A Week on the Estate: Fluttering By, Low Pressure & Volunteer Club

If you read our catch-up with Clint Coughlan a few weeks ago, you’ll know we’ve had a bumper year for honey. Much as we enjoy spreading this floral treat on our toast, sweeter still is the knowledge that our local bees, butterflies, moths, wasps and hoverflies are thriving. If you share our enthusiasm for pollinators and you can spare 15 minutes in your garden or local green space, we’d love you to take part in Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count 2023.

The Big Butterfly Count is a citizen-science survey designed to help Butterfly Conservation gauge the health of our ecosystem. This year’s count runs between 14^th July and 6^th August and you can click HERE to find guidance, an interactive map of your area, a free ID chart, a recording tool and more. Good spotting and let us know how you get on.

Speaking of getting involved in the great outdoors, we may have a proposition for you. Do you enjoy being surrounded by nature, meeting new people and helping out in your community? Do gardening, hiking and exploring the great outdoors butter your crumpet?  If this describes you to a T, we want YOU for the South Ormsby Volunteer Club.

Meeting on the third Friday of every month from 10am to 2pm, the Volunteer Club will get you out and about in the lovely Lincolnshire Wolds, making new friends and helping to run a historic working estate.

Join us for our first session on Friday 21st July. We’ll treat you to a brew and a tour of the Estate and share the exciting plans we have in store for our volunteers. From gardening to litter-picking, from harvesting fruit to counting birds and butterflies, we’ve got stacks of useful work for you and we can certainly guarantee variety.

Interested? Email Gemma ( gemma.kedzior@southormsbyestate.co.uk ) or click HERE to sign up online. We’ll see you out there.

Finally, we’ve been looking back at Tristan’s time at the Massingberd-Mundy Distillery as we prepare for the next distiller. Tristan loved to talk about the history and traditions of his craft, and the story behind the phrase ‘Dutch courage’ stood out.

Apparently, the Dutch pioneered gin and called their early version ‘jenever’ (literally ‘juniper’). England became a market for jenever from the 1570s when sailors brought it home from the low countries in an early form of duty-free shopping.

During the Thirty Years’ War of the early 17th century, British troops acquired a taste for jenever when they joined Dutch soldiers in combat against Spain. Used to stave off fear and fatigue ahead of bloody battles, this botanical fire-water earned the nickname ‘Dutch courage’.

In 1690, distilling was liberalised in England, leading to an explosion of small, artisanal distilleries. The result was a mass-produced, juniper-based spirit inspired by jenever but of often dubious quality. This period in British history transformed the word ‘jenever’ into one intoxicating monosyllable: gin.

Keep watching this space for more gin news and cheers!

If you’d like to join the conversation, we’d love to hear from you. Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the latest blog post. As ever, thanks for your support.

* Banner image by Martin Fisch via Flickr CC
* ‘Batalla de Rocroi’ (1643) by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau via Wiki PD