The next generation

What makes the job even more special is sharing it with our little ones, Lee and Kirsty have a little boy, George, who is a very similar age to our Jake. They are both two this month and just love farming, they will sit on a tractor for hours with their Daddy's just taking  it all in. They especially love it when they can get involved when they can get hands on...

 Here they are feeding the bulls, George is on the left and Jake is underneath. We have to now keep a close eye on Jake as one Sunday afternoon he took himself from the farmhouse to feed the bulls by himself, I believe his father (Norfolk Farmer) did a similar thing involving irrigators!!!!!!
They are very different little boys in lots of ways but both seem to share a love of the outdoors, tractors, animals and muddy puddles!! They are getting to be quite good friends, I often catch Jake talking on the phone (his baby monitor) to George , it must be private because he usually takes himself off to another room, its lovely to see them enjoying farm life and growing together.

It is not just the boys who love being in the tractor, so do the dogs, not least our new charge, Meg. Here she is farming with Lee, as long as she is with someone she is quite happy, she is as dopey as they come:

All in all farm life is really good at the moment and we are very much looking forward to the future!!!

Show update!

After a hectic couple of days the show is over and I am very pleased to say that the Bawsey St James heifers did very well. Orla, pictured with Norfolk Farmer on the right got 1st in her class and reserve show champion!!! Another heifer, Colleen,  got 2nd in her class, a brilliant result for our first show.
A valuable experience was had by all, not least by us, Lee and Will have discussed and decided what will be done differently in the future, their place at the Royal Norfolk Show was confirmed this week which is very, very exciting!!!!
The boys are very passionate about breeding their cows, both Red Poll and Short horns, its great to watch them working so hard and enjoying it all the way!
Watch this space...........................................................................................................................................

Show time...

Tomorrow is a big day, four Bawsey St James heifers are making their debut in Norwich at the Red Poll show and sale and Norfolk Farmer aka Will is very excited!

This is Lee, Will's new business partner, sporting the sign used on Will's Land Rover Defender at the most recent show Church Farm Land Rovers have been to. Bwagon (the red Land Rover in the background of the cow picture), as Will calls it was used to demonstrate how hardy Land Rovers really are!
Back to showing, Lee has a lot of experience in showing cattle and so him and Will have been working very hard training up the chosen cows to get them halter ready for tomorrow. This is a picture of Orla, one of the chosen heifers, taking while in training.

So fingers crossed tomorrow goes well, I am going along to show support and take some pictures so I can update you next week.

We're back!!!

So ALOT has changed here at Church Farm since our last post in July, the biggest change is the new addition to our family. We had a beautiful baby girl in February, the pregnancy is mostly to blame for my absence, it was not a smooth ride but absolutely worth it, she is gorgeous!

Baby girl is not the only new addition to our family, we also added a somewhat mad Border Collie, 'Meg' to our pack. She is a 4yr old working sheep dog, she is fitting in very well and love, love, loves to work!

On the work side Norfolk Farmer has been extremely busy, finishing the hay making season, calving, lambing, taking on new grazing and most excitingly of all meeting a new friend and business partner. The two of them have big plans, which we will be blogging about as it all starts to come together.  Church Farm Agricultural and Livestock contracting is coming first! They offer hay silage, straw baling, livestock livery, foot trimming, A.I, crush hire and livestock fencing.

More hay and rain!

Since the last post Dad and I have been very busy boys! We cut 35ac of grass on Monday looking at a good five days of sunny dry weather.

When I got to the field with Josh there was a bit of Ragwort pulling to do, to say the least! This yellow peril is a noxious weed that causes liver damage when eaten, it is un-palatable when the cattle are grazing but when dried in hay becomes palatable. As we don't chop the bales the cattle can pick it out of the hay when a plant sneaks through but this is best to be avoided!

Four hours of pulling later I made a start with the mowing and then followed in the next day with the tedder and threw it out. All seemed good and then the weather shifted, instead of the lovely sunny days we had chilly overcast grey days and no dry what so ever. On Thursday we decided to row the grass up to allow the ground to dry in between the gongs. To row up I have used my 6m lotus combi which leaves two 3m gongs on the field. This is a quick way of rowing the field up but it leaves alot of rows still on the field. Dad has borrowed a second hand rake from BW Mack, a side discharge 3m one.

This means that if I row up with the Lotus and he follows with his side discharge we have a gong every 9m making for drier ground, and with the sunshine on Friday we went for it!

With a gong every 9m instead of 3m I only had to drive up the field in my baler 33% fewer times saving fuel and time. So Dad in front with his rake and me behind we made ourselves 60 round bales of hay in a few hours and it was a good job done as we've had a good inch of rain since!! I forgot my camera so got my little sister to take some for a different perspective, see more of her work here

Hay we go again!

The hay cutting season has begun at Church Farm. To get the ball rolling we started with some lighter crops around the farm yard and although they yielded less than usual it was a good opportunity to get the kit up and running before the main crop.

With the dry spring we had this year it appears that the hay crop this year is going to coincide with the cereal harvest, usally i get the hay done before, so work load is going to be near maximum. To try and spread the workload Dad has been out with his John Deere 3720 punching above his weight. Much to my surprise he has managed to work the tedder, windrower combination on the field, although i have to take it there for him! 

The  hay was made and baled into small round bales for the horsey market. Once made again Dad was off to round them up.

Mum, Jacob and I were out for a walk on the farm and thought we would greet Dad on the field as he got back. Only a year old and Jake already gets excited when he sees a tractor, even more so when he sees Grandad!

It looks like we are going to have a busy summer!

By eck were in Farmers Weekly!

Hello if you've found us from Farmers weekly, your very welcome!!

I was performing my usual scan of FW after work (i do read it cover to cover on my throne) when i came across a list of blogs including little old us!!

What was a real treat was to get a mention for my photography. Now time for a bit of honesty, I do take the odd photo and with the invention of digital cameras (being able to take thousands)the odd one is bound to be good. However there are two members of my family who are SUPER talented with a camera, the first is my little sister Tori who shows her pics on her blog.

The next is Dad. He has spent many hours around the farm and other areas of Norfolk taking pictures of wildlife in its natural environment. He is truely a master and I find nothing more exciting than going trough his pics after he has been out and about.

This is the picture that started it all, after months of trying he got the picture of the barn owl that he was pleased with, it really was months and a lot of nearlys!!

This is dads favourite,  a really tricky shot to get, focusing the camera in with a Shell Duck coming into to land.

And this is my favourite, just the fact that its a Yellow wagtail that i have never seen before but the fact that it is flying over rape in flower, love it!

I think you'll agree that there pretty special and with a bit of luck he will be out with his camera again soon.