Wark Farm

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• News from the Farm December 2023
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• 04-12-2023

Not holly berries but rosehips putting a festive note to our farm Festive post by SaM: The person who works with Laurel on the farm has a name very appropriate for her: Holly. “Tis the season to be jolly” feels like a natural extension to her name and personality, up to the reindeer nose and antlers on her car, plus Christmas jumper. But for me and Laurel, the festive days are all about food, even more so than usual. Although the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-12-04 12:58:31 Read More

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• News from the farm November 2023
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• 09-11-2023

The new arrival surveying his new domain. It's one of the bonuses of running a farm that every now and then we get to wander around Scotland when we go shopping for a new bull or ram. We run what are called 'closed' flocks and herds, meaning that we breed all our own new breeding females and so don't bring any animals onto the farm. This allows us to maintain herds with low exposure to transmissible diseases and...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-11-09 12:19:00 Read More

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• News from the Farm October 2023
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• 16-10-2023

Our bull having his hoofs done. Some years ago I read a very thought provoking, at times harrowing, book which favourably compared the store of memories that we accumulate through life with the as yet to be experienced anticipations of ones youth. I was indeed rather younger at the time but even allowing for that I recall acknowledging the theory of the authors words, but I couldn't really feel it. This month marks 20 years since...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-10-16 13:51:57 Read More

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• News from the Farm September 2023
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• 07-09-2023

Our coos adore taking a splash in "their" ponds. Newsletter written by SaM today. I might be prejudiced being a September born, but September has always been my favorite month of the year. And living here on the farm hasn’t changed that. The crazy hectic Summer has come to its end and there’s some hope that the pressure will finally subside slightly, as our bodies and minds urgently need some time to recover. The land and the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-09-07 09:31:26 Read More

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• News from the farm August 2023
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• 14-08-2023

(Newsletter written by SaM today) (I went out today to take a few pictures for you, so I could share some of the wild beauty of our farm. See the farm through my eyes today, on a day that I seek some calm inside me. Our farm is a home. For us and for wildlife. I love how untamed it is. There's a certain controlled wildness to our entire farm, which stretches out to our way of being and living. A mixture of solidity, down-to-earthness but...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-08-14 10:11:47 Read More

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• News July 2023
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• 08-07-2023

Picture above: Moss, our sheep dog, doing his share of work. There seem to be rather a lot of hats in my life. Some of course are tangible, we get a good bit of breeze that needs deflecting hereabouts and in these recent summers a bit of sun shading has been deployed too. I was rather thinking of the metaphorical hats though, those that go with roles. Some days it seems like I have quite a stack teetering up top as I flit (though that...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-07-08 19:27:29 Read More

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• News from the Farm June 2023
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• 08-06-2023

Picture above: Carrying on with Hebridean Sheep. Guest post by SaM: I never thought of farm animals as endangered species. But i guess that is simply because i was still unfamiliar with farming life. There is a reason why certain breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs are called Rare breeds. As people re-discovered these more traditional breeds and their numbers increased again, the term Rare breeds became less appropriate. Happily so. Their...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-06-08 21:25:52 Read More

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• News from the Farm May 2023
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• 12-05-2023

Guest post by SaM: There will be dead lambs. Now before this crude and blunt way of phrasing things makes you want to delete this email, I’m asking you to bear with me for a while. Because it’s not a bad thing. Every year again, we get ready for lambing. About 150, maybe 200 of the best sheep selected to go to the tup. Put on the best grass, grass especially saved for them. And then the waiting for the first lambs begins. And every year again,...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-05-12 16:24:45 Read More

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• News from the Farm April 2023
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• 07-04-2023

Above: Our little pack of collies In common with most occupations, particularly if they are in the shape of a small business, running a farm and food operation is a real hodge-podge of roles and tasks, routines and dramas, ups and downs. One of my consistent bright spots amongst this variety is the time I spend with our collie dogs when there is sheep work to be done. I’ve lived with dogs around me my whole life, from the rolling around-on-the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-04-07 20:56:13 Read More

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• News from the farm March 2023
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• 13-03-2023

Above: Views of the Northern Lights above our coos. Sabrina and I spent a couple of days in Glasgow last week at a trade show with the aim of bumping into a few more businesses that might find a Wark Farm pie a good thing to have on their menu. It’s far from my natural habitat, as are most places where wellies aren’t the default footwear, but it’s good to step away from the everyday sometimes and take in the wider 'food landscape’...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-03-13 21:15:45 Read More

