H&C

“Spring is always a busy time and with both of us working full-time, it’s sometimes hard to fit everything in. I have an elaborate planting plan, devised over a glass of wine during the long winter evenings. Like most plans, it’s in continuous development – the plan might say “plant 30 shallots”, but if there are only 21 in the bag, that’s all you can plant. Each year our successes and failures are different; most years we have a great crop of beetroot – two years ago, we managed to grow one. We’ve had great crops of parsnips in some years, but last year we grew four - not four acres or even four rows: just four parsnips. Two of our three Ryeland gimmers have lambed – Jura isn’t due until mid to end of May. Both Jinx and Juno have single tup (male) lambs that are doing well. This is our first lambing, so it’s been both exciting and stressful. The deal was that we would retain ewe lambs, while the tup lambs would go in the freezer. However, I’ve kept my options open by not castrating the tup lambs. One in particular looks promising, so he may be worth retaining for breeding. We picked up this year’s weaner pigs on Saturday – three 7/8th Tamworth gilts (young female pigs). After the trauma of their journey (which wasn’t that traumatic at all), they spent most of Sunday sleeping in their straw filled ark. They are now fully recovered and are starting to get to know us. We sell the surplus eggs from our laying hens. These are mainly Black Rocks, with a few others thrown in. Our Cream Crested Legbars lay lovely pale blue eggs; we have a cockerel called Hugo and four hens. I’m keen to breed some more Legbars, but so far our attempts to hatch eggs have been unsuccessful. I suspect that Hugo’s stint as a stud is soon to end! Finally, in our livestock empire, we have three Hubbards; these are a meat strain of poultry which, at 11-weeks-old, are due to be killed for the table. These are without doubt the dullest animals that we have ever reared, but hey, we don’t keep them for their personality and they do produce a substantial and tasty carcass.”