August 2001

Developing direction, fox control (or not), lots of visitors and much laughter.

Well, our farm consultant, Max, did return... with a SWOT analysis, all carefully worked out so that our Strengths balanced Weaknesses and Opportunities outweighed Threats. So although we are heavily over financed and have miniscule cash flow, it looks like we're going to be OK! We have our work cut out for us though (there's a surprise!).

It has become increasingly apparent that our wish is to afford ALL animals here on Vowley Farm as natural a lifestyle as possible. One of the challenges we have faced with the cows we originally bought with the farm and are now finishing (technical term for "get your beef here"!) is that, from what we have learned, these continental breeds are better suited to intensive farming - lots of them all together being fed grain to get them to the table as quickly as possible. We would like cows we can raise outside on grass for as long as possible and when we do need to bring them in during winter, they will be quite happy on the silage we produce from our fields. Oh, and whilst we're at it, there are a couple of other things that might be quite useful too...

We'd like calves to be reared by their mum (naturally) and we're not experienced with helping cows to birth so could they be "easy calvers" please.

Seems the most natural way for cows to get "in calf" is by running with the bull in the field, so could we have a docile bull please.

And we've experienced the de-horning process helping our neighbours with such. We don't much fancy that either, so could we please have ones without horns? (technical term, "naturally polled")

Lorraine's a great talker (in case you didn't know or couldn't guess!) and during one of her many conversations got to talking about this shopping list for our next herd and was suggested to call the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. They sent us a pack of information including a leaflet about British White Cattle with a photo of a lovely bull on the front. Our shopping list could have been straight off their promotional material!

So this month we visited a farmer not too far from us raising British White cattle. What beautiful animals. Not only that, but they are being kept together, mums, babies and bulls. We caught them during their morning nap and they reluctantly got up to say "hello".

After much discussion and thoughts too and fro, we have some on order and from next year we will not only have beautiful cows to look at, but a herd we intend to grow naturally and holistically, nurturing a breed which is definitely in a minority despite being good "doers" providing not only excellent meat for the table but also abundant milk. Watch this space!

The natural lifestyle we are trying to give our hens is proving to be more of a nightmare than the challenge we had expected. The fox got smarter and smarter and recognised easy pickings. As we write at the end of August, we are down to 2 hens and Louis! We were visited several days in a row this month and lost one or more each time. Needless to say, eggs are now scarce and at a premium! We have suspended our expansion in the free range egg department until we can come up with a fox deterrent programme that will keep our integrity intact.

Perhaps we will get a dog - but it will need to be a chicken-friendly dog, who will get on with Thomas and Ivory the cats... oh here we go, another shopping list! Jules, who keeps her horses here, has a great little terrier who has eagerly been running round the fields (muzzled!) leaving his scent on all the posts and bushes. Has the fox not returned for the remaining feathered ones because of this, or is it because there's not enough of them to run the risk of being caught... we don't know.

The Cotswold Swan Rescue Centre, who brought us Louis and Earl aswell as Victoria and Albert (our peacock and peahen who have also cast their feathers to the wind) have some geese! We are building a goose house for them on the farm and if nothing else, we'll be able to supply goose eggs and they'll make a heck of a racket if the fox should appear.

We have been looking to plant some trees. This is a good time of year to have this conversation. We want to create some new wildlife habitats, some shade for the animals and some interest in our fields. We've been talking with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and DEFRA (as MAFF is now called) about what grants might be available to do this and what would be the best trees and layout. Lorraine got very excited after a visit from a friend that reminded her of Permaculture (permanent agriculture) and the potential applications on the farm. She's currently wading her way through Bill Mollison's book "Permaculture, a designer's manual"... very interesting, especially the bit where he shows diagramatically how in 8 years a farm, applying the permaculture principles, can go from making a significant financial loss to making a healthy financial profit as well as improving the quality of life for all involved. You will be hearing more on this, but if any of you reading have insights, inspiration and/or experience with this and would like to share some with us, we look forward to hearing from you.

Mark has been out and about on his horse, Crystal. There was a mass exodus from the farm over Bank Holiday weekend when a record 4 horses from our herd saddled up and went on their way, down the lane and up into the hills (with the assistance of some riders... or was that the other way around?). It was a beautiful ride with some challenges on the way, but all returned safely with smiles as broad as the horizon.

We have realised for many years that we have a wonderful community around us and that this community is ever growing and developing. In conversation with one of our friends we suddenly thought that we might even have connections with people who could supply pretty much anything you might possibly want so decided that we would have a links page here to check it out! We certainly know accountants & solicitors (although we don't admit to that very often!), business consultants, horsey people, personal development facilitators, healers, homoeopaths, carers, gardeners, story tellers, writers, musicians, food producers & suppliers (including somewhere to get really DELICIOUS beef!), sticker makers, baby sitters, people who love ironing (maybe we should get out more!!!!), so, if you are a friend of ours (or want to become one!), get in touch with us and tell us your web site/email address and we'll put it on the community links page. If you're just passing through but want someone to help you out, visit the community links page and see if they're there.

What a busy bunch of bees we have been this month! We even hosted a corporate team building event with our friends, Ruth and David from Creation. There was everything from walks in nature and being with the animals, to team challenges and an opportunity to ride. It was wonderful to see the resources of the farm used so positively.

Following a visit on our August "helping hands" weekend a friend sent us this email: 10 good things about spending the weekend at Vowley Farm:

1. Seeing what great relationships Lorraine, Mark and Emily have with each other.
2. Seeing people who have really chased their dream actually doing it.
3. Cake!
4. Spending time hanging out with horses.
5. Rena's face when she's harrowed the whole field by herself!
6. More cake... and homemade bread.
7. Making terrible jokes and laughing a lot!
8. Sitting around the kitchen table - an activity in itself.
9. Doing things on the farm and being able to look at the results and say, "I did that" (or, "I watched them do that" in some cases!)
10. Driving down the lane on the way home thinking "I feel really refreshed after that weekend"

The next "helping hands" weekend is 20/21 September. We have discovered a mountain of sloes ripening in our hedgerows which will need picking after the first frost, so stock up on the gin and come help us out. We may have a "sloe gin" making session too!