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.

Summer apprentice!

Its a bit like living back in my family home at the moment, Norfolk Farmer's new summer apprentice just happens to be my baby brother. He turns up at 8 every morning to a cup of coffee waiting for him (he is a 21 year old student so does often turn up looking a bit blurry eyed and tired) and comes in for lunch and after work, am seeing a lot of him, which is lovely actually!

Anyway Norfolk Farmer has taken him on to help with fencing around the farm and other day to day jobs that need doing. He has only been here for about a week and half and been learning fast, including driving a tractor:

Farmerwill now! This is Josh on Norfolkfarmers Dads tractor, A John Deere 3720 with a 1.2m flail mower on the back. Dad has taken a fair bit of ribbing for his taste in small tractors from the family but it is truely a very useful bit of kit. Its got a hydrostatic gearbox which makes it extreamly easy to drive, basicley a forward pedal and a backwards pedal! Josh got on particulary well with this tractor as, in his own words, "its just like a lawn mower!".

The meat boxes are selling and there are some happy customers already. Get in touch if you want to try some meat from truly happy cows!!

Launching Church Farm Meat Boxes ...

This is the logo for our new venture, we are now selling our own meat, beef boxes are available now and lamb boxes soon!!!

I will let the text from our leaflet do the talking:

Church Farm is a small family run business just outside Kings Lynn, rearing Red Poll cattle and Wiltshire Horn sheep. A large portion of the farm has been reverted to it its natural state of wetlands and wild flower meadows to encourage the flora and fauna of Norfolk.
Both the Red Poll herd and Wiltshire Horn flock are native breeds which makes them perfectly suited to grazing the 600 acres of extensive meadows. The animals enjoy and outdoors, free-range lifestyle, with all lambing and calving taking place outside in the fields come rain or shine.

At Church Farm we rear the animals as naturally as possible, while using modern farming methods to ensure that all our stock are healthy and happy. We allow the cattle to grow at their own pace without using any concentrates or growth hormones. They are free to eat extensively on our meadows which provide the cattle with a number of natural herbs to ensure a distinctive and delicious flavour. In addition to the meats wonderful colour and flavour it is also high in omega 3 and other beneficial fatty acids. The Wiltshire Horns produce a darker fleshed lamb that is lean, tender and beautifully delicious!

Beef Boxes

Taster Box 4-6kg @ £11.00 per kilo

Standard Box 9-12kg @ £10.50 per kilo

Large Box 18 -22kg @ £9.95 per kilo

All boxes will contain a mixture of vacuum packed steaks, quick and slow roasting joints and mince.

Lamb Boxes

Quarter Lamb 4-6kg @ £8.00 per kilo

Half Lamb 9-12kg @ £7.75 per kilo

Whole Lamb 18-23kg @ £7.25 per kilo

All boxes contain a selection of vacuum packed roasting jointing, chops and mince.
Please do not hesitate to contact us regarding any of the above boxes we are happy to cater for any individual needs.

Payment can be taken for most cards, or cold hard cash on collection!

Please call to place an order:
07938 568099

Sheep shearing and catch up!

So all the family has been returned and life has returned to something like normality. We had a cracking bank holiday with Jacobs first birthday party with 50 guests and there kids. The idea was to enjoy the garden, spread out and enjoy the dry weather, if anything was going to make it rain it would have been that! At long last the heavens opened and we had approximately 15ml of rain, the first measurable fall since February and has reduced my panic over winter feed just ever so slightly.

So work wise I have been off on a course to learn how to shear sheep. We met at a farm out in the fens, easy to find as it was the only one with sheep! With a group of 12 of us milling around we all signed our health and safety forms and awaited our instructions. Our teachers for the day were Ed and Andy both very experienced shearers (but typically understated) and they split us into groups of 2 by skill level. I was horrified that only myself and a very small lady indentified ourselves as beginners and all the others got out there own kit!! bloody hell this was going to be a long day! We all lined up against Ed's shearing kit and Andy pulled out a shearling Lleyn and performed what can only be described as a choreographed dance with a sheep and clippers as the wool seemed to fall of in a graceful arc. He then did a second shearling showing us each seperate stage of the process and I thought to my self that i could do that. It soon became very clear that i couldn't. It was so difficult, it turns out that sheep are very attached to there wool and not over keen to have a rank amature nicking there skin while trying to hack the wool of there back. 20 minutes later and utterly drenched with sweat a shabby looking sheep limped off back to the field and the farmer turned to me saying "don't worry there's only 2 weeks difference between a bad haircut and a good one!" well at least he had a sense of humour and he needed it looking at the sheep leaving his shed! If i was having troubles it was nothing compared to my shearing partner, when we moved on to the mule ewes they were about the same size as her and God love her she got them sheared but they took a bloody long time!!

The course lasted two days and by the end of it I pretty much knew what i was doing and felt ready to shear my own sheep.

Fortunately most of my flock are Wiltshire Horns and shed there wool

but i have 10 suffolks crosses and 2 jacobs that need shearing, i got the shears, no excuse!

So heres one of my suffolks all done

Its got to be said that i now have so much respect for professional shearers who make a living out of shearing doing 35 - 40 sheep an hour. I did eleven in one afternoon and I was f*%ked!!