Butterbox Farm
  • Home
  • About us
  • Our Beef & Lamb
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Blog

Chatterbox @ Butterbox

Another lockdown, another farm blog...! 2021, here we go!

2/19/2021

0 Comments

 
As I sit writing this blog, I’m struggling to believe that it’s been a whole year since I last updated you with life at Butterbox Farm! It was March 2020 and we’d just entered lockdown (part 1!) what a surreal month that was. I fully intended to update you with the goings on at Butterbox monthly, but, as for so many, life had other ideas and 2020 disappeared in a blur of animals, kids and covid news!

When I wrote our last blog, we’d started lambing on the farm and the distinct lack of visitors and subsequent lack of baked and edible goodies had my husband Gavin and our farm manager Peter sulking and feigning famished exhaustion in the corner of the lambing shed. Our baby, William, was just six months old and I was still able to strap him to my front in the baby sling and head out for lovely long walks on the farm whilst Gavin worked those long hours. The lambs came thick and fast and as the sun shone and the days stretched out, we were pretty content in our lockdown farm bubble. Soon into the lockdown, local businesses started offering takeaway cakes and afternoon teas, which I can honestly say probably saved morale over lambing time!

It was tranquil and relaxing. I wrote a long list of chores that I wanted to achieve in the extra time spent at home; deep cleaning, sorting bags of clothes for charity, tidying up the garden and cleaning out the drawers that Gavin empties his pockets into at the end of each week. Surely we wouldn’t need these old screws, keyless padlocks, broken sheep ear tags, Allen keys and baling twine? Is ‘saving’ these pocket treasures a man thing or a farmer thing?!

Finally, on my list was to write the farm blog, a regular and fun update for all of our friends and family about what we do each month on Butterbox Farm… ‘Won’t I be productive’, I thought as lockdown loomed ahead.
The best laid plans and all that…Two weeks into lockdown, William learnt to crawl! My sweet little baby who’d cooed and gurgled quietly from the spot that I’d left him in (boy, did I take that for granted) was suddenly mobile! And so began an entirely different lockdown experience.

Before long he’d crawled out of our house and across our driveway in hot pursuit of the tractor (still a favourite hobby of his, except now he can army crawl, run and use his ninja skills to escape and chase it). He began beating our aged and once tolerant Terrier with any object that he could fashion into a weapon. He cleared my entire spice rack of spices, ate a large handful of Cardamon Pods and fed said Terrier a jar of Chinese 5 Spice. This did actually temporarily bolster their relationship, built some trust and also made a rather exotic improvement to her otherwise rancid breath.

The moment of realisation really hit when William began grabbing the screws, padlocks and other farm treasures aggressively from me as I attempted to clear another of Gavs kitchen drawer stashes. As he waved the dangerous and not child-proof items proudly above his head I grabbed the whole lot, shoved it all back in the drawer and decided perhaps it was best left there after-all. I promptly chucked my ‘lockdown To-Do’ list away.
I must admit, last week, whilst attempting to put together a toddler scooter I practically jumped for joy when I found a tiny Allen key buried in one of the drawers…. Don’t tell Gavin!

A year on and we have a walking, shouting, trouble making toddler and we’re having more fun than I’d ever imagined!

On the farm we’ve had a really exciting year. We sold our herd of Sussex Cattle, which was a hard decision but we really wanted to embrace growing our herd of Dexters. We wanted to focus solely on selling directly to our local community, reducing food miles and engaging our customers with where their food has come from and ensuring that it has been sustainably produced. We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to purchase some fantastic breeding stock to increase our herd, and this year we are putting more Dexters to the bull than we have ever done before. This is really exciting for us as we are really passionate about our little Dexters, supporting rarebreeds and producing high quality, all grass-fed meat which doesn’t have to have a compromising effect on our planet!

We have been calving the past few months, and welcomed lots of new Dexters to the farm. It won’t be long before they really get to stretch their legs and we will be opening up the barn doors for turn out. Just waiting for some sunshine to dry up the farm and grow some more grass and we will be out for the summer which is exciting. Those of you that walk our footpaths will know that it has been pretty muddy of late! Lambing prep is well underway, the shed is clear and ready for some new arrivals, and our flock have been scanned and grouped accordingly. We bring our ewes that are expecting twins and triplets (we also had one quin scanned!) indoors early so that we can give them some extra feed to support them before lambing.

Unfortunately due to Covid restrictions it is looking like we will be unable to welcome visitors to the lambing shed again this year, however we have so enjoyed meeting and befriending new customers the past year when they have collected their meat boxes and it has been great to be able to get to you know you all, albeit from a distance!