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• News From The Farm February 2023
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• 16-02-2023

Above: A Curlew visiting the farm. The farm through SaM's eyes: Who’d be a worm on an organic farm? It’s one of those odd paradoxes that encouraging more life comes with a commensurate increase in death, a bit of a mixed bag for worms around here. Organic management practices generally give soil life a boost and worms are a good visible sign of that, at least they are if you get the spade out once in a while and have a rummage...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-02-16 20:51:38 Read More

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• News From The Farm January 2023
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• 12-01-2023

Above: One of our favourite coos and her calf in the evening sun. The farm through SaM's eyes: Hints of green emerge between brown mud and melting bits of packed snow. I read this lovely text about not making resolutions, not starting your year packed with never-ending pressure and it struck something inside me. We are often consumed by our own expectations, an endless striving for something better. To be better, to better our life...

Posted by: Admin on: 2023-01-12 16:28:56 Read More

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• News from the farm December 2022
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• 08-12-2022

A flock of 300 wild geese seem to enjoy the stubble fields, and the occasional splash in our new wetlands  In amongst a variety of wildlife and land oriented interests as a youngster I had a bit of an obsession with deer. My interest found homes in school biology projects (examining gut contents for a study on roe deer feeding preferences, much to the disgust of others in the biology department!), summer holiday jobs and university...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-12-08 14:59:47 Read More

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• News from the Farm November 2022
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• 10-11-2022

With Laurel balancing farm work and our craft butchery, I figured I'd pitch in by putting together this month's newsletter. For those that don't know me yet, I'm SaM, former banker-turned-foodproducer (or something akin). I'm half Belgian, half Malaysian, mainly nomad (or so I was before I met Laurel, who's also the love of my life and who has undoubtedly Scottified me) and slightly eccentric despite a constant wish to...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-11-10 19:50:11 Read More

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• News from the Farm September 2022
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• 11-09-2022

Earlier in the summer the thistle flowers provide a good nectar source for bumble bees and butterflies such as this peacock.  TI’ve developed a little bit of a habit this summer of sitting inside patches of thistles. When I first took on the farm here and started the conversion to organic methods, the creeping thistle was highlighted in my learning about organics as one of the hardest weeds to manage under organic conditions. In...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-09-11 18:03:23 Read More

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• News from the Farm August 2022
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• 15-08-2022

Our Belties enjoying the splashes at the farm The Belted Galloway Cattle Society have just held their National Centenary show as part of the Wigtown Show last week. Unfortunately we were’t able to make it down but reading the show reports it looked like a fine day with a great display of cattle to be enjoyed - if you like that sort of thing, which, no prizes for guessing, I rather do. Indeed enjoying hanging around with Belties is, in...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-08-15 10:29:09 Read More

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• News from the Farm July 2022
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• 11-07-2022

Early morning curlew on the new splash In contrast to the rather dispiriting global and economic outlook, the the farm in the current high summer days has a feeling of abundance and even opulence. The grass is tall, the flowers are bright and many birds and insects are through their first cycles of reproduction; in simple terms, there are things pinging and buzzing around everywhere. At the moment I'm enjoying the wild geraniums...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-07-11 11:06:16 Read More

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• News from the Farm June 2022
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• 09-06-2022

This is a guest post by SaM It was incredibly pleasing to read in a few recent reports on consumer behavior that more and more people are starting to care about quality and about provenance. But then I look at the packaging of some products in the supermarket and my heart sinks a bit. Labels are plastered in screaming fonts on product packaging and I can’t help wondering about the authenticity of it all. How much does that word ‘artisanal’...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-06-09 11:03:52 Read More

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• News From The Farm May 2022
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• 13-05-2022

Today no text. Only pictures. Follow us on a tour over our lovely farm. Wellies on first. Let's take the back door of our home. Prune trees trailed against the wall. View of our garden against the backdrop of the coos and the wetlands. We feel so lucky to see this view every day. Some of our coos have come in for a snack. This picture is very important for us as it highlights...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-05-13 15:26:50 Read More

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• News from the farm April 2022
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• 08-04-2022

Where did you go o' spring. It's always a poignant sight to see the early blooms of spring weighed down, heads bowed, by April snow. But it does happen most years, in May too, and disruptive as it is there is heat in the sun when it finds a break in the cloud. As a grass based farm we're watching every tiny bit of growth at this time of year. As i saw it described recently, our farming job is to maximise the capture of solar energy...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-04-08 17:27:57 Read More

