Fresh Fields

Winter in Osada – A time for quiet contemplation, selling last Summer’s harvest and preparing for the coming year.

Not much happened in December – There was Snow on the ground for much of the month, with the second week being the only open window to transport my grain to market. I sold the bulk of our Wheat and Barley crop…

…The remainder will be used to feed the chickens. Over the next few weeks I will need to keep one eye on the price for Sunflower Seed as I have a large harvest to sell and I hope to make sufficient money during the Winter sales to be in a position to finally buy field 15. The fields here are of a size where I can manage them on my own provided I don’t over-stretch myself. I have one last field on my target list – Field 41 – then I think I will cease expansion and settle into a comfortable annual cycle😎

January – The Canola in Fields 1 & 2 and the Wheat in field 14 are waiting out the winter chill ready for a growth spurt in the Spring. They will need a second dose of Fertilizer when the weather improves. The Bees are sleeping although I still have some Honey to process from the end of Autumn. The only real activity around the farm is the Chickens and they have to be fed…

On the 3rd week of January, I did a stock take and decided that I needed to get some more liquid fertilizer ready for Spring. So off I went to the dealer and bought two containers…

…they’re now stashed in the big shed next to the sprayer…

In the first week of February, I sold my Sunflower crop – I could probably have got a better price later in the month but it’s time to move on. The snow lay on the ground through to the middle of the second week when A brief warm spell made farm work possible. I cracked on and Fertilized the Wheat…

…and Canola. Then I took the decision to buy field 15. The rest of the week was spent preparing that field – lifting the large surface stones…

…and taking them off to the debris crusher…

…It doesn’t make anything but it does reduce maintenance costs on my equipment if we’re not battling big stones when we sow, etc.

The 3rd week of February saw me sowing Oilseed Radish in fields 12 and 15…

…I had intended to do the same in field 3 but the snows came once more and I had to settle for what I’d done – we’ll need to liquid fertilize 3 and 40 once the crops are sown in those fields.

In the last week of Feb I sold our last batch of Autumn Honey, making over €840 for the 400l – a very good price. I also took our Eggs from the two Hen houses…

…We now have a full compliment of Chickens and itt seemed a good idea to have a clean sheet to start the new farming year.

It’s been a while since I last posted about my farms. Hopefully I can now get back into the groove – mixing framing with trucking, hunting and this new Dungeons & Dragons experience😎👍 The next farming post will come from Bure Valley Farm – see you soon👌