The days are lengthening, but we are at the dead time of year.  We had so much rain in the autumn that, in the great swings of weather we seem to have now, we are hoping for a bright cold January.  Our slurry storage (liquid manure and dirty water) needs a break from lots of extra water.  The barn owls with their fluffy soft feathers, can’t hunt in the rain, and get to look very urgent in their hunting in gaps in the rain – three nights of rain and they start to become too weak to hunt and can starve.

My father died in November, and in the bleak time of year, I miss his love, friendship and wise counsel.  I walk through the fields he knew and loved, the woodland he planted and nurtured, the farmstead that fulfils his vision of a farm that produces things people want to buy, and am sad and glad for his life. There was a lovely obituary in The Times:-

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6946484.ece .

CROPS  -  The crops are holding up well with the wet then the frost.  I’m really pleased with the crops we put in with our neighbour James Lee’s minimal tillage machine.  They don’t look as tidy as a ploughed seedbed, but almost the roughness and the lack of breaking the underlying soil structure seems to have them looking good in the winter as it unfolds.  I guess it may leave more harbourage for slugs and mildews, with more old crop around for them to feed on and more gaps in the soil for them to overwinter in; so we may need to treat more, although so far, so good: the trade-offs of farming. 

COWS  -  The milking cows are inside until the last days of the month: as long as it’s not too wet, we’ll turn out the cows to graze as soon as we have enough cows calved to fill one side of the milking parlour (30 cows).  The pastures will have recovered from the minor damage caused by the cows taking off the last of the autumn grass in the rain.  As long as the pug marks aren’t too deep, as long as the turf isn’t inverted, a sward that’s working well has a great ability to recover itself.  We will do a little soil lifting when it gets dry for any fields we damaged more than they can mend themselves, and that should restore them. 

The dry cows are out on the last of the kale that’s left over from the deer, who are uncommonly partial to it.  The red deer aren’t meant to graze in a field where the cows are, but are not taking any notice of this.  We had someone complain it was cruel to have cows grazing in the rain.  Cows, weighing in at over half a tonne, with a heat producing, cellulose fermenting vat in their centres, are more troubled by heat than cold.  They are very effective at using food to generate heat, eating noticeably more to stay warm.  They are fine with either wet or cold.  In driving cold rain or sleet, they bunch together in a steaming mass, that limits their heat loss;  if the weather is too savage, we can bring them in, but mostly they are happier and healthier out.  We keep the leaner cows in so they can use their food to put on their backs not keep them warm.  Fat cows have problems calving and getting in calf, so we can use the weather to get their fat cover right.

YOUNGSTOCK  -  All the heifers, smaller, leaner and needing to grow, are inside.  They still have very woolly winter coats, looking like shaggy beef animals, not the sleek milkers they will become.  The young calves from the autumn herd, now all weaned, blart (moo in that pleading calf way) every time they hear or smell you; they associate people with a full tummy, and let you know they’d like something now, please.  They’ve got feed, straw and calf mix, in front of them all the time, but still associate people with comfort.

CHEESE  -  this is the least milk we produce all year, and there is very little packing of cheese: everyone’s fridges are full and their pockets empty from Christmas.  So January is the month we blitz on cleaning stores, getting the mite to invisible quantities, cleaning racks so all cheese will go onto pristine repaired racks, and the store gleam.  It’s tedious work but necessary – getting everything straight for the next deluge of milk that starts in February when the cows calve and the grass starts growing.

PRIZES  -  We won Best of Dairy and Champion Product in the Taste of the West Awards, the best of 1200 products from the South West of England, for our Extra Mature Cheddar.   That makes it 43 awards this year: my father would have been so proud, and we are proud to honour his vision of world class cheese.

RECIPE  -   Sally Jenkins’ ‘it’s cold and horrible and I need something easy and good, jacket potatoes’.  Throw some washed potatoes in the oven at 180 deg C to cook while you are doing something else.  My favourite potato is that red variety Desiree, but Estima is nice too (they are all pretty good this way other than a salad spud).  They are cooked when you get that lovely baked potato aroma from the oven.  Halve, dig out a hole for a good dob of Quickes Traditional Whey Butter, grate a decent amount of Quickes Traditional Mature Cheddar over it and serve with your favourite chutney (Sally says, whatever you have in the cupboard):  I’m enjoying that lovely Tracklements Onion Marmalade at the moment.

MARY QUICKE