We’ve had some golden days this autumn, still, bright, beautiful sunsets as the leaves turn.  The bright colour distract us, but this tree then that gets bare of leaves until we are left with a bare landscape, leaves shredded in the wild winds.  I love walking in he woods, leaves rustling and scattering all around.  We get the last few roars as the fallow deer bucks finish their roaring competition for the does, away through the trees I heard the sickening clash as one buck bashs another by the antlers.  Then all falls quiet, and you think you must have imagine the primeval roaring, like sounds from some African plain.

The growthy year has left hedgerows full of fruit, sloes, rosehips, haws, and crab apples.  I pick them before they rot, the dry warm autumn will have them stand longer than last year with more sugar and less water in the fruit. There’s plenty for me and the birds, and I love the process of gathering, walking, along a likely hedge, there they are gleaming and in reach, I usually have a little bag in my pocket to put booty in.  Then later, at home, pour it in triumph into the bowl I’ll prepare them in.

CROPS  -  The crops are coming up after the open autumn, that beautiful sight of lines of crop contrasting with the soil like a vast embroidery, green against red or brown.  This year we are only sowing wheat as our winter crop, except the crops for wildlife.  The oilseed rape has been so disappointing in the last few tricksy harvests.  Some of the crops we sowed using a minimum tillage machine, quicker, cheaper and less soil disturbance.  This is the first machine that we’ve seen that moved the soil at a deep enough level to cut through the compaction we find on our soils to make a good seedbed and good sponge to absorb water and allow good root growth.  Next year, if it works, we’ll try it out on oilseed rape the speed allowing for the August drilling that makes it work best. 

GRASS  -  The grass growth has now slowed in the colder weather after a surge in warmth and enough moisture of one day wet, one day sunny we had earlier in the autumn.  The cows and heifers are now on their last round of the grass, eating the longest grass, leaving the shorter grass to grow on slowly to be the first to graze when we turn the cows out in late January/early February.  That’s the heart of how we can graze so long, putting the cows out on paddocks of longer grass so they can eat it down completely so it grows back cleanly, and quickly to avoid too many hoof marks that damage the soil.
 
YOUNGSTOCK  -  The heifers have enjoyed the warm autumn days, dozing in the sun, dreamy enough that you can scratch their polls, around where the horn grows before they startle.  Now we start bringing them in, the youngest first, out of the poorer weather, so they can grow on through the winter.  Mostly we feed them straw and wheat with some minerals.  It encourages them to cud that develops their rumens, those fermenting vats that turn indigestible stalk (to us) into useable food.  It’s the stalk that stores so much of the sun’s energy in plants – straw in wheat, stem in maize, stalk and chewy bits in grass, and it’s the marvellous rumen that unlocks it into meat and milk for us.

COWS  -  I love seeing the cows still out as the leaves come off the trees when we used to have them inside.  The spring calving cows are coming toward the end of lactation, dreamy and slow as their calves grow bigger inside them.  We milk them only once a day to save them walking all the way in to the parlour twice when they give much less milk, although very rich milk, at the end of their lactation.  It also saves us milking quite so many cows in the afternoon.  Oddly enough, though they give less litres of milk the milk gets richer so it makes a little more cheese.  It shows the effort they are saving in walking goes in part to their udder, as well as conserving their strength for calving to come next February.

CHEESE  -  We need to balance their rich milk with milk from the autumn cows or it is too fatty and will make more acid cheese, less fine flavoured cheese.  We’ve been doing some research, and discover that the protein is less robust in the milk of these late lactation cows, and needs more tender handling in the milk tank, and the curd in the vat.  We are playing around with how we make the cheese, seeing what works.  With any trial with mature cheddar, it takes a year to get an answer, but we keep following our noses to get the creamy, complex, balanced, long finish I love.

PRIZES  -  I’m so proud, we won the Best Cheddar in the British Cheese Awards, out of 135 cheddars entered, with our Mild Cheddar – I think our Mild Cheddar is a real unsung glory, buttery, complex and long finish, so I’m really pleased.  We also won the trophy for the Best Goats Cheese with our Hard Goats Cheese, wonderful to win two of the top awards at this show with nearly 900 entries. At the World Cheese Awards, we won Gold for our Smoked Cheddar, and a Bronze for Extra mature Cheddar.  That’s the end of the show season, and it’s been an extraordinary year, and I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved.

CHEESE FOR PRESENTS  -  Remember to order baskets of cheese from the shop for Christmas presents, last day for orders for posting Wednesday 9th December.  Order from the website, www.quickes.co.uk , or come into the shop and design your own baskets from any suitable products.

RECIPE  -   I pick sloes for Christmas sloe gin, I use a really good gin like Plymouth Gin for the best flavour, and freeze the sloes to get the best flavour our of them quickest.  Pick enough sloes to fill wider-mouthed bottles, add sugar 9-12 ounces per litre of gin, depending on how sticky you like it, and a few drops of almond essence, top the jars up with gin.  Drink the sloe gin for Christmas (freezing the sloes means you get a good flavour before that, so you can cheat and have a little now; it also makes a lovely present).  Use the sloes that are left after you’ve drunk the gin for flavouring apple crumbles or to cheer up a boring white wine.  This rich, sweet sloe gin goes beautifully with our Quickes Traditional Hard Goats Cheese.  It’s won so may prizes this year, it’s worth celebrating!

MARY QUICKE