Why did the caravan cross the road? (Bridport Times, March 2020)
We write monthly for the magazine Bridport Times. To see this article as originally published, view the pages on Issue.
Written by Ben Scriven
Visitors to West Bexington may have noticed a rather strange pair of caravans sitting in a field and wondered how they seem to mysteriously move around periodically. They represent my latest (bird brained?) idea: can we produce eggs without importing feed?
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Rosie’s Sourdough from start to end
Rosie has worked out a great and consistent recipe for using our flour to create delicious loaves of bread. Here is her method for looking after the sourdough starter, a very simple rye sourdough, and a go-to for the wheat sourdough.
Continue reading “Rosie’s Sourdough from start to end”
Rain, rain, go away… (Bridport Times, February 2020)
We write monthly for the magazine Bridport Times. To see this article as originally published, view the pages on Issue.
Written by Adam Simon
Do you remember playing with water and building dams as a child? Something we all learned very quickly was that water runs inexorably downhill. You can channel it, slow it down or hold it temporarily but ultimately it insists on going downwards. On our farm, water ends up harmlessly in the sea quite soon, but it can be troublesome en route. Readers will have noticed that, after the dry summer, we had a lot of rain early this winter and we have needed to help some of our water find the ways we wanted it to take rather than letting it choose its own.
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Bess’s Tail (Bridport Times, January 2020)
We write monthly for the magazine Bridport Times. To see this article as originally published, view the pages on Issue.
Written by Leila Simon
Just thirteen years ago this month, Ellen returned from Puddletown veterinary surgery with a roly-poly, black, tan and white collie called Scamp. Probably between 2 and 4 years old, Scamp was, we hoped, to be our new sheepdog. We’d spent two months without one, struggling to gather and move the sheep alone. Perhaps more difficult than that, we’d had no loving doggy presence in the house or companionship out and about. For years we had been looked after by a golden retriever who thought we kept the farm especially for her to play in, and then we got Moss as a puppy who we trained up as a sheepdog ourselves. She had died suddenly at 8 years old from an undiagnosed liver cancer that haemorrhaged. She had been asking for gates to be opened rather than jumping them, however she had seemed fine and was working well – just the evening before, she had moved the cattle very neatly from below the car park at Cogden to the field next door. The day she died had been spent apparently enjoying herself as a passenger in the tractor cab but when she got out she clearly felt bad, and we were on the phone to the vet when she died curled up in her basket. We had mourned the loss of a companion and a working partner and felt we couldn’t wait for a puppy to grow and, as we couldn’t afford a trained adult dog, we tried out a rescue dog.
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Sad news from the farm – Arthur Pearse
Arthur Pearse
17/03/1927 – 30/12/2019
We’re sorry to have to tell you that Arthur Pearse died after a short illness on the 30th of December.
Arthur, who many of you will know, started Tamarisk Farm with Josephine in the early 1960s, and ran the market garden well into his eighties until handing it over to Rosie.
Between you, me, and the gatepost (Bridport Times, December 2019)
We write monthly for the magazine Bridport Times. To see this article as originally published, view the pages on Issue.
Written by Ellen Simon
Bhutan, we hear, measures its success in gross national happiness instead of gross national product. Provided we stay above the breadline and can pay the bills, I think we might measure the farm’s success by whether the gates are good. Gates in good order are a joy. A gate should unlatch with one hand and easily swing open with just a light push. It should stay roughly where it is left, neither swinging wide open nor closing onto the person passing through. It should not touch the ground or have space underneath it to allow lambs to find their way through. It should have clear space at head level for the user, with no bramble shoots or sallow whips to catch unwary faces. It should close readily and latch securely when given a gentle nudge in the right direction. It should make a distinctive noise as it latches so that one can be totally sure without going to check that it cannot be opened with a shove from the next passing animal.
Continue reading “Between you, me, and the gatepost (Bridport Times, December 2019)”