News

The new chiller is moved to its final site. After initial repairs to the refrigerated lorry body and the fitting of the refrigeration unit, the body was moved to its final site on August 27th. Now we will fit an internal insulated barrier and door to minimise the loss of cold air and assemble and fit our shelving.

Ellis Transport, our local haulage contractors, helped us make the move.

The Berkeley Show was held on Bank Holiday Monday, August 28th; this is a good day out for all the family, and an opportunity for farming people to meet and chat. I organised the Farmers′ Market section, it was a busy, tiring and productive day. Bert was able to help me, once he had milked and fed the animals.

On September 3rd I had a short break, returning on September 7th. A very enjoyable chance to visit the sights, bookshops and museums; I stayed with my daughter. Bert coped well with the basic work, plus some late hay making. The photographs I took make it very clear where I went.

On Sunday, September 10th, I will have a stall at Frampton Country Fair; not in the Farmers' Market, because the low autumn sun and fixed stalls can cause the cheese to become too warm; I will be in the Living Countryside area, and will do a cheesemaking demonstration, although I'm not sure when yet.

Frampton Country Fair was very successful, good sunny weather and plenty of visitors. I sold a lot of cheese and did a cheesemaking demo, which was well received, Jonathan Crump sold cheese for me while I did the demo, (see the photo).

Some other producers who were at the Farmers' Market reported that sales were better than last year.

On Wednesday September 14th, I tought cheesemaking at Hartpury College. We used the new Short Course kitchen for the first time, which was much more spacious and better equipped than the previous room. Both students were particularly interested in goat cheesemaking, which made the course very easy to teach.

In September 21st, I visited the Dairy Show, held at the National Agricultural Centre, Stoneleigh. This is a specialist 'trade' show designed for farmers who are milk producers.

Although milking cows is not very profitible at present, there were still some 'big boys toys' on display, it would be interesting to find out how many orders were taken for these very expensive machines.

Alternative dairying is attracting more attention, this is a section of a small goat/sheep rotary parlour. Anthony Hyde from the British Sheep Dairying Association gave a talk, and Delamere Dairy (a major supplier of goat milk products in the UK) had a stand. Particularly interesting was the British Goat Society stand (their first visit); their expert knowledge covered areas such as breeds, bloodlines, long term milk recording, high health status animals and goat AI, the area which interested me. I run what is called a closed herd, I only buy in males occasionally from high health status herds, this means that we minimise risks of introducing disease.

A very enjoyable show, a good opportunity to find out about new ideas and pick peoples brains.

On September 26th, I visited Christ Church Infants School in Downend. The pupils have visited Downend Farmers' Market; our first visit was from the Gardening Group and this month most of the school visited us.

I gave a cheese making demonstration, the children were very interested and asked a lot of questions, I left some photos and samples of the foods that my goats eat, it is unfortunate that it was impossible to introduce them to a real goat.

The school Gardening Club had grown some excellent sweetcorn and pumpkins. It is really encouraging that children on the edge of Bristol are finding out about how food is grown.