the wildlife that I am seeing around the farm at the moment. This lovely spell of warm weather is really bringing the wildlife out to enjoy it as much as I am. The picture (above) about shows 7 Brown Hares (BAP Species) adults and young all enjoying the morning sunshine on a recently mowed pollen and nectar mix. The area measures 0.70 Ha and is really crammed with wildlife. The hares were enjoying the shelter of the Oilseed Rape should any predators pass by.

Up on the top of Bredon Hill our resident herd of Fallow Deer are also basking in the sunshine. These are young males that gather together at this time of year. This field hasn't been planted yet as it is part of the hand picked peas operation and will be planted in June.

This little guy was probably the best find of the day (and his 3 other siblings). The Lapwing parents were getting very cross with me as I sneaked up to take the picture of a young Lapwing chick foraging for insects in a flooded part of a wheat field. It's an area of very poor drainage and under the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme I have plans to put a pond here but I might just excavate the scrape more to provide lots of wet feeding grounds for the next generations of lapwings.

Contracting Expanding

This is the time of year that Gordon is out and about cutting many miles of our own and some of our neighbours hedges.  In total we cut hedges on over 10,000 acres of farmland and many miles of roadside verges.  Some of the insides of the hedges are cut during the autumn before the crops are planted so that damage to the field margins (grass) are limited as the soil is still nice and dry and can carry the tractor.  The downside to this is that some of the berries on the hedges are cut off and therefore not eaten by the birds in the winter.

By leaving the roadside verges, spring cropping fields and many of the farm tracks until now to be trimmed, allows the hedgerow birds alot more time to feast on the hedgerow bounty.  These roadside hedges are cut every year which aids roadside safety and also, if done carefully can still provide a good source of berries even after the hedge trimmer has tidied up the hedge.  We even have a blower on the hedge trimmer to blow the chippings into the verges, off the roads, therefore reducing the risk of punctures to passing traffic.  Birds such as Yellow Hammers love a neatly trimmed hedge that they can perch up on, and guard their territory.

Hedge cutting is one of many services that we can offer to our neighbours around Bredon Hill.  Our farm machinery is also used at certain times of the year.  Our sprayer is contracted out to spray tall crops such as beans and oilseed rape in the summer.  With its taller wheels and high clearance the damage is far less that with a conventional tractor mounted sprayer.  It also does liquid fertiliser applications.  At this time of year our snow plough is also on standby incase it is needed around the hill.  We have a specific route but can always detour to clear a driveway or farm-yard along the way.

A little Help From Big Sista!

Our run of good weather has finally come to an end and so allows me to tell you a little about some exciting new machinery.  We have actually cut something every day since the 20th July which in itself is quite a record for the past few summers.  Where have the weeks of sunshine I seem to remember from my youth gone too or am I looking back through rose tinted glasses?  Those 'combine connoisseur's' among you will notice that this is not our usual combine harvester cutting winter barley on Bredon Hill.  John Deere are in the process of launching a new range of combines, built in Europe for the high output combines on larger farms and they wanted an area of crop to check the machine out and to make sure there were no teething problems.  We happened to be cutting our malting barley for Carling, which was going very slowly with our combine so we jumped at the chance to try the new machine and give her a work out!

The output was amazing and showed how technology moves on very quickly.  Our machine is only 4 years old and was easily out performed in a difficult crop to combine.  The forward speed was 5-6kph instead of ours at 3kph.  The header on the new combine was also bigger at a whopping 35 feet with belts presenting the crop to the combine very uniformally.  There were very few losses and much less than our combine in the straw swath.  These losses are grains that can't be shaken from the straw and so are lost back to field.  These are called volunteers in the following crop that need to be sprayed/cultivated out later on.  The grain tank held a full trailer load about 25%  larger than ours.  Fuel efficiency is roughly about the same as ours for the acreage cut.

This model also came with track's in place of the larger front wheels which will help reduce the transport width (3.5m) of the machine and also reduce the compaction of the heavy machine on the soft soil.  Grip would also be helped climbing up and down our hill.  But what is the cost and will that cost be justified?  More harvest updates can be seen at No1FarmerJake where I am uploading a daily video tracking our harvest, as it happens!

