A Week on the Estate: Farmer Mike, Birdbox Maintenance & Gold Citation
After a topsy-turvy autumn marked by mild and occasionally warm temperatures, it looks like more typical weather may finally be coming our way. We’re two weeks from meteorological winter and the next week looks set to bring us plenty of rain and overcast skies with highs of 9C and lows of 2C.
On a country estate, each season comes with its own job list. Maintaining our wild-bird nesting boxes is an important project for late autumn and early winter and our young Saturday Club workers have made it their own. By the beginning of last spring, they’d installed 150 boxes around the Estate with the help of our friends at Ketsby Sawmill. Around now, they empty, clean and maintain the boxes, finding out who’s been using them and making sure next year’s tenants have a parasite-free spring.
There’s more to this than bird-spotting. Installing nesting boxes boosts our population of insect-munching birds and ensures we can continue to avoid the use of insecticides. This is good news for our local ecosystem, from Lincoln Reds grazing their paddocks to microbial life in the soil. Creating a virtuous circle that benefits both nature and agriculture is at the heart of what we do at South Ormsby Estate.
Congratulations to our Master Distiller Tristan Jørgensen. In November 2021, Burrell’s Dry Gin placed first in the ‘Drinks Product of the Year’ category at Lincolnshire Life Magazine’s ‘Taste of Excellence’ Food & Drink Awards. While Tristan’s finely crafted gin narrowly missed the top spot in the 2022 competition, the Massingberd-Mundy Distillery’s consistent excellence was acknowledged with a ‘Taste of Excellence’ Gold Citation.
