By the Barn - March

Each month, we bring you a snippet of country life by Angela Sargent of Baldfields Farm. Angela sends us much more than we can possibly include in the magazine, so we are make her full articles available to read in their entirety online.

Now it’s March and Spring is just around the corner, we’re hurrying to finish planting up the gaps in our newly-laid hedges, before the sap starts rising. We plant four ‘quicks’ (Hawthorn) to the metre and also mix them up with other species to ensure a rich diversity of plants and , consequently, birds and insects in the hedge.

In early March, we count and measure up the gaps and calculate how many plants are needed (incorporating some spares) and then place an order with the company who supplies us. We also order canes to support them and guards to protect them and this can add up to quite a bit, depending on whether or not the original hedge was in good condition or not.

This tends to be my department as hubby is usually busy getting the fields ready to be sown as soon as the ground is warm enough with the spring oats, barley and beans that make up our livestock ration. This means getting any fertilizer, whether in the form of farmyard manure or artificial to the fields in question and spread. 

This is the job for the muckspreader- resembling a tank on wheels, it can have chains and flails which turn round at a high velocity and throw the muck out, over the area you want covering. For artificial fertilizer, it is the job of a vari-spreader (in the shape of a cone or box, with a hole at the bottom and a nozzle that goes from side to side again at high speed). Of course there are basic models of these items and then the more high-tech/larger variations for larger acrerages, but they all need to be regularly maintained and calibrated and noted in the records along with quantities of fertilizer used (in our house, it’s known as the b******t book).

With the cold snowy weather we’ve had recently, we’ve seen lots of birds in our yards, after the corn and the Buzzards have been sitting on the telegraph poles, looking for prey.  Some guests rang me just after they’d left us, to say they had come across two fighting Buzzards on the drive and one had seemed to be quite seriously injured. That is nature- red in tooth and claw. 

We have also noticed three ravens around on occasion- we had heard they were in the area, but hadn’t seen any until now- a very distinctive sound. 

Lots of  grey squirrels are scampering across the fences and branches and their numbers seem to have increased dramatically over the last few years. These were first introduced in the late eighteen hundreds from Canada and are bigger than our native Red Squirrel, which now survives in small areas only. The Hawk man had an incident recently, when his Harris hawk went after a squirrel, presumably in or near its drey and the hawk was injured quite badly with bites to its legs and feet. 

As well as count down to Spring, it’s also countdown to the Olympics and good news for British farming. It has been decided (with lots of lobbying from the NFU) that all food consumed at the sporting venues is to be to Red Tractor, lion mark or fair-trade standard as minimum. This means 17million meals at 31 competition venues and 200,000 base customers (not including visitors) will be supplied by farmers in this country, where possible. This is definitely something to be proud of!

Angela Sargent,  www.baldfields-farm.co.uk

And now join me on twitter @bythebarn for all things farming!

By The Barn - February

February, the shortest month of the year and when we notice the days getting longer (and the cold getting stronger!).

Well into lambing now, we are tired and looking forward to a short break  in the lambing cycle-a result of when we removed the tups from the flock for a week or two, back in the autumn. It means we can catch up with our sleep and other jobs that need doing, such as finishing laying hedges, repairing fences, muck spreading etc.

As we walk across to where we are working, our old, permanent pasture fields show little grass, but lots of mosses and lichens.

These are primitive plants and the same as you find in your lawns. Small, green and flowerless, they use spores, blown on the wind to colonize. There are approximately 600 species of moss in this country.

ichen is a combination of two plants- a fungus and an alga and is rootless. It is sensitive to pollution and usually is seen on the wetter, darker sides of branches, stones etc.

We can also see the new bird boxes, which have been put up by some Scouts for their Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. These are easily seen at the moment, as there are no leaves obscuring them from view, but as the Spring comes we wont be able to spot them or their inhabitants so easily with the leaf cover. There are owl boxes, blue tit, sparrowhawk and Bat boxes, all put in places where the different species prefer to nest.

