A Week on the Estate: First Calves, Bud Rubbing & Hedgerow Week
We hope we find you well as May arrives and spring rolls towards summer. Another spell of unseasonable warmth has come to an end, and our enjoyment of the sunshine and blue skies was somewhat tempered by the fact that yet another climate record has been broken. Thursday gave us the warmest ever May Day in the UK, with a daytime high of 29.3C recorded at Kew Gardens in London.
The weather is snapping back to a more seasonable norm as we write. Yesterday , 1st May, we had a daytime high of 26C and today’s is set to be 16C with a range of 14C-3C forecast for the next working week. We’ll also get the odd shower; we were about to grumble that the rainfall won’t quite be enough but we should always be careful what we wish for.
Still, there’s plenty to celebrate here at South Ormsby. The trees are in leaf, the birds are bustling, the bees are buzzing and our Lincoln Red herd greeted this season’s first calves in fine, welcoming weather. It’s a little tiring being born but the new additions soon found their feet and their supply of lovely, creamy milk.
There’s been plenty of hard work going on wherever we look. As if by magic, Ken pained our spring oat fields in two shades of green. The rolling process lays the crops in opposite directions as Ken moves back and forth. We’re sure you’ll agree he’s done a neat job.
We also had a busy morning in the vineyard. The team from Lamyman Grange Contractors returned and did a spot of bud rubbing for us. This is an important late-spring job in vineyards. Unwanted buds and shoots are removed by hand to persuade vines to focus their energy on higher shoots and fruiting wires, thus improving yield and quality. Our vineyard is home to 12,000 vines so the team certainly earned their dinner that day.
