International Women’s Day
Apr 25, 2023
On the 8th of March, it was International Women’s Day and I was asked who my most influential woman was and to be honest, I couldn’t answer. There have been so many great women, no one person came to mind. I am a farmer’s daughter and my mother worked as hard as anyone I will ever meet and will be 96 in April! She kept the farm going, milking her cows twice a day, right up to when she was in her 80s. Even though she stopped milking her cows, she still worked, tending her garden to grow whatever she could to feed her family right into her 90s. She was a land girl all her life and it was those land girls during the war, that undertook all aspects of farming to grow food and look after their livestock whilst the men were away fighting. They had weekly ration books and could have 1 fresh egg a week and just 3 pints of milk. Today none of us would survive if we were told we could not have what we fancy when we go shopping.
Bees
Apr 25, 2023
It’s a busy time of year for our bees right now so that means the pollen is coming out too.
From the beginning of spring everything is green and waking up from winter. What a joy to see the bees starting to work their magic on the work of pollinating all our plants for food. Did you know that one out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on pollinators such as bees? Did you know that 75% of leading global crops depend on animal pollination? What an amazing world we live in.
Every Day is a School Day
Apr 25, 2023
It is so difficult to have any predictions for 2023, it is hard to see what is going to happen tomorrow!!! Farmers, fisherman and all producers are at the mercy of the weather as well as world events. Food security must become a top priority, and our government needs to get behind British food and farming. Labelling is key for the public to know what is grown and produced here in the UK by our farmers and producers.
And the rain still comes!
Apr 25, 2023
After that long dry spell in the summer, even into November, when the River Tarrant was still not flowing a drop of water, people would regularly say they had not seen it so dry when they came to visit us in the Tarrant Valley. Then it started raining and, my goodness, it rained from the 20th of October until the end of December. We had 23 inches of rain, half the total rainfall for the year of 2022, which was 40 inches in total. This is above average for us and it’s still relentless through the start of January.
The importance of apprenticeships
Apr 25, 2023
Back in September we welcomed a new member to our team here at Rawston Farm Butchery, the young apprentice, Leighton Foot.
Young butchers' apprentices don’t come along very often, and what a joy it is to have found a course for him to do. It was a bit rocky at the start as searching for one was almost impossible close by. There weren't any courses on offer locally in Dorset and as you can imagine, butchery courses are few and far between as a large part of them take place online.
