A story with a corny ending

Farming is never a 9 to 5 job and harvest time makes late summer particularly busy.  After the wheat, barley and straw carting the last crop to come in  is the autumn maize.  Every year, we grow two large fields of maize on the Farm.  The maize grows quickly, reaching a height of over 2 metres by the end of September with lots of nice plump cobs.  But rather then harvesting the cobs for folks to eat, it is all chopped up for silage so the girls can have their greens throughout the winter when it is too wet for them to be out grazing.

  

The maize needs a specialist self-propelled forage harvester to cut it so the Sell’s bring theirs over and do the silaging for us, after that the cut stems are all that is left.

The loads of maize are stored in a large clamp which has concrete sides.  The maize is squashed down and rolled with a loader as each load of maize is unloaded.  This year we had a great harvest – over 700 tons!

To give it an airtight seal a plastic sheet that is weighed down with used tyres are to be used as weight on plastic. All of this takes several people a couple of days and often means a late finish.

 

Here’s the same field after harvest.  Soon to be ploughed and it all starts again.

Most of the silage is fed to the cows during the winter months when fresh grass is not available.  The girls enjoy some nice moo-ments eating their grub twice a day after milking.

 

Out and About

It has been such a busy summer at the Dairy. As well as experimenting with a new more crumbly version of our hard cheese, which we have been maturing over the last few months, we have been spreading out a little further into Essex.

   

In July we have started supplying White Elms Farm Shop at Bicknacre. Our Baby Bure’s soft cheese has joined the summer menu at the Purleigh Bell pub and we are now supplying them with our fresh milk too. And Clayhill Vineyard has joined us too, using our milk in the café and the extra thick cream for their cream scones.

Back at Open Farm Sunday in June we met David’s Kitchen a local chutney and chilli maker. In July we caught up with David and since then he and Carol have been busy picking apricots, pears, plums and greengages from the Farm’s garden orchard to make a range of chutneys and jams specially for us. David joined us for our first Cheese and Chutney Weekend in August and we had a little mini open weekend where everyone could meet some of our calves as well as see the cows.

Lots of activity at the Farm for “Cheese and Chutney” weekend

We have been out from the farm much more this month, running cheese tastings at Bicknacre and last weekend we managed to spread ourselves around three events.  We joined the agriculture tent at Orsett show, with a display on the cows and calves, cheese tastings and taking more of the milkshakes which were so popular at Open Farm Sunday. It was a fantastic day for us at the show. We were busy all day talking to people and giving out plenty of cheese samples.  Then we split our resources to take part in the Bowers Gifford Picnic in the Park. It was lovely to do an event so close to the Farm and it was a great afternoon there. Lynette and Carole manned the Picnic.  John went over to Thames Chase Community Forest at Broadfields Farm near Upminster to join in Harvest Home, their celebration of farming, another great event and a brand new audience for the Dairy.  I ran between the two to set up while keeping an eye on our own dairy shop. Overall the busiest weekend we have ever had.

July and August have been just as busy on the Farm too. The usual cow work joined by second cut silage, harvest and carting hundreds of bales of straw from other farms in south Essex so we have enough winter bedding for the girls. Now we are cracking on with autumn cultivations, spreading all the dung from the winter barns on to the fields ready to be ploughed in. We are not organic but we do try to use as much of our own natural fertiliser as we can on the fields.

All the animals are readying for autumn, the squirrels are in the garden constantly stocking up and Mrs Mallard’s babys are nearly full grown and have lost all their fluff. Our very naughty white ducks, who joined us in June, from a school via Nicky, have taken over the farm completely, popping up all over the place, constantly talking to each other and chasing others away from their favourite spots. They waddled down the cows feed strip last night and have even been seen in the milking parlour.

We have more planned for September and lots of cheese making this month to get cheese matured in time for Christmas, which will be with us before we know it.

Summer Swarming

June has been quite a month for us. Opening the farm gates for visitors for the first time for Open Farm Sunday was quite an undertaking. We couldn’t have managed it without all our friends volunteering to help us out. Thank you so much to you all.

