A Week on the Estate: Leguminous Fixing, Marginal Work & Calving Season

Our organic and regenerative approach to farming improves and maintains a healthy soil biome. Vibrant, biodiverse soil teeming with viral, bacterial, fungal and insect species is simply indispensable if the land is to support plant and animal life season after season while soaking up heavy rain and resisting wind erosion during droughts. It pays to keep learning.

Back at the Hall, Clint is mowing, the Buffs are foraging, the beds are blooming and the honey bees are buzzing. Clint did however have had to make space on his long job-list for clearing a fallen tree brought down over the beck by last week’s feisty winds.

Speaking of job-lists, the Saturday Club have become an indispensable part of the Estate team, tackling maintenance tasks as they crop up. Last weekend, they mended new sections of hedgerow that some of our more adventurous Lincoln Reds had trampled. While out and about, they took the opportunity to learn about the important of field margins in our wildlife-friendly farming model.

This time on the margins tied in nicely with Garry Steel’s excellent barn owl workshop last month. The one sad note was that the team found yet another helium balloon; fortunately, it wasn’t in a grazing field. The team finished their session by bagging some compost at the Hall in preparation for their environmentally friendly, ‘no dig’ veg plot, and tidying their tool shed. Watch out for news of the Saturday Club’s business sideline: selling gardening produce as natural dog treats.

Right next to our busy business hub, Manor Farmhouse is looking handsome after a bit of TLC. We’ve sympathetically future-proofed this grand old building to make it as safe, sound and thermally efficient as possible while preserving its heritage for future generations. Manor Farmhouse was built in 1660, shortly after the English Civil War and around the time that Sir Drayner Massingberd was extending the original version of South Ormsby Hall. Drayner’s Hall was substantially re-built in the mid-18th century. We wonder how the world will look 364 years from now.

Finally, does anybody care to guess the birthday of this season’s first Lincoln Red calf? By the look of our pregnant cows, it will be soon. The Herd Team is on standby and we’re as keen to guess the date as you are.

Here’s our tipster, Herd Manager Darren MacDonald, speaking earlier this year: “We’ve changed the calving system as we don’t want calves to be born in the coldest months. This year, we’re looking at an 80% pregnancy rate. The vet came over, did some scanning and gave me the predicted date range. We’re looking at a May-June calving season. That’s a safe weather window and should give them plenty of grazing time before winter.”

We will, of course, keep you posted.

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.