Considering the strong winds we had recently, they have held up well. The Scouts will come regularly to monitor any activity in them and well done to them putting them up, as some required climbing tackle to get them into position!

From the 1st of January, the laying hen cage bird directive came into being- this means that more room is given to hens producing eggs. We have spent £400m bringing our cages up to standard, at a cost of £20 plus per bird. Unfortunately, many countries ( France, Spain, Italy and Poland, to name a few) will not be compliant and their eggs, we are told, can still come into this country. These countries have had 12 years to come up to standard and, again, our industry will be undermined by cheaper foreign imports.

At least the electronic individual tagging of our historic sheep flock has been put off for a couple of years and this means that most of the older sheep will be long gone by the time it comes into force- sense at last!

And, of course, Nitrate Vulnerable Zones- from the 1st of January all farmers in an nvz area(a lot of Derbyshire) have to have 6months storage for slurry- affecting mainly dairy farmers and adding to the cost of production.

Yet, we hear of the fertilizing of the uplands for a regeneration project and where does this fertilizer go? Washed down to the lowlands, of course!

Angela Sargent,  www.baldfields-farm.co.uk

And now join me on Twitter, follow @bythebarn for all things farming!

By The Barn - January

Each month, we bring you a snippet of country life by Angela Sargent of Baldfields Farm. Angela sends us much more than we can possibly include in the magazine, so we are making her full articles available to read in their entirety online.

Already our animals have been inside for nearly a month and we will be starting lambing again soon! We are in a spell of what seems to be a never-ending feeding/ bedding/ feeding  cycle.

With the shortest day just gone, it will be a little while before we notice any lengthening of the days and so most of our work is done in half-light( or so it seems) and one of the night noises we tend to hear at this time are the foxes mating.

Sounding like little boys shouting to each other in the woods, the noise usually sets off our dogs too, so we get a stereo sound effect! The fox( or Reynard, as he is known) is the only surviving member of the wild dog family and lives off small mammals and birds. Rabbits and game are the usual, but he will take weak lambs if inclined. We’ve had problems with predatory foxes-even big lambs were maimed. Foxes leave a strong smell from their glands when they are out and about and it is a very pungent smell to come across in the morning when out walking our dogs- you can’t mistake it!

With the frosted ground, our ridge(rig) and furrow grass fields show up really well. Cleverly, they were to increase the land area available to cultivation, with the furrow(dips) acting as drainage channels. This is what we call permanent pasture and, obviously, has not been under the plough for many, many years. One of the questions over CAP(common agricultural policy) reform is what exactly is the definition of permanent pasture- some farmers might have a rotation of several years and if the level is set too low, it might jeopardise their farming rotation. Actually, farmers just want to be able to farm, nothing more and nothing less!

We will be taking our Christmas decorations down before twelth night and when I was small we used to decorate our tree with “wessell cups”(xmas tree ornaments) . It wasn’t until I was much older I discovered they were “wassail cups”.

‘Wassail’ means ‘ be well’ in Saxon and wassail is a spice/ale/crab apple and honey drink  given out at this time of year in a ‘loving cup’ to friends and neighbours. Labourers were also paid partly in cider and so ‘wassailling’ was a tradition carried out on old twelth night(17th January) to wake up the sleeping tree spirit by rattling pots and pans and singing, inorder to make the apple trees grow well and produce lots of fruit in the coming year.

Cider was also poured on the roots of the oldest tree and cider-soaked toast hung in its branches to make the nasties feed off that instead of the fruit, thereby ensuring the workers got their cider.

This tradition is still carried out, mainly in Somerset, where the apple orchards still remain- sounds like good fun to me, so if you hear shouting down our way it might not be my husband shouting at the dog or the sheep(or me), it might be me waking up our apple trees!

Angela Sargent, www.baldfields-farm.co.uk

Comrades in Arms

Winners of the National Memorial Arboretum’s photographic competition were announced at a special prize giving ceremony on November 6th - hosted by the NMA Friends, who organise the annual event in support of the Arboretum.  