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• News from the Farm March 2022
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• 10-03-2022

It's been getting easier to believe in spring for the last couple of weeks as the days stretch out, the birds tune up and the grass shows some brighter tones of green. We're very much a grass farm here and the spring growth is as eagerly awaited as the return of the curlews (they're here). Then we have to decide how to use the grass to best advantage for the time that we have growth and how we manage for the six months we don't. Over...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-03-10 14:37:22 Read More

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• News from the Farm February 2022
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• 19-02-2022

Buzzard as captured by our trail cam It's been a busy week or so for sightings of birds of prey at the farm. Alongside our regular buzzard finials on the posts and telegraph poles along the farm road, the kestrels have been more conspicuous than I've noticed for some years, perhaps this year they will nest nearby. While the kestrels brings a smile to my face our resident sparrowhawks manage to unsettle me. I had two such...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-02-19 20:47:29 Read More

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• News From The Farm January 2022
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• 18-01-2022

Happy new year to all of you. Due to personal circumstances, we won't be able to offer fresh meat this month, but we have a limited selection of frozen available at our farm. We will be open for freezer browsing this Sunday 16th January, from 11am to 2pm. If you know for certain you will be coming and let us know via email (laurel@warkfarm.co.uk), then we can bake the right number of complimentary pies to treat you. As ever please get...

Posted by: Admin on: 2022-01-18 20:33:17 Read More

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• News From The Farm December 2021
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• 06-12-2021

Above picture: Our cows in snow and sunshine; Picture taken by Georgina Bain It's well embedded in language and culture that in this part of the earth we have four seasons and that they follow each other in a steady sort of progression. Being so settled a concept I assume that there is some reasonable factual and historical basis for it. The weather this year has however given us quite some reason to question a complacent notion...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-12-06 07:17:27 Read More

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• News From The Farm November 2021
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• 15-11-2021

The digger at work, making our new splashes Sometimes change goes gradual, unnoticeable, like seasons sliding one into another and before you know it's the next winter. And sometimes change happens fast, like last week when we drastically expanded our wetlands. Although the ideas and visualization of the change had been ripening for years in Laurel's mind, the implementation was done in slightly over a week. When you now drive...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-11-15 10:17:38 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm October 2021
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• 18-10-2021

‘What will it take to cause a greater shift to sustainable farming?' seems to be an increasingly regular question I'm getting asked at farmers markets and from a range of visitors to the farm. kIn answering this I find I often have my mouth open to reply before my brain is fully engaged. There is a dichotomy here; for myself I want to answer, well it's just so obvious it will naturally happen … and then the brain...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-10-18 14:12:36 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm September 21
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• 13-09-2021

Through this year I have been re-reading some of my natural history books as well as adding in a few that have been in my to-read pile for a while. History without the word Natural in front of it was never a huge draw for me, interesting enough in passing, but not nearly as absorbing as when a bird or a flower puts in an appearance. For preference lots of them, placed in a landscape. The spread of my reading this year though has taken me from the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-09-13 09:50:23 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm August 2021
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• 24-08-2021

Guest post by SaM Scotland's moody weather really comes through at the farm. Even the Belties regularly take their hiding in the shed instead of happily grazing on some tasty grass. Of course, in the event that we actually do need the cattle in the shed, chances are large that it's one of those days that they actually prefer remaining outside, in the dampy mist. Like a few days ago this week. It was one of those days that you already...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-08-24 16:10:36 Read More

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• News from Wark farm July 2021
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• 13-07-2021

It's Summer, so I feel this should be a happy newsletter. But today one of our cows and her calf are struggling, losing their battle to hold on to the thread of life. And I'm finding it difficult to be cheery. She's an older cow and a month ago, she somehow injured herself quite badly. The vet said there wasn't much we could do, wo we did the little we could do and then waited. Every day was a day she got closer to giving...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-07-13 12:22:03 Read More

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• News from The Farm June 2021
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• 14-06-2021

Some of the longer suffering readers of the Wark Farm monthly newsletters will have heard before that we started farming commercially here almost as a secondary interest to the management of land for wildlife But in a landscape like ours, farm animals play a large role in delivering the habitats that many species depend upon. So the farming and the wildlife go in tandem and while in my heart the wildlife leads, in my head the farming will share the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-06-14 10:36:28 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm May 2021
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• 07-05-2021

