June 2015

June is a great time of year to be a farmer; the days are long, the sun is shining (sometimes!), and for us we only have a handful of cows left to calve.  On a walk around the farm, we note how well the grass is growing, and how well the cattle all look, which gives us an enormous sense of pride.

Our silage grass is almost ready for cutting, and so we call our local contractor, and we join the queue of other local farmers all waiting for that perfect weather window.  We now only have a few days where the grass will be in peak condition, and so we now have a nervous wait until cutting day, as we only take one crop of silage per year; if it’s wet or of poor quality, then our cattle will not perform as well over winter.

Our luck is in, and on the 3rd week in June we complete our silaging, putting a good quality crop into the silage clamp to provide feed over winter.

At Dunwood, we only ever keep a handful of pigs, but we note that one of the pig pens has grass 2 feet tall and so I call up a local breeder who has 3 Berkshire x Middle White, and 3 Berkshire x Gloucester Old Spot piglets for sale.

The piglets are in great health, and once at Dunwood they soon make a start on turning over the soil in their spacious pig pen.