Higher Trenowin FarmDiary

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

The good weather has stayed with us on the whole throughout November and December, we have even had a sharp frost or two which has been very welcome reducing the risk of Blue Tongue Disease spreading South West from the East Midlands.  I have been unable to give you any rain-fall averages for the last few months, as Steve dropped a bale of straw on our rain gauge in September and we have not replaced it – we shall have to see what the New Year brings!

All the cows have been out on the fields as the dry weather continues we have had not needed to bring them in.  We have been keeping an eye on them from the middle of December but it looks as if the bull did not “perform” as quickly as we had hoped when we put him with his girls last March!  One or two are rounding up well so it looks as if we may have a calf in the New Year.   For the pedigree Limousins, 2008 born calves that are registered need to have their names start with the letter D, so we are thinking up a few – Diva, Darling, Daisy, Dreckly! – we shall have to wait and see.

 On 19^th December I planted new potatoes in the poly-tunnel with the view to having potatoes in the shop for Easter to go with the lamb and mint sauce!  The tunnel is in a very sheltered field known as “Violet Field” and with the severe gales which we had in the first week of December, does not seem to have been affected the structure at all.  Two or three farmers in the Gulval area have also planted small acreages of potatoes under plastic hoping to catch the very lucrative early market.

The shop has been steady over the last couple of months with two of our own home-grown heifers going into the deep freeze.  The winter greens are giving us a steady supply, with the cauliflower overtaking us at times!!  We are just starting the Spring Greens which are so tender they are such a delight to have on the plate. 

 We have actually caught up with the 21^st Century and introduced a card machine to accept payment by plastic – in this day and age so few of us carry any amount of cash and being able to pay by plastic has meant that our customers do not have to go to the cash machine before coming up to the shop. 

Christmas has come fast and furious and I think we have managed to cope.  Our ordering system seemed to have worked for our customers and boxes were ready for collection at the correct date and time.  We had a few more items available in the shop for the festive season – biscuits and puddings from St Kew and a soft garlic and herb cheese from Boscodden Farm, Tywardreath in South East Cornwall which we have decided to carry through to the New Year. 

December is a time to take stock and to look ahead – we have had a good year in the shop, transforming the cowshouse into the larger shop in January and opening 5 days a week which has meant a little more income but it has also meant a lot more work, but the feed back and encouragement from customers has meant a great deal to us and we appreciate all their useful comments.  As for the farm side it has been “brick bats and bouquets” with the beef prices rising slowly and giving us a bit better income and then being set back to square one with the Foot & Mouth in September and October.  Now our out-goings are increasing substantially with the sharp increase in the cost of feed for cattle and hens, fuel and fertilizers.  We have tried to absorb some of the increases without passing it onto the customers in the shop but we have had to be realistic and increase our prices a little at a time just as our bills are increasing each month a little at a time! 

Steve and Bridge would like to thank you for your support in 2007, especially to Trev and Caroline who come to Cornwall regularly to give us a helping hand and words of encouragement and especially to Trev who does such a great job in the up-keep of this web site.   

We wish you all a peaceful and healthy 2008 and hope that together we can make a little bit of a difference to our world and keep things local and reduce the food miles – remember things taste better and you feel better if you keep it local!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

CTOBER

The restrictions for Foot & Mouth have eased further with markets operating fully throughout Cornwall.  The prices of cattle and weaned calves have dropped a little compared to last year but not as bad as some dealers had predicted.

October was the Celebration of Food 2007 and we at Higher Trenowin took it to heart and celebrated in style – press releases were sent out, photos and write-ups in local papers and I did a lengthy interview on Radio Cornwall banging on about all that is good in the Farm Shop and in Cornwall. 

Our suppliers were very generous with samples and tasters, we had a marvellous selection of cheeses from Toppenrose Dairy at St Keverne, ewes milk cheese and yogurts from Hugh Eddy at Davas Dairy, breads, biscuits from Steff at Occasional Tart, our own sausages as well as a couple of “guest “ flavours being Pork & Leek and Cumberland and cakes.  So much so that we have carried on and have something different to taste on the table every week.  The latest finding is a mature cheddar cheese that is made by a farmer in the heart of Cheddar but sold down here by their daughter who lives in St Just!  We have also started to stock fresh bread from two suppliers – one from Williams & Symons at Newlyn and the other from Vicky at Helston who makes organic bread in the French style, both seem to be very popular. 

