Spring news from Copsegrove including calves and courtyard chaos!
1st March 26
Hello everyone!
After a painfully long grey and wet winter, there have been moments during this last week when it has finally felt like Spring is at our fingertips! Hip hip hooray! The birds are rejoicing too!
Elsewhere on the farm, the woodland floors are beginning to sprout the earliest shoots of vibrant green garlic, the pungent carpet thickening daily. The cows’ bellies are rounding up nicely as they get ever closer to their due dates, with swollen udders beginning to bulge and sway as they chase down Martin and Wilf in the Kubota loaded with their breakfast hay! Calves are imminent! That’s got to mean Spring….surely?!
Cows ‘n’ Calves
Throughout March and April our herd will increase as our Mums begin to give birth, hopefully all smoothly and without too much intervention from any of us.
This period involves a lot of cow bottom watching, a process that whilst may sound simple, is actually highly skilled! When a cow begins the labour process, she will hike her tail up to indicate her discomfort and often keep it raised for a while. Cows of course also do this whilst weeing, farting and pooing, so given the frequency with which a single cow does these necessary 3 bodily functions on a daily basis, this may give you an inkling as to just how many false calving alarms this can cause whilst on cow bottom watching duty. In fact, some might say never a dull moment…
Martin and Wilf share the role, with Martin on early morning duties, and Wilf on late night duties to match their body clocks ( and their age perhaps?!)
Meanwhile, the boxes of extra long gloves and bottles of lube sit at the ready for any poor dear lady that might need a little bit of a helping hand…god I don’t envy her.
Courtyard chaos!
In between bottom watching, there is plenty of digger action going on in the courtyard, in fact it’s carnage down there. There is of course a plan…in Martin’s head…I tend only to be able to see it at the final completion stage, which to be fair to him, has never failed to impress in the past. Who doesn’t love a surprise?
Thanks to Russ, Jules, Ned, Wilf, Alex …and Tom, Dick and Harry. The more muscle, the merrier!
Copsegrove Farm Family Sunday
All will be unveiled to the world on Sunday 26th April, when we shall open the barn doors again, and hope to welcome many of you to join us for our Copsegrove Farm family Sunday event.
Many of you came along last year on the most beautiful warm sunny Sunday, helped us choose a name for our new Bull ( who by the end of the day became Derick), met our newly born calves and stroppy teenage steers, wanged a welly, toasted a marshmallow or two, and enjoyed a burger and a beer, or a cuppa and a cake.
There was a fair bit of tractor envy going on, thanks to our neighbouring farming friends, who kindly donated their (rather more impressive than ours) farm machinery for the day for any budding farmers in the making to stroke, whilst our resident metal detectorists Mick and Heather provided the opportunity for youngsters to find undiscovered Roman relics in the ground (and occasionally a real hard core pound coin for icecream!)
This year, there is all that and more! There will be music and Morris dancing in the (FLAT!) courtyard with “Hawthorn and Hare”, whilst Ian and some of our lovely team will christen the brand new outdoor courtyard kitchen with a sizzle of plentiful juicy Copsegrove burgers for devouring, and a hot dog or two ( veggie options always…!)
Should be loads of fun for all the family, come rain or shine, but do be warned, the Welly Wanging got mighty competitive last year…
This year there will be a small minimal charge for tickets just to help us cover our costs in putting on the day, but tickets are limited, so don’t delay too much in getting hold of some if any of the above tickles your fancy.
Tickets are on sale now, please CLICK HERE!
Next Feast!
Our next feast is on Friday May 15th when we shall go Greek for the night with the help of the Stavrakakis chefs ( one or both!?).
Joining us this year will be musicians Pavlos and Vasileios, on guitar, bouzouki and vocals to bring the very special Greek Rebetiko music to the barn. Rembetiko is a music imbued with pulsating dancing rhythms, lyrical and soulful melodies , and Pavlos promises it will fill us all with hope and joy and have us dancing both in and out of our seats….(a little ouzo might of course help too)… I love the sound of that…hope you might too?! Full menu to follow as soon as I can cajoule Ian in to writing one?!
Tickets on sale for this too, please CLICK HERE!
Plenty more is planned for the summer months, but lets embrace Spring for now!
Thank you for reading this and for your support of Copsegrove, and we hope to see you very soon!
Kate