'Lambing Live' at Overbury

Well here it is, I have finally got round to blogging again after a very very busy few weeks.  On Sunday  17th April we had our annual 'Lambing Live' event at Park Farm, home to our flock of Mule and Mule x Texel ewes.  We were very lucky with the weather with hot sunshine all day for our visitors.  In total somewhere between 850-1,000 people turned up to learn about our sheep flock and how we manage the farm and the conservation on Bredon Hill.  I managed to get some video footage early in the day which can be seen here on the blog.  It will give you an idea of the event and what can be seen.  In addition to the clip we had Paul, Rod and Tom our Gamekeepers talking about life as a keeper.  At the village hall we had lots of displays of local food including the very first opportunity to purchase cotswoldflour and lamb burgers being sold by our great friends at Eckington Manor Cookery School

Archaeological Anticipation

Over the past month we have been paying special attention to one of our Scheduled Ancient Monuments (SAM) right on the summit of Bredon Hill.  The Kemerton Hill Fort is thought to be about 2700 years old and was built in the Iron Age period of time.

Over the years the field has changed with some quarrying taking place, to provide local stone, maybe for houses or stone walling.  As a result we have an area of erosion, where the land has slipped away.

The erosion was uncovering some very interesting changes in soil type, colouring and even an old bone or two.  The erosion here has been caused by heavy rain, sheep movements and general wear and tear.  The dark area of soil (left) is thought to be a hole for a post, maybe a fence for corraling cattle or even part of a house.  There are other areas of the hill fort that are suffering from erosion by mountain bikes, (we will tackle these bits another day). 

Under our HLS agreement we have secured some funding to repair the erosion scar's, thus protecting the archaeology for future generations.  Adam (Worcester Archaeological Service) was  employed as part of the repair to survey and record what was being uncovered, before the face was sealed up again.  GPS measurements, readings and photographs where all taken as an official record of the event.

After the excavations had been completed the repair work could begin!  Leigh Watts, who is a local landscape gardner, was detailed with the prescription to repair, as detailed by English Heritage.



Stone from the quarry was used to build up the main layer and the final dressing of soil was collected from within the field boundary, by collecting up mole hill dirt!  We actually collected a JCB bucket load, it took a while but luckily the moles obliged!  This dirt was then spread over the stones and within a plastic mesh to stop further erosion until grass can establish.  The grass seed will be collected later this year again from within the field boundary, although I'm sure there will be some seed from within the mole hill dirt that will start the process off.  The sheep netting is a temporary boundary to stop unwanted feet and mouths disturbing the fresh soil.  The final picture shows the half compeleted repair but you will be glad to know that it is now fully restored!

Stone Wall Regeneration

One of the really great aspects of our Higher Level Stewardship agreement is the additional help and funding to repair some of our worst stone walls.  Many of the walls were erected in the 1920's during the great depression, where labour was cheap and the raw materials were available within the fields or dug up from the on farm quarries.  Now after nearly 100 years of rain, snow, frost and sunshine damage some are really starting to show their age and in need of repair. The frost damage really causes the damage where the walls sag and can't shed the water allowing it to seep into the centre of the wall where is freezes and thaws, gradually causing the stones to crumble and the wall to collapse.

Stone walling is a very skilled and papainstakingly slow operation hence the large costs involved in restoration.  A typical wall, if you are using a proportion of new stone will cost somewhere in the region of £100/meter.  This would include the toppers and the top wire used to try and keep the deer from leaping over the wall knocking it down.  Our walls are being repaired by Matthew Fergyson who is based at Guiting Power.  This is Nathan, who works with Matthew, who has stripped down a section of wall and is now rebuilding it.  The almost final result is shown below, (minus the top wires)

For those of yo who regularly walk on Bredon Hill this wall is located near Sundial barn, shown above.   The wall is about 450m long and runs along side a public footpath, so you are welcome to go and see the progress for yourselves.  You might even give Matthew and Nathan some encouragement as they are there is all weathers!

Green Light for High Level Stewardship

Some good news to share with you all in the New Year.  Our Entry and Higher Level Stewardship application seems to have ticked all of the right boxes and has been given a January 1st 2011 start date.  From this moment we are putting the scheme into operation.  It is a great challenge but it will be so rewarding, not just for us, but for the people that visit our farm, those that walk on Bredon Hill and also for the wildlife we can support, attract and encourage.  I hope that the visitors and walkers will be able to appreciate what we are doing and play their part by keeping to the public rights of way and following the countryside code 

A huge thank you to the organizations that lobbied on our behalf, those at FWAG and LEAF the NFU and the CLA also Farmers Weekly for their write up in the 29th October edition.  I would also like to thank Harriet Baldwin MP and Jim Paice MP for their support.  The only omission from our scheme is the removal of funding for our educational access visits and the open access.  These are two areas that really need support to encourage people to learn about their food, farming and the countryside on which we depend on for our living.