Also during the month of October we have been making and baking pasties in the new preparation room/kitchen.  Steve has been hard at work building a new area where we can pack and prepare food that comes in as well as extra space for me to do my cooking.  The first week I made 11 pasties and the number has grown from week to week.  Not sure how long it will last as pasties are very labour intensive and time consuming. 

The cabbages and greens are growing at a pace, the lovely mild weather we have had in October has brought everything on well.  Steve has been cutting beautiful red and green curly kale by the tray and now the pointed and round cabbages have started with the calibrese not too far behind.  The fodder kale for the winter calving cows is also growing well and looks as if we will have a good crop for them when we start feeding in January. 

Cattle have loved the good weather, the grass is still growing thus bringing on the mothers milk for the growing calves.  The grass has not got as much feed value in it as it would have in the Summer, so we are feeding round bales of hay and silage to give a little extra fibre to the diet.  We have managed to sell some of our older calves to a local farmer which meant less stress to the animals not having to cart them to market to be sold and then onto another farm.  That did not mean that it was a quieter time, just imagine the noise when we weaned them from their mothers – calves lungs at 10 months are very large and noisy!!!

 When checking the cattle one morning this month Steve had a magnificent view of some crows “mobbing” a peregrine falcon, there are peregrines nesting in older part of the quarry and watching its aerial acrobatics was truly breathtaking.  The Field Fares have come down from the North as have the Snipe who can be heard calling as they fly across the fields to the moors for the night.  Neighbours have reported a good number of Woodcock rising due to the good clear nights but we have yet to see any at Higher Trenowin.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER

Foot and Mouth has been a very big black cloud on our horizon since its initial outbreak at the beginning of August.  Luckily we sold two steers at Truro 2 days before the first outbreak and have managed to get another heifer to the abattoir, destined for our shop deep freeze, when restrictions were lifted before the second serge of outbreaks in Surrey.  

The suckle beef calves are growing well, they were quite wet and cold at the beginning of August but as it blossomed into a beautiful month and the calves spent the days lying in the grass soaking up the warm sunshine.

We have made a decision to diversify even further and start growing a wider range of vegetables for the winter.  Steve has cultivated one of our fields, known traditionally on the farm as “Middle Sedges”.  The most part has been sown with kale as additional fodder for our winter calving cows but two parts of the field have been put down to Spring Cabbage and various assortments of winter Brassicas – red cabbage, white cabbage, cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli, curly kale and calibrese (click picture).  They are growing well but we have had to protect them well with wire netting to keep out rabbits and bird scarers to keep off the pigeons – Lulu our Labrador takes regular walks around there keeping her eye on things!   

At end of August we managed to get the last of the second cut silage done.  We have bought in straw, for cattle fodder and bedding for the winter, at a far greater price than last year but that is the case throughout the whole country.  So all is safely gathered in at Higher Trenowin.  It feels a bit like the end of one year and the start of another, which in a way it is – everything ready for the year ahead, looking after and feeding the animals with the fodder we have worked so hard to get stored away, looking forward to the new batch of calves which will start being born in the middle of December then hoping for a good Spring next year when we can turn cattle out to good grass by the beginning of April. 

September is a month where we try to catch up on the outside jobs during the shortening days.  We have had to re-fence around the dew pond, as the cattle have been itching against the posts, which started to lean, the wire sagged and some of the smaller calves thought it was great fun to go paddling in the muddy water!  Other hedge mending and fencing jobs have been carried out to keep things tidy and secure.  Steve has also been hedge cutting, plumbing and cleaning out sheds.

The shop has looked magnificent over the past few weeks with all the marvellous vegetables our local growers have been supplying – Romanesque and purple cauliflower, aubergines, kohl rabbi and white and red chard to name but a few, a real harvest of all that is good in Cornwall.

October sees the Cornwall Celebration of Food 2007, which we at Higher Trenowin are very much involved with and next months diary will tell you what we got up to!!

JUNE/JULY

 At the beginning of June we decided to open the Farm Shop on a Wednesday which has proved to be worth while, we have found that our local customers are “topping up” on vegetables and a few bits in the middle of the week which means that they do not have to go to local supermarkets which is a good in that every pound spent goes back into the local economy and not into the pockets of long distance share holders. 

Steve has a new toy! – a John Deere Tractor – second hand but a vast improvement on the East European four wheel drive tractor we had before.  Needless to say he is so in love with it he nearly takes it to bed with him every night!!! 

