Wark Farm

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 and two years of age) and our home grown Chickens available. Back bacon and streaky bacon are back on the menu as well. There are also our frozen home made delicious pies, but these are collect only (either on the farm or at the market).

We will be delivering this month on Friday 18th (Deeside, Donside & Aberdeen) and for collection from Banchory Farmers Market on Saturday (20th). You can also come collect from the farm and/or do some fridge browsing on Sunday (21th, 11am until 2pm). The link to order through to the update form is below.

Guest post by SaM:

As farmers we live at the mercy of nature. Too dry, too wet, too harsh, too soft weathers, they all affect our harvests, our lands, the feed of our cattle,…. Within continuous changing circumstances, we navigate carefully, building up spares in better times for the more problematic times. Because problematic times will always come. That is the nature of nature. Just like captains of the sea need to be able to ride the storms, farmers need to be able to ride climatic change as well. Or else we will drown.

Guest post by SaM:

Autumn has arrived at the farm and while Scotland's weather is always very fickle minded, it is even more so now. Some people may curse and swear at it, and sure, there are days that hearing and seeing the pouring rain outside from early morning on, makes me want to dive straight back under my warm duvets, but overall, I love this season.  There are a number of obvious reasons. There's the light and the crispness outside. Maybe it's how the rain keeps the air clean, or the angle of a lower sun, but somehow everything looks more vibrant, despite a more subdued colour palette compared to spring and summer.  It's a less obvious beauty compared to its sister seasons, one that requires standing still for a moment and soaking up the variations in the landscape: the brown wild grasses, the sharp contrast of the bright yellow of our just harvested barley fields, the patches of wetlands downhill with our cattle grazing between the ponds, trees thinning out with birds fluttering between them,  an occasional leaping dear close to our woods.

But apart from its beauty, there are other reasons as well to love Autumn. Autumn is that short moment of looking at our shed, well stocked with rolls of hay, and sensing a deep satisfaction of being prepared for the winter to come. Autumn is going through the animals, sorting them, setting straight any issues and getting them well prepared as well. It's a moment of reflection for the organic farmer, a check point in time and if well done, it's that sense of being ready for the possible battle that winter will bring. Autumn is nature's last stretching out before it curls back into itself.

At the farm, the animals look well poised for winter to come. Calves and lambs look well fed, the well managed grounds are still richly covered with grasses and herbs and the wild birds are enjoying reeds and bushes and spots of untamed wilderness. At the same time, inside life is reorganising itself as well, with the rebuild of the butchery finally being finalised and our new pie making space also taking shape.

Life at a farm isn't always easy. It often also means sacrifices. We could look at Autumn and see moments of getting soaked in the rain when once again we need to venture outside to give an older cow an extra feed, moments of frustration after having gotten up extra early to bake pies for a market where bad weather keeps the crowds away, or moments of  despair when ploughing away in the mud to once again chase back an escaped sheep, but it is a choice what we give the most weight to. There will be all of the mentioned moments, but at the end of the day, or sometimes the end of the week, we'll remember the moments of happiness, the moments of satisfaction. We'll remember what Autumn gave back to us, not what it took. And that's the extra fuel, our own mental preparation, to go into Winter.