This month we put our bulls out with their cows. I thought I'd give you a brief history of one of our breeds as they have quite a history...
White Park is a truly ancient breed of beef cattle, kept in Britain for more than 2,000 years.They are closely descended from Britain’s original wild white cattle and several herds were emparked in various parks in Britain in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Dynevor herd continues and we are lucky enough to have Dynevor cattle here on Salisbury Plain. This breed is now quite rare and we are working towards increasing the females and promoting the meat.
White Park beef is lean, tasty, well marbled and it cooks beautifully. When properly hung for at least 3 weeks the joints shrink very little on cooking and the natural juices produced are full of flavour. White Park is best cooked at a slightly lower temperature, over a longer period of time than modern beef breeds. The meat is much sought after and sold by name in top restaurants and butchers.
They are very distinguished in looks – large white animals with black points on their muzzle, ears, eye-rims and feet.the elegant wide-spreading horns are usually black-tipped. Our new bull, Bickleigh Olympic, arrived here on Tuesday and we are very pleased with him. Our Hereford bull, Parsons Hall Good Boy, is also out with his cows...
Our new Flowers from the Farm enterprise has had a promising start with all of our Ammi majus sold. Next year we will have many more flowers and start selling from the farm gate. The first greenhouse will be put up in the autumn and we intend to grow our flowers from seed, so it's all systems go. We're doing all we can to encourage pollinators. We've even drilled holes in fence posts to encourage solitary bees.
This enterprise has turned into a bit of a family affair with my lovely grandson building all the raised beds and my granddaughter having the brilliant idea of building a wildlife pond.
At the end of the day all these small enterprises add up to make a viable family farm that can move forward into what may be an uncertain future for British farming.