Scenic Overbury

 'The Plains' looking North East from the park road

 "Wish we were up in the barns at Park Farm"

 The southerly view through the Oaken Wood, the Park Road is there somewhere!

Sun setting across 'The Break'

Cold Snap Bites hard

The cold weather is really starting to cause problems on the farm now after the enjoyment and picturesque beauty of the fields and farmland when it first arrived.  Water pipes are frozen up and with up to 8" of snow in places we are having to feed hay out in the fields.  This wouldn't be so bad, except that the fuel in the tractors is turning 'waxy' and blocking up the fuel filters.  Pershore, only 6miles away, recorded a temperature of somewhere near -19 Celsius of Saturday night.  This morning I went to Chris Tallis Farm Machinery to get some diesel anti-freeze and we're adding it to the tractors and farm trucks as we thaw them out.  I have never experienced problems, to this degree, before although I'm sure it's nothing compared to Scottish and Northern England farmers who would experience this much more frequently. Just a case of wrap up warm and keep the home fires burning ready to thaw us out when we return!

The Ashes

No not the cricket, although that has been riveting watching, listening and googling, but a row of Ash trees in one of our orchards.  The trees have not been pollarded (trimmed) for a number of years and so whilst we were replacing the fence line we trimmed up two of the trees.  We didn't do all of the row in order to keep some existing habitat for the wildlife in the area.  We'll get back to those in 4 or 5 years or so.  Some of the wood will be dried out and used as firewood.  The tops and some smaller branches will be left to rot down in the field where they will provide food and habitat for a wide range of insects, fungi, mammals and bacteria, all living in and feeding on the decaying material.  They are very old trees and host a wide range of insects and birds.  There is even a little owl living in one of the hollows. 

Update on Rape Plants

This is a shot I took last week (18th MOvemeber) of the Sesame OSR planted with our direct subsoiler drill.  The plants are growing nicely with most of the field ranging from between 7-10 leaves.  They are now 83 days old.  There is some predation around the field margins from rabbits and some game birds, but most of the field is looking well.  They have been treated with a single fungicide application, some trace elements and a grass weed herbicide mix.  Now all we need to do is keep the pigeons at bay.  We are experimenting with a few different bits of equipment this year to do this, as a large block of rape is near our local village.  There is a wide range of prices for bangers, kites and day ropes so it is paying to shop around.

Hands Off Our Kit!

As part of the one going battle against farm theft we have installed the CESAR cesarscheme datatag system on our farm tractors, JCB and combine.  The potential problem really came home to roost when a neighbouring farmer had a tractor, very similar to one of ours, stolen a couple of weeks ago.  There are some shocking statistics from the agricultural and construction industry with 11,174 machines stolen in the last two years. That's more than 15/day, with huge cost to the industries and major hassle when a machine is stolen.  Gone are the days when you could just pick up another tractor off the shelf, they're normally built to specification and to order.

We do take farm and village security very seriously and so this seemed the logical next step.  The system was very quickly installed by Chris Tallis Farm Machinery christallis and was up and running immediately.  I first saw the service in the Farmers Weekly security supplement and thought that the combination of stickers, chips and DNA paint seemed a belt and braces approach that meant we would be more secure.  The photo attached was taken by John from dark arts marketing who are running the marketing campaign for CESAR.  Keep your eyes open for our combine appearing (in print) all over the place, it is after all quite distinguished!

Fencing

With the majority of the arable work done, just some P and K to apply when I conditions allow, our eyes turn towards the inevitable winter maintenance requirements.

This winter we are focusing on fencing.  With about 2.5Km needing attention we will be quite busy for most of the winter.  The most urgent ones, those containing the sheep in will be targeted first.  The fencing team is made up of Derek, Gordon and Graham (when he isn't loading grain - lots moving at the moment).  We are currently doing some of the fences at Manor Farm Conderton before heading up on Bredon Hill (hopefully it will be warmer by then!)  As always the team is accompanied by a 45 gallon drum to burn all of the off cuts and old stakes providing some much needed warmth during breakfast and lunch.

Movember Artistry

Well the month of Movember is rapidly approaching a close and our Mo's are looking very splendid indeed.  For those of you Mo Bro's and Mo Sista's out there who don't know what we're on about,  a few of us have been raising the awareness of mens health, mainly testicular and prostrate cancer, during the month with some facial topiary!  Dominic came over today to have a look around some fields and Penelope grabbed us for a quick photo session!  To find out more about these issues and get involved just click the link movember This Movemeber is coming to an end but the worldwide charity event, I'm sure will be about next year.  So if you want to get creative with your face then get involved!