The hares certainly know the lie of our land better than we do. We're working our way through peak lambing at the farm this week. The ewes are in good shape, the lambs are coming out nicely sized and strong and the overall numbers are reasonable. No thanks are due to the weather though, the lashing tail of this late departing winter has left it's scars and the losses are as painful to bear as they are every year. The highs...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-05-07 13:29:45 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm April 2021
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• 12-04-2021

The hares certainly know the lie of our land better than we do. In the sky, on the plate, coo-ing from the tree outside my window ... I do like pigeons. In many and various ways I've always been drawn to them. I even had a stage in my life where I was rather obsessed with doocots, those structure used for the housing of domestic pigeons and I have kept such a breeding flock for meat production. Just for the moment though I was noticing...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-04-12 10:33:19 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm March 2021
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• 15-03-2021

Two years back, in the days we could gather, conservation friends advising on the best way to prepare lunch for curlew and other waders in our wetland area. The curlews are back, written with a smile on my face. It's a moment I anticipate every year, the first special one. Nearly always it is the call that tells me they are home, the first one or two flying past high up, journeying back from coastal winterings in the UK or further...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-03-15 13:12:27 Read More

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• February 2021 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 18-02-2021

Leading the sheep to their feed earlier in the month I have a self imposed rule of some years standing that I don't write about the weather in these monthly newsings. We'd never get to talking about much else if I didn't discipline myself. It's not an uncommon pastime, perhaps inevitably so living in a country where all the seasons often ping by us in a few short hours and the more so when a big chunk of our working...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-02-18 12:01:11 Read More

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• January 2021 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 13-01-2021

Tradition would have it that in a January newsletter we would wish you all a good New Year and take a look back to the year that's been and a look forward to the one to come. Well ... the Happy New Year is easily managed, sending All The Best to all in the Wark Farm community for 2021. We are incredibly grateful and happy to be connected to and supported by such a wonderful bunch of people; customers, suppliers, chefs, contractors, collaborators,...

Posted by: Admin on: 2021-01-13 12:08:10 Read More

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• News From Wark Farm December 2020
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• 07-12-2020

This is a guest post by SaM: Our land is slowly entering its winter sleep. Growth is slowing and colours are fading away. Trees are becoming silhouettes of skeletons, drawing mazes of lines against grey and cloudy skies. I grasp and try to savour each ray of sun, but the few hours of daylight seem to slip by way too fast. The Hebridean sheep and Belties benefit of their tick coats, but even they seem less bouncy, their furs a bit more down with...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-12-07 08:44:04 Read More

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• News form Wark Farm November 2020
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• 13-11-2020

This is a guest post by SaM: "Baling our straw was a salvage action this year. Because of the late time of the year, the straw lying on our fields was still wet and as spells of dry weather became increasingly rare, we felt our anxiety levels increase with each passing day. We urgently needed a few days of sunny, preferably windy days, to get our straw to airdry. Then the weather turned into our favor, but with the straw not being as dry as it...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-11-13 14:13:43 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm October 2020
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• 08-10-2020

This is a guest post by SaM: "Conservation isn't just about biodiversity, I've always wanted to see ‘bio abundance'." Laurel told me this midway a walk back up to the farm, as a whole bunch of birds flew out in front of us, weaving in and out the hedges lining the gravel path. She told me how much joy it brought her to not only encourage wildlife, but to also see visible success in raising wildlife population numbers...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-10-08 19:39:05 Read More

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• News from Wark Farm September 2020
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• 21-09-2020

I'm sitting outside writing this, on a warm September evening, with the robins singing of the shortening days. As a rarity there is a complete absence of wind and the soft air is speckled with insects. I'm looking across the farm to the Belties, cows and calves, grazing in the wild flower meadows, performing their seasonal task of eating down the summers growth now that flowers have passed and seeds have dropped. Over the top of the cows,...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-09-21 13:52:38 Read More

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• August 2020 at Wark Farm
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• 07-08-2020

This is a guest post by SaM: “The secret life of cows.” It's a book that was written by Rosamund Young, that was first published in 2003 and is now lying on the table next to my bed, waiting to be read. The book details how cows live, have family groups, friends and even their favourite humans. Among all of the cows we have at the farm, three of them are special to me. Deedee is a beautiful Dun, with big friendly eyes and...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-08-07 08:44:26 Read More

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• July 2020 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 10-07-2020

Sadly due to a bereavement in the family we're only sending out a brief email this month to let you know that the July order form is now updated and open for orders. Practical information on product and dates can be found on the form. Order link can be found below. Thank you as always for all your support. Laurel and Sabrina Link to order

