News from the farm :

Cock-crow Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,- Out of the night, two cocks together crow, Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow; And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand, Heralds of splendour, one at either hand, Each facing each as in coat of arms: The milkers lace their boots up at the farms. Edward Thomas

I wonder how often families think about the journey the milk that they use each day has made to arrive on their table?  Very rare now-a-days could anyone enjoy the luxury of hand milking a cow and then (health and safety permitting) drink the warm frothy milk straight from the bucket!  You would have to be keeping your own cow.  So I was very interested to see how the French are trying to reconnect the general public with our hard working cows and farming.  When we were in France recently we went to the local supermarket to get our supplies and outside there was a small open-sided (but fenced) marquee in which stood two cows.  On the outside there was a large sign saying all the milk at the store was locally sourced.  On the other side of the main shop entrance was a self-help dispensing machine for milk and you could roll up with your own container, pay your 2 euros and fill up your bottle with milk.  Fascinating marketing….
In the paper recently there was an article about the state of the dairy industry in this country.  Apparently 9 diary farmers each week are coming out of diary.  We have dropped from 28,000 diary farms in this country to 11,900. (We now import 1.5million litres of milk a day.)  The British diary farmer gets paid 25p a litre – this barely covers the cost of production…..We do need to think carefully if we want to keep these businesses going and if so how we can support them.
At the risk of being rather repetitive about locally produced and sourced meat that is on your very doorstep, if you come to see us at the farm shop you can take a walk across the fields and instantly be amongst our Lincoln Red suckler beef herd and their beautiful calves.  But beware the bull is out there too now!