Dear Friends and Customers,

 I started writing this while the wind was howling and the rain lashing down and finished it in warm sunshine - another English summer! The brief period of haymaking weather in early June is a distant memory but at least we now have a large stack of plastic wrapped haylage bales ready for winter. As well as making hay when the sun was shining, we have also been working on some new products and building up the numbers of pigs and cows.

 We very much hope you enjoy the Newsletter and, as ever, welcome your comments and suggestions for future issues

PIGS

Boris the new boar has settled in well and has already fathered two litters of piglets with more hopefully on the way. The adult pigs made the most of the game cover plots while they could, doing a most effective defoliation job but have now returned to the fields near the house. They enjoy eating the grass but, unlike cows or sheep, graze in such a destructive manner that the ground is soon bare and they have to make do with hay and the grass cuttings whenever we get round to mowing the lawn. We reseed the plots after the pigs have moved on which seems to work well. As a result of our increase in pig numbers, we are now producing a much steadier flow of piglets and aim to have pork, bacon and gammon available most months.

MEAT SALES

The next sale of beef is still some way off although we are getting a better “pipeline” and now have 11 calves aged between 0 and 20 months – we should have some to sell before Christmas. In the meantime, we have pork, bacon and gammon for sale most months. We try to be proactive in order to sell the fresh meat quickly rather than freeze it here, so if we are calling you too often, do tell us or, better still, pass us on to a friend or relative who may be interested – that way we can spread the carriage cost over several people too!

We have also linked up with a very small charcuterie business to experiment with some new pork products using our own pigs. As a first step we are producing two preserved meats that are delicious on toast or a warm baguette:

Pork Rillette – a traditional French version of potted meat

Jambon de Paques – a traditional recipe from Burgundy, small pieces of ham preserved in gelatine with parsley

We hope to have both available with the next lot of pork and bacon in the first week of August – do try them and let us know what you think.

COWS

The cows have also been busy with three calves born in January and another three in the last two weeks; all from our Aberdeen Angus bull, Vagabond.

Five of the calves’ births were entirely straightforward with no more than encouragement from us (exactly the way we like it) but sadly, Tulip’s calf was delivered backwards and did not survive – our first calving loss. Once again, friends and neighbours rallied round with advice and practical help and as a result we, or rather Tulip, has adopted an Aberdeen Angus cross calf from another farm. After about 24 hours of rejection and then getting to know one another, Tulip and the calf (named Twinkle) have bonded strongly and watching them, you would not know that they were not related. A very happy end to what seemed a rather sad event two weeks ago.

Vagabond joined us about 15 months ago along with another Angus cow from a friend’s farm in South Devon. Having a bull of our own was a huge psychological step for us because we had by then just about got comfortable with looking after the cows - the exact degree of comfort depends on which of the three of us you ask! A bull would surely change all that, how could we walk through a field knowing that there was a wild animal ready to charge at any minute? We even bought three “Beware of the Bull” signs! The reality has been very different. Vagabond is a perfect gentleman, one of the most co-operative cows and a real gentle giant who is obviously proving to be a success with the ladies. His only fault is a touch of arthritis in his hind legs which limits the number of cows he can look after - probably helps us to outrun him too should the need ever arise! We very much hope that with the relatively undemanding 9-10 breeding cows that we aim to keep here, he will be able to cope for many years to come.