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-07-10 14:16:39 Read More

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• June 2020 at Wark Farm
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• 01-06-2020

Guest post by Sam Last Wednesday we got up early, lanning to squeeze in some time to write this newsletter, right after bottle feeding our two orphaned lambs, hand feeding our bull to keep him ‘tame' and letting the chickens out. But then on our way in, we got distracted by a cow which had started to calf but seemed to be struggling. Now here's the thing: generally we try to let nature do her own thing, causing as little...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-06-01 18:41:37 Read More

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• May 2020 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 27-04-2020

As we continue to navigate these strange times, we are perhaps far enough into some new kind of way of being to be wondering whether there will be a return to the old normal or not. In our chatting and catching up with our community of fellow producers, chefs, retailers, cafes and customers over the last couple of weeks, amongst the human stress and the financial shock of the times, there is an expressed hope that perhaps some permanent good change...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-04-27 12:18:53 Read More

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• April at the Farm
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• 06-04-2020

While we continue to adapt to the new order of things, there is much comfort in the seasons continuous flow. The cold winds blowing across the hillside have done their best over the last couple of weeks to slow springs progress but happily it hasn't given up and there are now plenty signs that we have turned the corner from winter, despite the occasional snow shower still rushing past. Patches of mud mysteriously become more brown, as the surrounding...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-04-06 16:15:47 Read More

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• March 2020 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 12-03-2020

This is a guest post by S Marchal. The beauty of new life. Our Jessie became a new mum two weeks ago. Five cute little puppies, blind, squeaking and looking a little bit like chubby rats right now, but soon to become just as beautiful as their mum and dad. It wasn't an easy decision though to let our border collie breed. Puppies require care and training. And if they're to be working dogs, they require even more attention and time...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-03-12 13:23:12 Read More

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• February 20202 at the Farm
• Posted date:
• 10-02-2020

This is a guest post by S Marchal. I'm not from this country, but I've grown to love it like my own. hSo i can't help being slightly unsettled by the wave of unrest that is called the Brexit. But since i'm not from here and have no particular claims on any kind of political knowledge, i will make no statements, only voice some questions which raise to my mind. I wonder how a country tearing itself apart from...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-02-10 09:27:00 Read More

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• January 2020 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 13-01-2020

We're now taking December/Christmas orders. 2019 was quite some year at Wark Farm. It's not one I should like to refill and repeat but I'm certainly glad we did it. That we survived and in parts even thrived, is a testament to connection, to both place and to people. Thoughts about connection have rumbled around in my mind a couple of times recently. One, a quote from someone who had been in social work for many years and concluded...

Posted by: Admin on: 2020-01-13 11:25:57 Read More

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• December 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 26-11-2019

We're now taking December/Christmas orders. wAs everything is freshly cut, we try to accommodate everyone's requests, but cannot guarantee it. We will also treat your orders in order of reception, meaning the sooner you get your order in, the more likelihood there is that you will be able to get your full order. We have our regular range available of Belted Galloway Beef, Hebridean Lamb, Bresseoise Chicken and Bacons. Our festival...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-11-26 20:05:04 Read More

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• November 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-11-2019

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-11-08 14:33:33 Read More

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• October 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 14-10-2019

As time moves, Christmas is slowly coming closer and we're already starting first preparations on the Christmas rush, so this month you'll be able to already place orders for our Wark Farm geese and home cured Gammon. Delivery and pick up details for these will be shared in November. Then of course there are the usual monthly orders that can be sent out. This month we have our Belted Galoway beef, Hebridean Hogget (lamb between one...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-10-14 09:39:17 Read More

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• September 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 18-09-2019

We're standing in the seasons change, that juxtaposed space of early autumn where the swallows hunt low round the cows in the heavy morning light while the first of the wild geese skeins pass over head. The epitome of summer mixing with the essence of winter. Ever changing and ever connected to the the seasons, life at the farm; we have a guest post below on farming with the elements We apologise for lateness of this month email, we will be...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-09-18 20:29:23 Read More

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• August 2019 at Wark Farm
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• 09-08-2019

"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence" This quote, attributed to author and journalist Hal Borland might well have been written for an organic farmer. This organic farmer to be precise. In both its inspiration and application it's right on the money. As I write this in early August we are a few weeks away from a year having passed since the butchery and shop here were destroyed in a...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-08-09 17:36:03 Read More