So it's full steam ahead, and as of this moment we have started work on our Orchard Management Plan.  Rob Howells our local FWAG Farm Conservation Officer has started mapping and categorizing the trees currently in place.  From this survey we will be able to work out a plan for planting and pruning over the next 5 years.  Later this year we will start to identify those trees and if possible start replanting trees next winter.

Here is Rob in the Cherry Orchard assessing the condition of some very old Cherry trees that could someday soon be some of the first trees to be restored under our High Level Stewardship agreement.

Head In The Clouds

Derek was out early this morning working ground after summer turnips up on Bredon Hill.  The field is called 'Cobblers' and was planted with stubble turnips in April earlier this year.  After the lambs had eaten all of the turnips we sprayed off the remaining weeds with glyphosate and left them to die off.  That was about 3 weeks ago and so in preparation for drilling the land is worked with the Vaderstadt Topdown. The tilth was really good and after 24hrs drying will be ready for planting on Sunday morning!  The land should be in really great condition with the poultry manure applied for the turnips (lots and lovely natural fertilisers) and the sheep acting as mobile fertiliser spreaders the wheat should get off to really great start.

Slug Trapping

We have now started to plant (or drill) the seeds for next years crops.  We have started drilling on our highest ground on the top of Bredon Hill to try and get the young plants well established before the nights get colder and slows down their growth.  One of the main risks to the young seedlings at this time of year and after oilseed rape, are slugs!  There are some cultural control methods as practised using 'integrated farm management' such as rolling the soil surface to consolidate the soil.  This makes it hard for the slugs to move around in the soil from plant to plant.  In conjunction to rolling we might need to apply slug pellets.  Before we spread the pellets on the field we have to see if there are enough slugs there to justify the application so we set some traps.  I have selected the area of the field where there is slightly more trash (crop residue from the previous OSR as there are likely to be higher slug populations in the moist organic matter. 

I raided the game keepers pheasant food bin and located some layers mash as my tasty lure for the unsuspecting slug headcount.  After dishing out the free lunch I covered the mash with an insulated sheet, weighted it down with stones and left the scene.  The sheet will keep the area of mash moist and dark, just the right habitat for the slugs to feed in.  I will return in a couple of days for a headcount to see if there is justification in a application of pellets.

 

Beetling About

Earlier this year we decided to plough up about 0.5ha of winter beans in order to establish a beetle bank and some extra winter bird mix area. The beetle bank will protect the wild bird feed area, incorporating a game strip from the activities going on in the field. I walked up and down the strip hand sowing grasses such as Timothy and Cocksfoot which will provide a great nesting habitat for the birds. The beetle bank as it's name suggests will also provide a wonderful home for many beetles and insects which in turn will provide food for creatures higher up the food chain. This mixture is called 'Yellow hammer Mix' and includes, mustard, spring wheat, mixed millet, triticale, spring barley and fodder radish. It will of coarse provide food for many more birds not just the Yellow Hammers.

The reason for this trial is to learn about growing these mixed crops as we are preparing our HLS scheme application which will include some areas of the farm dedicated to growing crops to feed birds. Now all we need is some nice warm rain to get the crops established!

Where are all the Leverets?

This spring Derek has been ploughing ground in preparation for planting peas over the next few weeks on the brash land at the top of Bredon hill. He commented to me earlier in the week that he hasn't seen many leverets (young hares) this year. Another comment he made was that he was ploughing in the warren field, which is about 50 acres and he was being followed by 21 Buzzards, yes you heard me correctly 21!! That is just over 1 buzzard to the hectare. I think that there might be a link between the two. Obviously the buzzards need to feed on something, were they being attracted by the thoughts of juicy worms, I suspect they were when we are ploughing but what about afterwards? We know that there are fewer rabbits this year, (myxomatosis has killed a lot) so what else do they feed on, the odd vole, or mouse maybe a rat or two but I suspect that a nice young leveret in the middle of an arable field makes a much tastier and easier snack. When do we draw a line under some of these species and say right, we need to start managing them before the balance is turned too far in one direction or another?

