Stories from the farm October 26

A picture of our wetlands that I made last week. Feeling incredibly grateful for this peaceful haven that we've built here over the years.

We recently got asked by a foodservice customer to write a bit about our farm jobs in the Winter, and though we seem to be having some kind of an Indian summer October at the moment and I'm not ready yet to think about Winter, I happily obliged.

The strange thing is that when people think about farming, they immediately think about hard physical work, and while there's definitely a lot of exposure to the outside here, and definitely a lot of physical activity too, there's a surprising amount of intellectual work here too. Our farm often seems to draw a happy congregation of people who've studied agriculture, biology, ecology, entomology, geography,... Conversations range from dung beetles, soil interaction and fungi to identification of what I often think of as 'just grass' 🙂

But apart from happy chatter stemming from natural interests, there's also the brainwork in managing this entire system in practise. We don't just get to talk about how the soil could be improved in theory. No, we need to implement practises to make this actually work, and contrary to a globalised world where standardisation is the key solution, running a farm like ours is a constant exercise in adaption to weather, soil and animal conditions. We don't do standard practises. Instead, we're always thinking about change. Whenever Laurel and I walk over our fields, we're analysing the grass, the patterns in the grass, what plants are growing where, where concentrations of muck have been, where there is more dampness.... And then we talk about how we can adjust our grazing and animal management accordingly.

Sometimes, as an ex-banker, I despair. I miss closing a deal and being done with it. Here, work sometimes feels never ending. But this is also life. A life where we are closer to life than a lot of other people are, among and in collaboration with nature. Even when nature sometimes makes a feisty ally.

UPDATED ORDER FORM ONLINE NOW

The October order form is now updated and online. WE ARE ALSO TAKING DECEMBER FESTIVE DAY PRE-ORDERS NOW

You can find the link below to the order form with all our different meat cuts available, along with practical info about delivery/collection dates.