This year’s competition attracted an impressive 135 entrants, of whom more than half were in the young person’s category - aged 17and under.  An exhibition of prize winning and other highly commended photographs is on display at the Arboretum – which is part of The Royal British Legion family of charities - until Sunday 27 November 2011.

The competition was launched back in April, with visitors to the Arboretum encouraged to capture images relating to the themes of ‘Lest We Forget’ and ‘The Natural World of the National Memorial Arboretum’.  Located in 150 acres of wooded parkland, which is rich in flora and fauna and has over 200 memorials, the Arboretum presents plentiful photographic possibilities.

The winners of the 2011 competition were named as follows:

Lest We Forget – Adult
1^st        Howard Bagshaw – ‘Comrades in Arms’ (pictured)
2^nd       Tony Cowdrill – ‘The Last Post’
3^rd        Lesley Hextall – ‘Bleak Contemplation’

Lest We Forget – Under 18

1^st        Sophie Donnelly – ‘We will remember them’

2^nd       John Hardy – ‘Kneel’
3^rd        Louis Crossley – ‘A place at rest’

Natural World – Adult

1^st        Darren Fitzjohn – ‘Blossom over lost comrades’
2^nd       Jayne Gilbert – ‘Stark Reality’
3^rd        David Millington       - ‘Butterfly Feeding’

Natural World – Under 18

1^st        Connor Charles – ‘Flora and Fauna’
2^nd       Emma Cleall – ‘Searching for a Star’
3^rd        David Law – ‘Flora and Fauna’

The organisers also created a special prize for children under the age of ten years, which was awarded to Lewis Ball, aged 5, for his photograph ‘My brother photographs the heroes’.  The best audio visual presentation went to David Morland for his short film ‘Inquisitive mind of a child’.

Competition organiser and NMA Friends committee member, David Faul, said: “This year’s competition has been especially well supported and we received some really outstanding photographic entries.  We were particularly impressed with the quantity and quality of entries in the young person’s categories, which included participation from two local schools.”

While young people were able to enter the competition for free, adults paid a small entry fee, the proceeds of which went directly to the Arboretum, which is a registered charity.  Details of prizes can be seen on the events section of the Arboretum’s web site: www.thenma.org.uk.

By the Barn - November

Each month, we bring you a snippet of country life by Angela Sargent of Baldfields Farm. Angela sends us much more than we can possibly include in the magazine, so we are making her full articles available to read in their entirety online.

Now it’s November the trees, hedges and fields are looking more winterish by the day, as the remaining leaves are blown off and the frost weathers the grass. We are feeding our cows outside at the moment, because the grass hasn’t much nutritional value now and there isn’t so much of it. Our stock will be coming in soon, so we are busy readying the sheds- checking waterbowls aren’t leaking and that there are no sharp metal bits on doors and gates.

There will be some sorting to do as older calves will be weaned and they will have to get used to life without mum, but will have the company of others in the same situation. These will also be split into male and female groupings, to make life easier for us in their feeding regimen. Heifers tend to put fat on more quickly as they grow, so we will watch their ration.

The rams have been busy with their ladies and, hopefully, all are well on the way to producing strong lambs next year.

Over the summer we managed to collect a lot of firewood from trees that had lost branches because of the dry weather, or from trees that had fallen down, through wind or age. This time we are going into winter with a full log shed, but the good thing about logging is that it warms you twice- once when chopping it and again when burning it!

At this time of year, when all the leaves have fallen, you can still recognize the species of tree by its silhouette. The Horse chestnut is a large rounded shape, whereas the Sweet Chestnut is more of a tall blunted triangle, the Oak is big, spreading and rounded, the Scots Pine is red-barked and with domed branches.

Meg is now over a year old and has changed completely over this time, both in looks and behaviour. She is a very clever dog and very keen to work, so we must be careful not to work her too much. She is very energetic and loves to follow whenever I’m running or we’re going round stock and we make sure we carry on with teaching her basic ‘come here’, ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ commands during those runs.

