by Lisa Buchanan

~ April ~

 Well, the calves are popping out on production line of which Mr Ford himself would be proud.  With just one disaster, all is going well.  We have had a couple who have been very slow to suckle, and this requires pretty intensive nursing.  You cannot leave them in the hope they “get it”, but you cannot give them so much milk by a tube into their tummies they aren’t hungry enough to try.   It is such a strange phenomenon – they just don’t have the urge or instinct to suck and then suddenly, as if a lightbulb goes on in their brain, they just start sucking as if possessed! Few things are more satisfying.

We have been busy with other things on the farm.  Increasingly, we are all understanding better the importance of hedges for wildlife, and also for capturing carbon.  And their long roots increase the ability of the soil to absorb water by
60 per cent – and that is something we really need right now!  So, where we have weak hedges, or gaps in hedges, we have been in-filling with small whip plants.  And, to our great excitement, we have reinstated a hedge that, thanks to a map, we know was there in 1808 – and probably way before that. 

The field has always been known as the ‘Ten Acre’, when in fact it is eleven acres.  The map shows there was an acre at the southern end of the field known as ‘Kiln Field’ – it must have been a brick kiln and Tom Hobbs can remember seeing it, although there is little sign of it now.  So, we have reinstated the hedge according to the map and within the hedge planted three trees: an oak, a hornbeam and a golden willow.  And that makes it a hedgerow, not just a hedge!  All being well, in three years we will see a new and thick hedge being established.  Interestingly, the field is incredibly wet where the hedge has been planted and we hope this will help dry it out a little. 

You can see where we have been working from Down Street near the metal gate so do please take a look and, hopefully, watch the hedge flourish.

It is so wonderful to see the birds returning or becoming more active.  We have seen bullfinches, kingfishers, sandpipers, snipe, marsh tits and sedge warblers – let alone our more common feathered friends.  I do commend the Merlin App to you – it can identify birds from their song and is remarkably accurate.  So far, we have identified seventy-six different birds on the farm, which is utterly thrilling for us and shows, I think, we are right that farming with Nature is the right way forward.                       

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