More cheese? – Tony, Scott and Emma with Clare

Carolyn feeding strawberries and cream to the masses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carolyn, Sarah, Michael and Asher for being amazing caterers, the scones were brilliant.
Tony, Fi, Scott and Emma for manning the cheese tasting and shop, you did a wonderful job.
Tara for tracking and measuring all those wellies (we did track down the one that went over the hedge), Wayne for manning the car park, Chris for helping out with the machinery, cows and calves,
Chelsea and James for looking after the calves.  Joy, Julie and Pauline for organising the fantastic calf colouring and Lynette, Lauren and Nicky for being our excellent tour guides.

Watch that wellie Tara!

It’s busy in the car park, Wayne

Joy and Julie with some budding artists

That’s a nice calf in there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also Peter Sloper for joining us with his lovely vintage milk van, John and Robert Lyon for the loan of your tractor and portaloo, Alex Sell for bringing the forage harvester and helping out on the day.  And a big thank you to everyone who came along to see the farm too. We hope you had a good time and enjoyed meeting the cows and calves and finding out what happens on the farm.

Pinta anyone?

Out on Tour

Bees on the move

Swarming in the willow tree

People weren’t the only things swarming over the farm this month, our resident wild bees decided to join in the fun and swarmed. First they decided our white van was the place to be before finding a better spot in the willow tree while they scouted for a new home.

With so many stories about bees dying out it is lovely to see ours en mass and hopefully making a second colony somewhere nearby.

And the bees weren’t the only wildlife on the farm either as we were joined this week by a rather lovely goose who stayed this week and set off again last night.

 

 

Open Farm Sunday Competition Winners!

Here are all the competition winners from Open farm Sunday “Colour and Name the Calf” and the “Wellie Throwing”.

We have chosen eight drawings and names for the eight heifer calves that are now in the barn.

SEBBY by Sebastian Barrow

 

DAISIE by Lily Adams

     

PATCHES by Luda (Lucia?) Giraldo

    

MARBLE by Indigo Lambourne

    

LUCA by Maelle

     

TOFFY by Fleur Jamieson

 

BELLA by Bella Coote

    

…and finally, the magnificently named CALF VADER!  by Jax Lambourne.  The Force is with this one!

  

Thank you to everyone who did a drawing.  We will use some of the other names as more calves are born through the summer and keep you posted.

If anyone wants to keep their drawing, they can collect it from the Farm.

THE WELLIE THROWING WINNERS were

Bonnie Heather (child entry) at 66.3 feet

Calvin Purcell at a prodigious 119.5 feet

Well wanged !!

We will be in touch with all of the winners next week.

Isn’t it beautiful ?!

Spring is here and the cows are back out in the fields.  It is always my favourite day of the year when the cows go out, seeing their joy in being back on the grass.  This morning my Dad Nick said to John “Isn’t it beautiful?”.  John inquired as to whether he meant the weather.  He just gesticulated with his arms – everything.  Indeed, there are new ducklings on the pond, clear Spring days, the grass verdant and the trees bursting out.  

     

There’s been a lot happening too.  The BBC Essex Radio Quest team came to the Farm last Sunday (2nd April).  The Farm was the location for the start of the programme at 9am.  It was great to be part of the show and we talked about what we are doing at the Farm before the Team tried our products.  Not everything went smoothly though – we had the cunning idea of videoing them filling a bottle of milk for their Facebook site, only to have the vending machine not stop and shower Liana with milk!  I know Cleopatra liked to bathe in milk but it wasn’t quite what we intended and certainly not the promotion we had thought it would be.  After a stressful panic, recalibration and the standard IT fix of turn it off and turn it on again we gave it another go, only for the same result.  Just before going live to air.

    

As soon as they left we went to look at the machine and opened it up to realise that we had forgotten to plug in the meter that measures the milk.  And as anyone will tell you, if you don’t plug it in you can’t expect it to work properly!  Anyway, we compensated their milky hand with cheese and cream scones so no harm done and the machine is all working again.

Things have moved on quickly recently.  We are now getting into the swing of pasteurising the milk every other evening.  That way we get the milk into our vending machine the evening that the cows have been freshly milked.  We are also bottling the milk and potting up cream after every pasteurising, ready for deliveries to shops the next morning.  We are now supplying four shops. We started with Purleigh Stores in the middle of March and then Jon Gold Farm Shop at Lubards Farm near Hullbridge.  We are now also supplying Burstead Farm Shop at Little Burstead, south of Billericay and Stockbrook Farm Shop on the north side of Billericay near Stock.  This is a new phase for us and is keeping us very busy.