She has also started to work sheep on her own, without the company of Ben and, as long as we take our time, she is responding very well. I also used her for protection when feeding our pigs as we had to keep two rams(our newly bought ones- Rocket and Rascal) in the same paddock for quarantine purposes and they were also keen to be fed. She kept them well clear without causing havoc.

But she is very vocal, when trying to get attention and playing with us or if she is shut outside and I can’t keep my footwear anywhere handy as several pairs of shoes have met their demise, particularly anything with laces!

Angela Sargent, www.baldfields-farm.co.uk

Lights To Remember

This Christmas, dedicate a light to remember someone who is in your thoughts.

Marie Curie Cancer Care hopes to make the holiday season a little brighter with its annual Lights to Remember Appeal. By sponsoring a light on their Christmas Tree at the Octagon Shopping Centre in Burton on Trent in honour of someone dear to you, you can help them provide care to those who need it most.

Sponsor a light in memory of loved ones or simply in support of the local Marie Curie Nursing Service. Your support will enable Marie Curie Nurses to care for even more people with terminal cancer and other illnesses in their own homes this Christmas, helping them to leave their loved ones with memories to treasure.

Donations can be made throughout the festive season. For information call the fund-raising office on 0115 938 2626.

By the Barn - October

Each month, we bring you a snippet of country life in our magazine by Angela Sargent of Baldfields Farm. Angela sends us much more than we can possibly include, so we are making her full articles available to read in their entirety online.

Autumn's here and don’t we know it. Luckily for us, we had just finished getting the barley straw in when the winds and rains came. What a change, at last we have green grass!

We are hoping to resume Megs training now- we’ve done a little bit of work with her and our older dog, Ben. They work well together- she does the running and he does the watching. Meg tries hard to do it right, even if the commands have to be repeated when she goes the wrong way. At the moment we use voice commands, but hubby is just starting to introduce the whistled instruction (I can’t, so I use a whistle if I have to!).

To send her to the right we use ‘away’, to the left ‘come-by’, ‘sit’ and ‘lay down’ as you would expect and ‘move’em on’, meaning to just walk them forward. At least that is the idea, but we also use hand signals to point out which way, to help her. When you use whistles, you have to get enough distinction between the different orders and you have to be consistent with the sounds. Soon we may work her on her own, occasionally. She won’t always have Ben to rely on when a sheep gets a bit bolshy!

Field work is carrying on, our field beans will be combined soon, if they haven’t already and then we will let that field overwinter with just the stubble. Pheasants, Partridge and other birds will be able to feed off the dropped seeds and we will work it down in the spring. Most of  our other fields have been ploughed and harrowed and sown with winter Barley and Oats.

Next year sees the end of one of our environmental schemes- Countryside Stewardship. We were paid to carry out environmental options, like changing arable fields to grass, taking 6m strips out of production all the way round our arable fields and allowing them to grow naturally etc. The payment was in return for income foregone (i.e not growing crops, that we could possibly have sold). As we are a tenanted farm, we have to replace that income by doing something else, so some land may have to  be ploughed up and put back into production or we might increase livestock numbers, but we’ll need more feed/bedding and more room for housing if we do that, so there are quite a few options and we must decide over the next few months which way we are going to go. Whatever we do we need to make a profit!

Many farmers are in the same predicament as us and are having to make hard choices, not least the dairy farmers who will be hit hard by the new regulations on nitrate vulnerable zones (water quality regulations) which mean extra storage for slurry, which means extra costs. These come in from the 1st of January and all farmers will have to comply.

Our Bees have had a reasonable summer and the summer honey has been taken off and now they are being fed sugar solution to help them survive any bad weather that comes along this winter. I’ve noticed quite a few rabbits hopping between the hives, so there isn’t much activity at times.

The cattle will be coming inside when the weather turns for the worst over the next few weeks and so we are also trying to finish any repair work on sheds, gates and inside water troughs before they do so it is a very busy month for us, not helped by the shortening of the days- it seems easier to work whilst it is still light- oh dear- I can feel SAD disorder coming on!

Angela Sargent, www.baldfields-farm.co.uk