February update

Hello from Julians farm and welcome to our February update

Its been a busy month down on the farm.  I know the weather has been awful this winter and that has had a big impact on the jobs we need to do.  Mainly, we have not been able to get any dung out onto the fields this winter.  The dung pit pile is getting bigger, Andrew keeps pushing it back and it keeps raining.  We simply cannot spread any now, the fields are too wet to travel on and the time of year now means that there isn't really long enough for the dung to rot down into the fields, as it would be coming back in again when we silage.

But there are plently of jobs we can do.  The main 2 jobs we have been doing this month have been getting the calf pens ready in the Shippen and scrub clearance work on our HLS ground.

The Shippen has had a wonderful over-haul.  Andrew has repaired and improved all the metal work - partitions and gates, Jenni has painted it all and the new stock boards are in place.  Its looking good and we cannot wait to bring in our new arrivals in the next week or 2.

Andrew has also been busy doing some more scrub clearance on some of our Culm Grassland, opening up areas by removing the Willow.  The field will be fenced and cattle can graze it again for the first time in over 70 years.  Another area of scrub has also been cleared by some contractors we hired in to help with the workload.

We sold some Store Cattle (2 year old animals) at Kivells Market at the beginning of February and we topped the market for British Blues with a group of 3 males and with a heifer.  We were really pleased with the results!