After the wettest May on record – 5.1” at Higher Trenowin – we rather hoped to get the silage done quickly in June, how wrong we were.  We did get 20 acres done by 9^th June but because what turned out to be inaccurate weather forecasts we held off when we should have been cutting.  Therefore we have been dodging the rain ever since and got the last of our first cut silage baled and put away by 20^th July!  Recorded 4.8” of rain at Higher Trenowin for July.  Some farmers in the area have brought their cattle in off the fields as the grass in not growing and making a muddy mess outside therefore when inside are eating into their store of winter fodder already.  With the serious flooding up-country we have had notice from our feed merchants to expect “significant increases” in our feed bills. 

Bridgette also has a new toy! a 1969 Morris Minor Pick-up.  She is a beauty, just the thing to go pottering around the lanes collecting fruit and veg from our suppliers.  Fondly known as “Gladys”, had one of her first debuts at the Nancledra Fete in early July (click picture to go to gallery) and had lots of admirers. 

 Steve and Bridgette managed to get a few days away from the farm in July, thanks to good friends Trev   and Caroline.  Leaving the farm is a thing we do not take lightly, there is a lot of responsibility for anyone who is left behind not to mention the lists, but Trev and Caroline coped brilliantly with finding all the suppliers when collecting for the shop and being able to count all the cattle even though Trev’s “42” weren’t quite where they should have been for a few hours!! 

At last the end of July looks like it might be drying up for a few days.  Have made decision to cultivate a field for kale (cattle fodder grown for grazing in winter) and in one part of the field we are preparing with a little more care as we want to grow some cabbage and cauliflower.  Again this is something that has not been done at Trenowin for many a year so lets hope we make a reasonable job of it. 

The beef cattle are doing well.  We have yet another heifer in the Shop’s deep-freeze and we are pleased to say that it is of equal tenderness and quality of the last one.  On 1^st August we sent 2 steers to Truro Market and got top price for them – which we were very pleased about but then felt desperately unhappy on the Friday with the outbreak of Foot & Mouth up-country.  We are all keeping our fingers crossed.

APRIL/MAY 2007

 The rain did stop in April, so much so that we have had one of the driest Aprils on record, just over 1” for the month but May is more than making up for it!  Although we had a North East wind which kept temperatures down, we have had bright sunshine which has brought on the grass and turn-out of cattle was about the same time as last year and the new calves are doing well on the new flush of milk from their mums eating the lush grass.   

As May is progressing we are looking at fields we want to cut for silage.  Some of the fields we are using for grazing are having to be “stripped grazed” with an electric fence as the grass is growing so quickly the cows are wasting it and not eating it all off properly, by fencing it and feeding a bit at a time they are clearing the grass up as they go.  This is allowing other fields to grow on and looks as if we may have more fields to cut for silage than we had first anticipated. 

We have only a few more cows to calve and Vulcan the bull is enjoying himself very much, having visited the January calved cows and now he is with the second bunch.  We will be bringing our calving programme forward by a few weeks this year, hopefully starting around the middle of December. 

In the shop we did manage to have new potatoes for Easter and the supply has carried on ever since.  The crop has been good and demand has been brisk.  Shortly after the Cornish early potatoes started we had Helston grown Asparagus on the shelves and we now have Hayle grown Strawberries which have beautiful flavour. 

 History has been made on the farm in April, when sheep were introduced again after a break of 47 years.  We have bought 8 hoggets who will be destined for the shop freezer as our two main local lamb suppliers have run out!!

 STOP PRESS:  12^th May – have just taken a reading in the rain gauge and have measured 3 inches of rain so far this month!!!!

FEBRUARY 2007

 February started cold and dry so managed to get some field work done and Steve has been spreading the F.Y.M.

 Have been putting finishing touches to the shop and looking for more interesting products to put in the shop for Spring.  Also been looking at catalogues to order seeds to put in the vegetable plot.

 Brought in 4 more cows who look the most likely to calve in with the next batch of expectant mums.  The January born cows and calves are being walked out every day to the fodder crop of stubble turnips – this gives them something different in their diet and exercise too, as well as saving straw in the shed.

Have a new visitor by night – a Tawny Owl had started to visit us, perching on the beams in the sheds in search of a tasty meal!

 As February is progressing so it is getting wetter but still very mild.  Have had two cases of pneumonia in the first batch of calves. They are responding to treatment but we need to keep a watchful eye over the rest.