We have been doing tastings each weekend at the Farm, but did our first one elsewhere yesterday as part of a cheese and wine tasting at the Purleigh Stores.  We had lots of interest and are setting up a pre-order service so that people can order what they want and pick up at the store.  We will be doing a tasting at the Burstead Farm Shop this Saturday.  

Tasting at Purleigh Stores

Opening up

Well it has been a fascinating first full week of opening our shop. It was wonderful to be able to get feedback from everyone who has visited over the last two weekends when we have had cheese samples available for everyone to try.  A huge thank you to all the customers who have been in, it has been lovely talking to you all.

It been a busy week too, we had some extra advice from our cheese microbiologist a fortnight ago so we have been trying out those ideas on the cheese making too.  Leaving the soft cheese to mature a little longer before salting to increase the intensity and adjusting the pepperiness of the Chalvedon hard cheese.

Nick, Billy and Dennis and machine

Do you think it will go in?

But the big project for the week was vending machine number two.  It arrived on Monday a week later than we had hoped.  Whilst it did fit in the space we had made for it, it blocked the power sockets so we have had to have those moved before we could get it in the shop, creating yet another job for my Dad, Nick, to do.

After it bending the pallet it had been sitting on we called for reinforcements to help us move it.  Billy and Dennis Keeling came to the rescue and gave us a hand.  We fork lifted it as close to the shop as we could and carried it through from there.  Which we couldn’t have managed without their help.

Finally in place

A quick coffee

Finally in situ we came to the task of interpreting two massive books of instructions to fathom out its operation.  John persevered with the daunting task and is now master of the vending machines, except its little quirk of hating 10p’s and refusing to give them in change. 

So it has been in use over the weekend for cheese, cream, skimmed and semi-skimmed milk making it much easier to set up the shop and samples this time giving us time for a quick break first thing before we got started. 

On the farm it has been a very stressful fortnight.  My Dad and Sister were summoned to a meeting with Muller, who currently take the bulk of our milk.  The meeting was to give us and about 18 other farmers notice on our contracts as they are cutting all milk collections from East Anglia.  We were half expecting the news as they announced the closure of Chadwell Heath Dairy a few months ago and that is where our milk they collect goes.  The rest of the Chadwell milk will be going to the west country for processing.  Fortunately Arla are looking for a small number of milk suppliers at the moment and have given a once only offer to farms affected, a bit of a turnaround as they gave notice to one of our neighbours only a year ago.  A couple of the other farms have told us enough is enough and they are going to give up so we could be down to 5 dairy farms in Essex before long. 

So a worrying time, without a new contract we would have to have given up too, our new milk shop helps the situation but not enough yet to have survived without a main dairy collecting.  But we have gone with the Arla offer so that should give us some stability for now. We also think with the closure of Chadwell heath that we will be not just the only on farm cheese dairy in Essex but the only milk processing dairy in Essex too. 

Now that the rain has gone

A few more bits to do next week, we will be updating the website with information about all the products and hopefully getting our banners up on the granary and roadside if it is not too windy now storm Doris and Eric have both passed us by.

Thank you for all the positive Facebook reviews and comment and we hope to see some of you again soon and some new customers too.

‘Mooberry’ rides (for the first time)

We now have our new refrigerated van and have called her (we think that she is a girl) ‘Mooberry’ after one of the calves named in our recent “name the calf” competition.

van_front1

mooberry

 

 

We think that Mooberry looks great in her new signage with the cow logo.  Mooberry will be delivering milk, cream and cheese to local shops in the new year, so watch out for her.

We are hoping to have everything in place to be able to sell milk from the farm in the next month.  More on that very soon…

Milk and Maize

As September comes to a close everything is finally starting to come together.  The milk tanks are now installed in the new dairy room and fully working, and the milk vessel and pumping system is all up and running to get milk across from the main tank.  Just waiting on the pasteuriser, cream separator and bottle filler to slot into the gaps.  So avoiding any disasters the micro dairy should be up and running at the end of October.  And milk and cream on sale once we have food safety sign off in November. 

Milk transfer tank

Milk transfer tank

We can start making Cheese from the pasteurised milk from then and fingers crossed should have some batches matured for Christmas.  We have been trialling some changes to the cheese makes and have a new style on the way which we are very pleased with so far.

