Hi Chris here.
It’s been a busy few months. We have done two cuts of silage and filled our silage clamps up. We managed to get a break in the weather and get it all covered up before the rain.
The cows are doing well, we have had good grass growing conditions since the wet spring. I’ve been able to build up some good covers of grass on the farm. I’m measuring the grass over the farm every week at the moment. So I can manage the farms average covers,and make sure the cows have plenty of grass to eat.
Most of the cows have calved apart from sixteen late summer calvers that will provide milk for the vending machine over winter. These dry cows are grazing two fields next to the Thames that spent a long time flooded over winter. As a result of the flooding these fields have a lot of dock plants growing in them (or as my son Bryn calls them “doctor leaves”). This is a result of the flooding causing compaction in the soil, dock plants have a big tap root which goes down deep into the soil, hence why they are growing there. Although this is good for dealing with the compaction docks are not very palatable for cows. To combat this, I have been putting on seed with a hand-held spinner before the cows go into their next day’s allocation of grass and letting them trample the seed into the soil. I have been spinning on chicory, Lucerne, red and white clover all of which are deep rooting but are more palatable to the cows. So far this seems to be working.
In vending machine news, we have got a new machine. We are really pleased with it. We know its different from the old one but thank you to everyone for being patient with us whilst we iron out some glitches with it.
You may have also seen that we have started attending the Lydiard pop up farm shop every month. We have a portable milk dispenser for this. The pop is run by Andy Rumming’s brother Chris and his partner Lindsay. The shop offers a large selection of local produce including Andy Rummings beef and Lydiard Park farm lamb. It’s a great opportunity to support other local farms and buy some great produce. We will update everyone of the date of the next pop up shop in our newsletter. You can sign up to this on our website.
We also entered the taste of the west awards for our milk. It was awarded gold which we are really happy with. We think the milk tastes great but its awesome that a panel of judges agrees with us.
We now also have this year’s crop of honey from the bees on the farm in the vending machine.
The last exciting new product in the vending machine are reusable glass coffee cups made my sole cup. There 12oz so are compatible with the coffee machine and have a cork sleeve around the outside to protect your hands from the hot drink. And most importantly they have the moos on Thames logo on.
