|| Scrapbook June 2025

June 28, 2025

It looks like it might be an early harvest, with the crops enjoying the long spell of warm weather with some timely rain in recent weeks. Let’s hope the long dry days last to allow the combine to roll without interruption.

The rye harvest is starting any minute - it’s our Clarkson's Farm Live (with less swearing!) as we all love going out to watch it get underway and the choreography of the machinery at work.

Part of getting ready for harvest is the giant weeding job which the children say is the WORST job in the world! The turkey chicks have arrived so Thomas is playing Mother Hen for the next few weeks as they settle in.

|| On our farm...

It’s that time of year again when the wild oats that self seed across the fields start to pop their heads up and the first couple of weeks of the school holidays are spent walking the crops pulling them out by hand.

It's not the children's favourite job but it does spark plenty of creative discussion about what piece of kit they'd invent so they don't have to do it for the rest of their lives!

It doesn't seem long since they were hardly as tall as the crop and they were paid in snacks, but now it's headphones on and a wage packet! The acres are definitely covered in less time though.

The turkey chicks have arrived and are settling in well. For the first few weeks they stay in the 'brooding shed' a cosy space where they have easy access to food and water as they grow their warmer and waterproof feathers. Once they have these and are a little bigger, they will head out into the paddock.

The farm is full of young, as the new piglets have arrived, and the deer hinds are cautiously starting to come out from the deeper hill cover to show off their young calves born over the last few weeks.

At this time of year we cut and bale the grass in fields we've kept aside for silage to feed the deer over the winter. We usually cut this twice over the summer, but with such a dry few months, we are watching to see if there will be enough for two cuts this year.

|| & other things we've loved this month: two restaurants adding panache to the local foodie scene this summer: Eastfield and Shoreline