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• July 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 15-07-2019

We're reaching peak summer growth here at the farm, it's looking very beautiful and productive; I hope you will enjoy the photo of one of our meadows below with a wild geranium centre stage along with Sabrina's exploration of the many benefits of having such diverse habitats here at the farm. If you would like to come and see the beauty we are open on Sunday 21st (10 until 3) for order collection and fridge browsing. We don't...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-07-15 12:34:12 Read More

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• June 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 07-06-2019

This is a guest post, by Sabrina M. Do you believe in the notion of terroir? Terroir, derived from the French word for land ‘terre', refers to the set of environmental factors that affect the crops growing in a certain place/region. Narrowly defined, it looks at how the soil, its richness, its acidness, its minerality, affect the crops. More broader, it's also about the climate, the surrounding nature, even the farming practices...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-06-07 14:03:50 Read More

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• May 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 09-05-2019

At the farm, new life has arrived. Cows are calving and sheep are lambing. Blossom and flowers bloom, touches of colours in a green landscape. And birds pick up their song, celebrating the lengthening of days. To our holiday guests staying in the Hayloft, coming from abroad but just as well local people seeking a peaceful getaway, it's an idyllic time to stay at the farm. Yet, behind the scenes, it's a pretty intensive period. Spring...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-05-09 14:52:52 Read More

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• April 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 17-04-2019

As in any other area of life, the language in common use in farming and food production changes and evolves over time. Partly this is driven by wider trends and exposure, partly by changes in the industry itself. Outside conventional farming, sustainable and organic have probably been amongst the commonest words used to describe an approach to production that seeks to work with natural systems rather than simply extract from them. Organic has a...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-04-17 11:08:16 Read More

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• March 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 07-03-2019

I've long been intrigued by the notion of terroir; the collection of physical and environmental factors from a specific location that influence how crops or animals grow and, ultimately, taste. It's a key component of the wine makers craft, product and story. Cheese has its share of terroir stories too. There are fewer examples in the world of meat products, where breed and farming system are generally more dominant in the contribution...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-03-07 21:34:53 Read More

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• February 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 07-02-2019

The normality of farm life, the normality that is an intimate ebb and flow connection to the land and animals, is perhaps not a very normal normal for most people. Living separate from the land is a more normal in industrialised societies. It's a good thing when the worlds collide and normal gets a makeover. It happens to me in cities. It happens when spending time on the farm ... "Two lambs were born the last...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-02-07 14:12:52 Read More

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• January 2019 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 15-01-2019

There is sustainability in our history and sometimes, a simple step backwards, a step back to a world full of artisan craft, can help us improve our world. Last week Wark Farm did a 6 hour road trip to the John Hunt factory in Bolton, a producer of pie pressing machines, established over 140 years ago and the makers of the simple pie press that has formed so many pie cases here over the last 15 years.  There wasn't a quick online ordering...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-01-15 10:30:36 Read More

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• December 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-01-2019

Drawing to a close a rather eventful year at the farm, our updated product form for December/Christmas is now available for browsing and ordering. 2018 has certainly been a year of change, only catalysed further by the fire here at the end of August. There have been several significant stepping stones in the business over the last 12 months, some planned, some less so, bringing us to a place where we look forward to 2019 with a lot of optimism and...

Posted by: Admin on: 2019-01-08 10:33:57 Read More

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• November 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 23-11-2018

And now, from someone completely different… I love this season. The yellows, red and orange colours outside seem to call out to us to bring their sense of coziness and warmth back into our own homes. Maybe through decorating our home with earthly colours, a branch or a winter flower here and there, maybe through poking up a fire or maybe through lighting up some candles. Or maybe simply through gathering those we love, around a dining table,...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-11-23 13:18:50 Read More

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• October 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 24-10-2018

Why DID the chicken cross the road? The joke chicken had had many and varied reasons, some of them even funny; I was thinking though of your more average, less humorous chicken. The answer I'm hoping for is: Because it can. Not quite in the sense that one (used in the most wide-ranging sense of the word) might set out to climb everest but not so far away either. Chickens, along with pigs, are amongst the most compromised of the farm animals...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-10-24 14:43:17 Read More

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• Wark Farm September 2018 Orders
• Posted date:
• 19-09-2018