X-Ray Spectacular

Darren has very kindly sent me the Geo-Physics resulting scans for a couple of the fields on the farm. The field shown here has got some very interesting features and it was the first field that Gordon dug trenches in earlier in the week. The black and white line through the middle of the fields is a crop mark, shown up in aerial photographs over the years. Adjacent to this on the right is the bunded area uses as a coral (see other blog) The line is actually a trackway. The geo-fizz info is shown by the red and blue areas to the right of the trackway and show the actual ditches and mounds of earth and lots of small pits and other features. It is great to see that these areas are still in tact after years of farming practises and we're now looking forward as to how we can protect them for future generations.

A little Red Faced!

What a terrific sight heading down Kinsham Lane, a field of blood red poppies waving their glorious flags for every one to witness. What are we witnessing? It was a slight oversight be me! The field was due to be re-planted with a second crop of salad onions, then it was meant to be peas, then we had the floods, then the harvest started in earnest so the field missed being cultivated to remove the small plants.

The field has been in arable production and has been treated with herbicides, growing food for over 30 years and yet given a chance the flowers re-colonise and establish with a bold bravado. These plants will have re-seeded allowing an other generation to witness the striking scene in the shadow of Bredon Hill. John 'The Fly Catcher' Clarke looked at the plant population and counted 15 further species of plant including Dovesfoot Cranesbill, Red Goosefoot and Pineapple weed. John also spotted a clouded yellow butterfly and a flock of Linnets. The field will soon be cultivated to prepare the soil ready to plant again with winter wheat, returning the seeds to the soil and into dormancy.

Farewell USA

The trip is over :-(

What an experience, the highlights would have to be the assembly lines of the tractors and the harvesters. The precession technology and machining, the testing and evaluations (on each machine) and the way it all came together, each one built to its own specification. We even mastered the John Deere wave, a sort of masonic handshake, very privileged and one that might come in handy should we need to purchase a tractor or combine in the future, extra discount I think!

We left Chicago airport with all of our luggage, the reunion was emotional to say the least! We were all over weight (not just in baggage terms, too many steaks) but BA did not seem to bothered! We were also upgraded to business class with certain privileges, like the lounge area (we left 1hr late) and the extra leg room. Could you tell we had been upgraded? Yes 7 grinning faces all beaming out in the business area.

We even landed and collected a full set of bags, the fog by then wasn't too bad and we departed Heathrow in time to get back home for lunch. I wouldn't want to be there now!

The view is from the John Hancock tower, it was stunning to say the least!



This was the view from Bredon Hill, just by the tower looking south along the ridge. The whole vale was in fog and still is now. It was a stunning view, hills popping out like Islands in the sea, glad to be home.............


You bet!

Tup Tastic Talent!

No this is not a new wheeze by the rams to attract the 'ladies' but the remains of the crayon held in the 'raddle' used to identify which of the ewes have been mated. We change the colour every week so that we know roughly when each ewe will lamb. The Rams have just finished this years mating and are now off for a well earned rest! There are 20 rams who should have serviced about 1000 ewes, that's 50 each! These ewes will start lambing in April.

Some of the boys saw action in September mating for the early ewe flock of 150 ewes. These were scanned last week, the first time we have scanned our ewes. Of the 150, 15 didn't mate, 10 mated and then aborted, (we will blood samples these to find out why) 36 will have singles, 83 will have twins and 6 will have triplets! Busy times in February for Todd and me. The ewes will be feeding on silage (conserved grass) and turnips on Bredon Hill between now and just before they are ready to lamb. The triplets and the twins will be housed so that we can feed them a bit more, but the singles will stay out until the very last minute.

Sunnier Times

Looking out of the window seeing sleet coming down, machinery being put away for the winter always makes me think back to the summer and what we were upto! This picture was taken on Bredon Hill, where the farm is, and is of me. Just about the time the Oilseed rape was being planted. Shorts only then, today leggings, wellies, hat and thick coat. It seems as if the seasons blur into one another as we hurtle past in our busy lives. It's just nice to take a moment and reflect on what has been achieved since the summer.

Crops planted, hedges cut, ditches maintained and cleaned out to allow road water to escape. Shooting season underway, small songbirds migrating into and out of the wild bird covers we plant. Its not a real winter yet, will we see a real winter again? Who knows but we hope to be there to rise to the challege as every season is so different to us.

We are embarking on a new project http://www.fresherbymiles.com It is a web site that is effectivley a farmers market, providing local fresh food, grown by known farmers and delivered to places of work to collect on your way home. We'will see how that goes, co-operation has never been a farmers forte' times are a changing!