Late flush of grass and happy birthday!

As I write, the sun is streaming in and warming our office. The only clue that it is not high summer is the crimson leaves against the blue sky and the apples which have already fallen and providing tasty morsels for the song birds. The dew on the grass too is always a sign of autumn but this glorious sunshine is wonderful. All of the sheep are enjoying it too, the ewes who will lamb in January are busy putting energy into the lambs growing inside them and the ewes who will lamb in March are being 'flushed' before we put the rams in with them in a couple of weeks. Flushing simply means putting them on our best grass so they are in tip top condition for meeting with their husbands and shedding enough eggs to maximise the chances of them getting pregnant.

It is a great time of year, as it is the beginning of the sheep cycle once again and it already makes us think of getting the lambing sheds ready for the ewes to come in and making them cosy on the straw and watching their tummies grow and waiting expectantly for that new life to appear.

Next week, we will have been here in Little Wittenham for two years. An amazing journey it has been, full of highs and lows but we are loving it and can't wait for this coming year to find out what it has in store for us! One significant change will be seeing Molly toddling around the lambing sheds. She was so small this year but she will be fully alert and interactive this time!

We are already taking bookings for people signing up to be 'shepherds for the day' which we are looking forward to. So please let us know if you are interested, particularly during lambing time as that is when we are most busy.

We are doing 3 new markets in Reading, so please come and visit us or let us know if you would like to order any lamb, we have some delicious cuts now available.

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

Tupping time

147 days until the beginning of January . . . time to put the rams in with our January lambing flock of sheep so we will have yummy lamb ready for Easter. This year we have worked with our vet Adelle, to try and get all the ewes into season all at the same time. This means that the rams are VERY busy for 24hours and lambing is very intense over a few days, but will not go on for weeks. Another advantage is that we are around 24/7 to help, if they need it. Watch and listen to the video above.

More to follow

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

Buzzing wildflower meadows

Recently the wildflower meadows have been absolutely covered with honey bees and other pollinators and insects, which is brilliant for the birds along with the seed heads. The photos above were kindly taken and sent to us by Steve and Viv Moll who have their bee hives adjacent to the meadows and produce delicous honey see www.brightwellbees.co.uk The photos are honeybees on Cranesbill, Field scabious, Knapweed and Spear thistle.

Talking of buzzing insects, Roly stumbled upon two wasps nest whilst out checking the sheep last week, resulting in 8 stings, ouch, as well as shutting his finger in the truck door whilst trying to escape!

More soon

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

More ram power

Roly has just got home having been to buy a new Charolais ram for our flock. We are going to call him 'Ted' and he thinks he is the bees knees!

He is spending the next few weeks in the orchard until it is time to meet his lady's in three weeks time. He joins a team of 8 rams (5 Texel, 1 Charolais, 1 Hartline, 1 Lleyn), where he will be replacing Harvey our other Charolais ram who is getting a bit of an old boy.

We will keep you posted on his time with us.

From Camilla, Roly, Molly, Belle and Boris

New team member!

Something really exciting has happened today . . . we have bought a tractor, a 100hp John Deere 6400 with a loader to pick up hay and straw bales to feed the sheep in the winter, plus loads of other jobs that we haven't told the tractor yet!

We purchased the tractor from farming friends in Gloucestershire, Penelope Bossom and Jake Freestone at Overbury Farms. We drove over in the car and Roly drove it back, 18.5mph = 3hours 15 minutes!

We need a name for the tractors so suggestions please!

Bye for now
Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

Field trip to Norfolk

As hard as it is to leave the farm it is so important, not only to have a break, but also to see our friends, learn from other farmers and get new ideas.

We have just returned from a weekend to Norfolk, where we visited Tom Goucher an old college friend of Roly's, they both went to Harper Adams Agricultural College. Tom farms with his parents and brother, and like us are tenant farmers, but their produce is very different and varied - wheat, barley, rye, suger beet, potatoes, onions, carrots (photo below) and parsley, which we were lucky enough to see being harvested (video below).

From Tom's we went on to see Nick and Susie Emmett, and their dog Moss (photo below). Nick is our shepherd mentor, and Roly is always on the phone to him! Susie is a partner of Green Shoots Productions, Susie, amongst other things, has helped and inspired hundreds of farmers across the world to host farm visits. It was great to catch up and we always learn so much from Nick and Susie, with Nick planting a few ideas in Rolys head . . . this time 'out door lambing'. We lamb our flock indoors, which although is nice for us when it is raining, there are many disadvantages, so, much research to be done and we will report back!

Bye for now

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle

Mowing grass for hay . . . quickly!

There was a lot of noise on the farm this week....we have weaned some of the lambs from their mummies! The noise was definitely coming from the ewes rather than the lambs, which was surprising I always think that the ewes would be pretty relieved to have a bit of a break by now. The sheep calendar is amazing as we are already thinking of getting the ewes ready to receive the rams in about 2 months time. The ewes need to be 'dried off' which means they stop producing milk and all the energy they are consuming from the grass is going directly into their condition.

Other news is that all our hay is in! We have been so blessed with the weather, we needed 5 days of dry and we eventually got it last week. Stuart our contractor came one evening and mowed all the fields in about 4 hours it was incredible, see the video footage. Molly and I were watching and the speed the tractor went was amazing! Molly was transfixed and didn't seem to bat an eyelid as the big noisy tractor approached! Stuart came back and tedded (turned the cut grass to maximise dryness) and then baled and then Roly spent all of Monday loading up the trailer and bringing the bales in, very satisfying.

The rams had their 'MOT' this week - we look at their feet, check their teeth and generally have a good going over to make sure their condition is good, and everything is in working order. We will need to change at least two of our rams, the Lleyn and maybe one of the Texels, to ensure that they are not put with any of their daughters as we keep all our own replacements (ewe lambs which we will breed from next year).

Molly is almost 6 months old, we can hardly believe it! She was christened on Sunday which was very special and true to form clashed with a major farming event...haymaking...but as I've already mentioned, we were lucky with the weather which meant Roly could have the day off.

Our other news is that we are now on Twitter@camillaandroly! So take a look at follow us and we'll let you know about our latest lamb offers and up to the minute news from the farm.

More soon!

Camilla, Roly, Molly, Boris and Belle