A Week on the Estate: January Alchemy, Greylags Return & Russet Grazers

There’s been plenty of hard work going on outdoors this week. Glynn of GR Bourne & Son of Spilsby brought along his excavator and did an exemplary job of clearing our ditches. This ongoing job of work helps ensure our land can deal with whatever the weather throws at it.

The Saturday Club have so far assembled and installed 51 nesting boxes. This month, they’ve done a fine job of cleaning them out in readiness for spring. 16 had been nested in and many hosted ladybirds, sheltering from the coldest weather.

We also welcomed back the greylags. A week later than last year, these handsome geese circled the lake, nearly landed, changed their minds and dropped into the parkland instead. While they’re always hard to count, we may have hosted 500 last year and it’ll be interesting to see how things develop as spring approaches. By RSPB estimates, 140,000 British breeding greylags over-winter in the UK, competing for space with 88,000 visitors from Iceland.

At the Massingberd-Mundy Distillery, Tristan Jørgensen took time after the Christmas rush for a little creative alchemy. After grinding some Estate barley, he made his first attempt at vodka using the heads and tails from a gin distillation. After nine hours, the flow was going strong at 31-minutes per litre and a steady ABV of 92.66%. Tristan remains tight-lipped about the special-edition gins he’s got planned this year, but he clearly loves to create and gin-lovers should watch this space.

Finally, Paul Barnes spotted our first snowdrop of 2022. Spring and all manner of new life will be with us soon.

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