This month has included the national Red Tractor week promotion, Trust the Tractor.  We had our farm assurance audit in the summer and passed which means the milk we sell can go into red tractor labelled products.  The Red Tractor farm assurance covers animal welfare, food hygiene, traceability and environmental management so is a really good way of checking that the cows are well looked after as well as showing the products are made, stored and treated appropriately.  Once the dairy is up and running we will start looking at whether to get certification for our own products as well which means getting additional specialist audits for the dairy and cheese room itself as well as the existing one for the milk.

It has been busy in the fields too with the maize silage finished this week.  This, with the grass silage will make up the bulk of the cows winter feed and they are always keen to start eating it as soon as it is ready.

Maize sileage clamp

Maize silage clamp

 

Summer calves and Winter straw

While most normal people have been enjoying the lovely warm days of summer, thoughts on the farm have turned to winter.  During spring, summer and autumn our girls are out on the pasture but in winter they live in a large straw bedded barn, rather than the cubicles many farms have.  This means getting ready for winter is a mammoth task and providing fresh straw bedding every day of winter means we have to buy in more than 500 tonnes of straw from other arable farms and cart it back to the farm.

At the same time we have to deal with the 500 plus tonnes of dung that came out of the barns from last winter and has been rotting down over the summer.  This has to be spread onto the fields to give the crops and grass food for next year and has be done before our clay ground gets water logged in the late autumn.

Straw bales

Straw bales

Late summer is a very busy and slightly smelly time on the farm and on top of all the field work it is the time when we get most calves born too.

Over the summer our Facebook friends have been suggesting names for this years heifer calves.  Each year we breed 20 to 30 Friesian Holstein heifer calves.  We would expect nearly all of these babies to make it into the milking herd in two to three years time when they have calves of their own.  We had nearly 350 entries into the calf naming competition and the three winning names who received a cuddly cow were: Heffy Flump, which was chosen as a winner by Chelsea who works on the farm and is now the name of the first calf she bred.

Cuddly cow

Cuddly cow

Lily Pops, which was picked out by my husband John and belongs to a calf with very long eye brows! And Mooberry was chosen by me and is one of our darker calves who has colouring like the pet cow I had when I was little.

Heffy-Flump

Heffy-Flump

Lily-Pops

Lily-Pops

Mooberry

Mooberry

These three girls are living alongside a new group of friends including Daphne and Willow.  They have their own pens like each of the other calves.  The girls will stay in here for the first six to eight weeks, this makes sure they each get their own adlib food and water and then milk twice a day and don’t get pushed around by older bigger calves when it comes to feeding time.

When they are eight weeks old these three will be weaned off milk and then move into the group pen where Tulip, Meadow, Rio, Arya and Hermione currently live.

Meadow, Arya and Hermione

Meadow, Arya and Hermione

At three months they will all move to Chalvedon to join the older calves like Gertrude, Lavender, Buttercup and Natee in the straw barn where they will live until the following spring when they will be old enough to go out to graze on the fresh grass.  We have named all the calves born since January with names suggested on Facebook:

Buttercup, Ermintrude, Jasmine, Gertude, Natee, Lavender and Petal

Buttercup, Ermintrude, Jasmine, Gertude, Nattee, Lavender and Petal

Arya, Buttercup, Clover, Daisy, Daphne, Ermintrude, Flossy, Gertrude, Hermione, Jasmine, Kimmy, Lavender, Meadow, Natee, Oreo, Petal, Queenie, Rio, Summer, Tulip, Veronica, Willow.

These join three calves we had named earlier, Glacier (whose mum and sisters are very white and we always name after types of mint) and Rhubarb and Custard who are twins born in July. 

With another 10 heifer calves expected in September and October we will be using a further 10 names as they are born – Arwen, Bella, Connie, Elsie, Freya, Juniper, Marigold, Olivia, Tinkerbell and finally, yes Marion, we will be calling one Pamela just for you.  We are saving Snowdrop or Snowflake for when we get a very white calf again.

Our heifers born last year coming up from the fields

Our heifers born last year coming up from the fields

 

 

 

 

Welcome to our new Bradfields Farm website

Welcome to our new Bradfields Farm website.

The Dairy at Bradfields Farm is a new enterprise currently under development.

Building

We aim to manufacture a small range of good quality local dairy products direct from the farm, to Essex and the surrounding area through farmers markets and new farm shop.

We are currently researching what products people would be interested in buying locally and recruiting tasters to provide feedback when we start production next year.