While the economy stubbornly refuses to grow, the wet weather has led to an extraordinary amount of growth around the farm.
I distinctly remember scratching my head in April and seriously wondering where I was going to put the cows next, as the drought-like conditions killed off any spring grass growth and left me feeding hay well into May.
We were saved of course by the Jubilee double bank holiday, when it started raining and seemingly didn’t stop for the next six weeks. The resulting flush of greenery has left the cows and sheep wading knee deep in grass and I have been forced into going around the farm with the tractor and grass cutter to keep on top of it all. On the campsite I have already notched up twice as many hours on the ride-on mower as I did for the whole of last year, and on my early morning strolls I find myself picking off thistles with my machete that have put in a foot of new growth since I first swiped them down in June.
The difference between a well managed wildlife habitat and an area of desolate scrub can be a fine one and keeping on top of all the gorse and bracken around the farm in any year is a big job. This year’s crop of pearl bordered fritillary butterflies have already had a torrid time of it with the weather and the last thing they need is for next year’s essential supply of violets to be drowned out in a sea of scrub.
So I am very pleased to report that we will once again this autumn host a working holiday under the auspices of The Conservation Volunteers (formally BTCV). This was a huge success in 2011 when a team of eight enthusiastic helpers cleared a large area of scrub from one of our key butterfly habitats. Our jolly crew stayed in our four Yurts and over the course of a week bonded into a formidable team, swathing their way through a couple of acres of gnarly gorse.
This would have taken me months on my own and would have been a very lonely soul-destroying task, and so last autumn it was a real pleasure to wander down with the dogs at dusk and chat with the workers around the dying embers of that day’s fire. They had come from all over the UK and from very different backgrounds and were thoroughly enjoying the communal work & living.
There are still some spaces left for this year’s break from the 3rd – 10th October, so if you fancy a working week on an organic farm, meeting new people and staying in a Yurt you can find more details here: shop.tcv.org.uk/shop/stock?l=level3;lid=733;sid=9343