As promised on Friday I'm writing a rare second email this month with details of product available for ordering and delivery this week. It was great to see so many customers over the weekend at Banchory Farmers Market on Saturday and at Deeside Local Food Festival on Sunday; lots of great chat, tastings and food and farming talk - thanks as ever for being such an engaging and supportive community. We are making good progress with the tidy...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-09-19 12:30:00 Read More

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• September 2018 at Wark Farm
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• 14-09-2018

As some of you will be aware we had a serious fire here at the farm two weeks ago and the butchery, shop and chill room were all destroyed. Thankfully no one and no animals were hurt and the damage, while extensive, is limited to property. Through the support of many kind friends and customers we are continuing to trade and have plans well in had for setting up a temporary butchery at the farm in another of our existing food preparation areas while...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-09-14 14:37:54 Read More

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• Organic Your September
• Posted date:
• 26-08-2018

As part of Organic September Wark Farm are holding a farm walk, talk and food tasting to explore the farm and our products. You'll be able to come for a short, suitable for all ages walk, around the farm, learn about our animals, wildlife and farming and taste a range of our high quality meats cooked in different ways.

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-08-26 14:54:26 Read More

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• August 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 10-08-2018

I'm not a great one for sound bites and memes, occasionally, kind-hearted but mistaken people point out that I have a habit of sounding like one. I have a preference for depth and breadth of information on my chosen subjects, which is just as well considering the complexity of the natural, agricultural, ethical and economic systems we interact with here. While we spend most of our days focussing on these details, it is very necessary to lift...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-08-10 16:37:50 Read More

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• July 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 17-07-2018

During my years here my preferred way of sharing what we do has always been to put the land first, as far as possible letting the farm and our products tell their own story, restricting my role to nudging the information in the right direction. For myself I'm at my happiest pottering quietly away, spending time amongst the animals, immersing myself in the ecology of the place and keeping up my life-long habit of mud-larking. Over the past few...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-07-17 09:34:05 Read More

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• June 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 14-06-2018

I've written before about the challenges of trying to plan ahead in our farming system in the face of what appears to be a more erratic and extreme climate. I'm definitely getting older, though perhaps without the years of Methuselah my perspective is still too short to judge, but unpredictability does appears to be the new normal for now. Immediately after a long drawn out and gruelling wet winter we have now had one of our driest sunniest...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-06-14 10:36:13 Read More

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• May 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 14-05-2018

I like being an organic farmer. It suits my brain. I would so much rather think about how a plant interacts with the soil while it competes with it's neighbours before it gets eaten by a herbivore and moves to Plan B, than calibrate a sprayer and measure out the right amount of a herbicide to make the plant move to Plan B. There is a little more to being an organic farmer though than enjoying being a sculptor rather than an engineer. A lot...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-05-14 13:00:05 Read More

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• April 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 14-05-2018

I don't mean to tease. I do have an interesting email written with news and views on the world of farming and food, but this month there is housekeeping to be done. Back to blogging & babbling next month. For now, and being all organised, we have a few little jobs to do if you'll bear with me: 1. Along with all other businesses who hold customer data, we are required to update our records and systems to comply with the new data...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-05-14 12:54:33 Read More

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• March 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-03-2018

One of the main reasonsI gave up a perfectly sensible day job and career to farm at Wark was to have the freedom to experiment and try out new ideas for land management, particularly in farmland wildlife conservation. As a wildlife and countryside enthusiast ... re-phrase that, obsessive ... since my youngest years, huge amounts of my time and brain energy for over four decades has been spent in messing around in, participating in, reading and thinking...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-03-08 08:58:58 Read More

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• February 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 15-02-2018

A change is as good as a rest… well, anyway ... some changes this month. We have revised the order form to make it, hopefully, easier to browse products and prices before you place an order. It's also more obvious how to specify what you would like. This makes it a little more restrictive if you liked to write a poem about the piece of meat you wanted, but is less confusing and easier for us to collate and manage stock. But there is...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-02-15 12:41:02 Read More

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• January 2018 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 16-01-2018

Off we go again into a new year. Not that the first of January marks a particular change in the farm and food production year, there are far more significant dates in the biological calendar. As a business though it is marking a few changes in how we do things and it seems as good a time as any to share a few of these with you. Firstly, a huge thank you to all of you who stuck with us, kept buying, eating and supporting the farm through what was the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2018-01-16 13:38:39 Read More

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• December 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

At the risk of making myself feel old, I've had my radar switched on to the happenings in the world of small food producers, retailers and restaurants in the north east for quite a few years now. There have been a fair few comings and goings over that time, some of those that were well established when I started direct selling are still going strong. Some early pioneers have gone, through retirement or trading difficulties. A clutch of small...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:52:26 Read More

