From the Farm
These few weeks of the year here on the high Cotswolds are perhaps my favourites of the year.
Winter is long gone, and it is growing time.
Two – three weeks ago the Dandelions were in full bloom, with such profusion that some pastures viewed from a far almost looked like they were growing a crop of oil seed rape.
Now, these blossoms are over, the same swards have a silver-ish tinge, full of airy Dandelion clocks.
We are days away from the May blossom peaking, its creamy white flowers boarded by bright white cow parley, and headily scented Elder.The cows who leisurely walk past these hedgerows on their daily commute to and from the parlour stop periodically for a nibble. I’ve no doubt these aromatic mouthfuls will be good for the cheese.
Last week started wet but ended warm.
Still, too wet for the planned first cut of silage to take place, and this was unfortunately postponed until this week.
Silageing took place on Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday night 320 acres of grass, red clover, herbal leys, sainfoin and lucerne had been cut and put into the clamp. The yield wasn’t as high as Seb had hoped, but everyone was happy with the quality of this first cut.
This silage is put away for sustaining the herd over the winter months, and getting as much quality winter forage safely away now is critical as nobody knows what the growing conditions for the second and third cuts might be.
The 45 new cows (mainly Dairy Shorthorn and Normande) seem to have settled in well and have found their places within the herd.
They’d run with the bull at their previous home. Some arrived having already calved, some came in calf, and have now calved, and around half a dozen or so still haven’t calved. With no one really knowing exactly when the cows who’d calved before arriving had calved, we dumped the milk from the first few milkings with us in case they were still carrying colostrum.
The 12th of April was our first batch of cheese made with the inclusion of milk from the new cows.
That was a batch of Little Rollrights, which we started selling last week. Yarlingtons made with the new milk have also been dispatched, and Evenlodes are due to start laving us in a week or two.
Tasting all three cheeses, they seem to have a delicious richness and roundness of flavour about them. Perhaps there’s a difference in butterfat size or structure coming into play here- so I am really looking forward to tasting the harder cheeses made with the new milk in a few months time.
