Archived News

29th July 2011

To avoid traffic, Laurence was up at 4.30am Wednesday morning to move the combine to Shalford but didn’t actually start harvesting there until later in the morning, finishing relatively early just after 10pm.  The first of five fields at Shalford is 30 acres, yielding 50 tonnes of grain and filling four trailers all of which were carted back to the grain store at Wotton.  Two more trailers were filled half way through the next field but the last of these wasn’t brought back until the following morning due to the night-time road works along the A25.

The contactors are making a smart job resurfacing the main road in readiness for the practice cycle event on 14^th August this year and the Olympic cycle races in 2012. The last couple of nights have been very illuminating; the flood lights outside the farm were so bright, we didn’t need lights on indoors!

Thursday was a mixed bag which included; Frank and Roy grain carting, David working at the grain store and spraying, Sam strimming, George and Amanda fencing, Luke stacked straw bales and we had a meeting with Surrey County Council to discuss the cycle event road closures.

I took Sweep to Churchfield to round up the Belted Galloway finishers and ‘drove’ them back along the track to the farmyard where they were weighed; an excellent routine for both the dog and the cattle who are now used to entering the cattle crush with little or no fuss.  I’ve been organising art work for a promotional ‘Beltie Beef Bag’ and researching chilled transportation whilst Laurence spends the majority of his time harvesting and keeping an eye on the markets to sell grain and straw.

Five lorry loads of rape seed have already been purchased by Attlees, the Dorking grain merchants and we have a buyer for the rape straw once it’s baled; it will be bought straight off the field and sold on as horse bedding.