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• November 2017 at Wark Farm
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• 08-12-2017

Right now, in amongst a whole raft of things which are all about planning, developing the business and the future, it's happily anomalous that my interest in the very basics, the soils that underpin all this enterprise, is stronger now than it's ever been over the 14 years I've been wandering about this place. Through the various evolutions and revolutions the farm has been through of course much thought has been given to the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:49:20 Read More

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• October 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

So, there I was.A rather shy child, obsessed with animals, the natural world, keeping slugs as pets (amongst a huge menagerie of other beings) and filling my wellies with water in any burn I could get access to guddle in. When not messing around in the country I was consuming books on the topic and announcing, at the age of five, that I was going to be a farmer. Two things back then I would certainly not have predicted were (and William Hill would...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:46:51 Read More

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• September 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

It's reached that time in the month againwhere I say sorry for sending the regular email a bit late. Sorry. By way of redress I can offer you some seasonal partridge this month, apologies they're not free or anything but they are rather lovely. Not quite as exquisite as the grey partridge perhaps, these are red legged partridge, but still one of my favourite game birds. We have them available as oven ready birds, packs of 4 skinless...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:45:42 Read More

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• August 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

There's a fine line between sense and gut led passionin developing a business like Wark Farm. A mixture of idealism, vision, practicalities and reality checks. When going counter to the general trend in agriculture of course you want to be the part of shape of things to come, rather than the one steaming off in the opposite direction. There is of course no knowing on which path we are on. Food is a global business and as supply, demand, protectionism...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:44:26 Read More

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• July 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

Taking my cue from a globe that seems to be keen on change i and the absence of a normal, and isn't quite sure what the new normal is, if there ever actually was one, and being, personally speaking, generally quite happy for there to be no normal, we were selling at Banchory market yesterday and are doing the July open days this week. IAfter an absence for a while, we have the return of venison on the list this month, local red deer, the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:42:30 Read More

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• June 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

Welcome to this official, totally apolitical, sadly no party, broadcast from Wark Farm. Enough already. We are offering Open Day Light this month, and no I didn't say your bum was big in that. Sadly, and frustratingly, I have been in hospital for chunk of time since the May open days. Team Wark Farm have done a grand job keeping the fields afloat and the animals fed but I am under orders to ease myself gently back to work. Being naturally...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:41:15 Read More

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• May 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

I discovered recently that the origin of the word bucolic is cowherd, when traced back to the Greek. And so through pastoral (the grazing of animals), via reference to the countryside in more general terms, to the use I most associate it with, being a romanticised, serene view of the countryside. Knowing its origins puts a much needed dash of earthiness for me into an otherwise rather disingenuous look at my world. There's far too much drama...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:39:30 Read More

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• April 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

Counting down to lift off Wark Farm, we are ten days away from the ‘official' start of lambing this year. It's been an easy run through winter and up to this point. We altered our grazing management last year to leaving grass ungrazed in the autumn for so that there is fresh grass for the ewes now, a plan which has certainly benefited from the lovely spring days we've had. All being well it should mean that we won't...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:38:15 Read More

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• March 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

We have now had our full compliment of feathered signs of spring at the farm. It's supposed to be swallows that welcome in the summer and they will be a while yet but for us the seasonal progression of wading birds, all with their distinctive and beautiful calls are so very characteristic of this piece of country as the days lengthen. Following it's usual pattern the snipe numbers are reducing in the wetland as the migratory birds...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:36:37 Read More

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• February 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

Long time customers of Wark Farm will know that the farm has been through a few incarnations over the years (they will also know that sometimes I'm very late with my monthly email, like this one, sorry!). The business was originally built up on a relatively large organic pig herd meeting a gap in the market in the area for good quality pork and we produced a wide range of fresh, cooked and cured pork products. A few years ago we stopped...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 11:28:32 Read More

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• January 2017 at Wark Farm
• Posted date:
• 08-12-2017

I was given a book for Christmas this year called the Ethical Carnivore: My Year Killing to Eat. Coals to Newcastle perhaps for this particular farmer & butcher but in it the author explores the origins of the meat in our diets and hands on is involved in killing a number of the animals she goes on to eat. An admirable project, but you'll have to wait for the book review as I've not made it far into the text yet. I know that the...

Posted by: Admin on: 2017-12-08 10:45:08 Read More