January

January, a new month, a new year, a new start! Well ,well ,what a treat to have a cold couple of weeks .We’ve had some beautiful frosty mornings with blue sky and the trees standing proud in their white sparkling ermine whilst the brightly coloured cock pheasants jauntily strut their stuff through the crisp, white, frozen grass.

So a proper winter at last ,and isn’t  it about time I hear you say and  you would be right, unless you happened to be one of the hundreds of wild ducks and geese that turn up every morning at one of our lakes where they normally feed , only to find it frozen solid.This year we‘ve had loads of  different species of duck turning up to feed, I’ve seen Mallard , Pochard , Shoveller , Teal , Widgeon and Mandarin along with large numbers of Canadian geese and last but not least five Mute Swans which always seem to me to be rather aloof, the most regal of all birds. Actually they all tend to stick together in groups depending on species, depicting different squads of army soldiers marching on the parade ground!

I never tire of wandering down to the ponds when I can grab a few minutes to myself, and watching the birds coming and going, and if there is one thing I can guarantee it’s that I will always see something special or different. Fantastic.

For example, it‘s  a very odd site to see, wild fowl waddling around on the ice rather than the normal sight of them half immersed and swimming . For the geese and the swans the taking off seems easier than the landings. These very large birds look almost cumbersome as they lift off, but they always manage to get over or through trees at the edge of the lake. It’s landing on the ice that is the tricky bit, as they return and descend over the woods like Lancaster bombers returning from a bombing raid, down goes the landing gear and no matter that they can often look a little ungainly; they still do a much better job of skating than Todd Carty!

The bad news this month is that some horrible person (polite version) thought that they would relieve me of all my stored straw and hay by torching my straw barn. See the photo below. What sort of Neanderthal gets a kick out of doing this, I wonder? Actually I know the answer to this question, they’re probably the same type that burn cars out and fly tips on my land. I’d better stop on this subject as I may rant on for ages and you will lose interest and we can’t have that!

On a more positive note the oilseed rape that we have in the ground for this year’s harvest is looking very well (even with the snow all over it ) and we have had the third batch of our Rapeseed Mayonnaise’s and dressings arrive here at the farm. Perhaps the most exciting development this month, is that we have started pressing the sunflower seeds that we harvested in October and the first order will be going out in the next week or so. Everybody who saw them growing through the spring & summer has been waiting for the day when they could taste the end result and I am pleased to say that the wait has been well worth it. For me, the completion of our first “Sunflower Cycle” is exactly what the whole farming ideal is all about. Until next month then Keeeeeeeeep Eating Fussel’s.