A Month on the Farm

by Lisa Buchanan

~ SEPTEMBER ~

August is a heavenly month for me. I am home on the farm for nearly a month and try not to travel for any reason. There is always so much to do here and trying to fit it in while also working is a constant challenge. August gives me a chance to sort things out and the first big job was to clean out the feed room and medicine store. It was disgusting - dust beyond words, accumulated “stuff”, and so much disorder. Five and a half hours later – and with the help of a dear friend who came for a few days (and might never come again!) and Jamie’s blower – and it was pristine! Everything with a place and a place for everything. It was immensely cathartic.

Amazingly, the cattle only came back to a field they first grazed in the Spring this month. With the rain we had in July, there has been good regrowth, and they remain very contented. Their happiness only increased when Arthur, our lovely new bull, went in with girls – “at last”, I heard him say, and he has been very busy! Calves should be born in May next year – when the grass is at its best, meaning high quality milk. We have taken another field for hay and have also had to buy some in (which is expensive). The yields are so diminished this year by the drought - fields from which we would normally harvest 50 bales, are giving just 17. It is desperate and this Winter is not going to be easy for any farmer, but particularly for those who keep livestock.

We had the great Gabe Brown here again, which is always an enormous thrill. If you haven’t read “Dirt to soil”, I urge you so to do. It is such an inspiring book for anyone with an interest in farming and food production. To have him here, walking our fields and giving advice is unbelievably special and a real privilege. Thanks to Christina Coleman, we have another great man coming to Fletching – Tony Juniper. Tony is one of the great heroes of our age who fights tirelessly and courageously to protect our precious natural world. He worked with The King on his extraordinary book, “Harmony” and has written many books himself, most recently, “Just Earth”. Tony is something of a global superstar - a brilliant speaker as well as being one of the nicest people you could wish to meet, so don’t miss him on 10th September.

August is a month for making blackberry jelly. One of my most powerful memories of childhood is making it with my Mother. There is something so evocative about the smell from the bubbling pan of purple deliciousness and then the nervousness about whether it will set or not. And all that preceded by the delight of picking those plump shining berries on a warm August afternoon with fingers stained purple while the grasshoppers chirrup in the grass and the bees lazily cruise the hedges. There really are few places better to be than in a Sussex field in Summer.

Lisa Buchanan