We love meeting you all and we are always so pleased to introduce our livestock and show you what we do. In today’s society, it is so easy to become disconnected from the food that we eat and it’s source and see connecting with our customers to inform them of our farming practices, a really important part of our job. Moving forward, we really look forward to increasing our stock and being able to supply more of our community and hopefully as we ease out of lockdown we will be able to welcome more families to arrange to visit us and learn where their beef and lamb comes from!
Meat box collection day, when you collect your beef and lamb is one of our highlights of the month so thank you so much for all your support.

So here we are again, March is just a few weeks away and we are gearing up for lambing again! Excitingly, William has discovered the joy of ‘helping’ Daddy on the farm! ‘Tractors, dig-digs, baa-baas, moos and Peeeete’ are just a few of the delights that he sees while he’s out and about. So here I am, enjoying an unheard of ‘hot’ coffee at 9am in the peace and quiet and finally, I’m able to write another blog! It’s Gavin’s turn now to marvel at how fast his little legs can carry him, how quickly he can find the most dangerous tools and eat the most disgusting things all while your back is turned for less than a minute!

Now, my favourite part of the day is watching the boys get their boiler suits and boots on every morning to head off to check the cattle and the sheep, the ultimate farming dream team… I don’t want to sound overly optimistic but with this new found child-free time perhaps I can get our kitchen drawers emptied of the screws, padlocks, string and Allen keys before William is old enough to start coming home and contributing with his own pocket clutter!
Wishing you all a safe and happy Spring, and I look forward to writing a full report of our lambing adventures this year as no doubt William will be busy working away in the lambing shed and I may get plenty of chances to sit, drink hot coffee and write!

Take care and stay safe,
​

Holly!
0 Comments

Our First Butterbox Blog

4/25/2020

3 Comments

 

It's nearly the end of the month and here at Butterbox Farm April has passed in a blur of lambing, late nights and of course lockdown!
Welcome to the Butterbox Farm blog and let me start with a quick introduction; Peter and Gavin run the farm here at Butterbox, two farmers whose passion for the health and welfare of the animals, along with the consequent meat that they produce is impeccable and inspiring. As Gavin's wife, Holly, I have had the pleasure and privilege of moving to the farm with him since we were married last December. Having been a dairy farmer in my working life, up until our son William was born 8 months ago, I am no stranger to farming life. Like the team at Butterbox Farm, I really believe in the power of rearing animals on pasture! Since hanging up my milking apron, I spend a lot of time out on the farm walking our two dogs, showing William the animals and of course doing the dutiful farmers wife bit and reporting any escaped sheep to Pete and Gavin. More recently I have taken over the farms social media and am going to be taking over the meat box admin so that when you place your orders for your fresh, grass-fed beef and lamb, its me that you will be dealing with. I look forward to chatting to you all, and hopefully meeting you properly when you collect your meat boxes.

At Butterbox farm, all of the livestock spend majority of the year outside eating nothing but the green stuff. In the winter, the cattle are housed in barns where they eat home grown silage and hay made here on the farm. No additives, no preservatives and no artificial means used to grow the animals – all natural! This pasture-based diet is really beneficial to the quality and taste of the end product but also to the happiness of the animal whilst it is on the farm. They enjoy a lazy life, grazing rolling fields, never hurried or pushed, simply allowed to finish in their own time. Our livestock are relaxed and happy. The meat that is produced is high in iron to give us energy, zinc to support our immune systems and B-vitamins to help us think straight. Grass fed meat is also lower in saturated fats and is a much healthier option for our diet. 

So, a bit about the farmers that produce these quality grass-fed beef and lamb boxes here at Butterbox Farm. Peter manages the farm and has a lifetime of experience having been born and raised in the industry. He grew up on his family farm less than 20 miles away and has worked in and out of the industry his whole life. He has a wealth of knowledge. Gavin, is a Haywards Heath boy born and bred, and was employed by the farm initially to do some gardening. Gradually he was hauled in a few extra days a week to help with the cattle and the sheep and now, twelve years on he is a superb stock-man and manages more grazing than he does lawn-mowing. Peter and Gavin have had a pretty busy month recently as they are calving the pedigree herd of Dexter cows and they are also lambing their flock of 300 ewes, which have yielded around 500 lambs this year.
It has been a slightly different lambing for Gavin and Pete this year as they couldn’t invite any visitors into the lambing shed. As Pete troubled over how he would miss feeding the bottle lambs with his grandchildren, and how he would have to let down the keen vet students who normally stay at the farm to help out over lambing, it was Gavin who raised the most alarming concern to face the farm yet…Would they have to go without the generous array of baked goods that the visitors who frequent the lambing shed usually provide?
The answer – a cold, hard and cake-less yes!

As a result of this lockdown hardship Pete is now sporting a one and a half stone weight loss, which is half a stone more than he normally shifts over a lambing season. It also transpires that Gavins mood is wholly reliant on the amount of cake he has consumed at his morning coffee break. Needless to say, it is probably for the best that he hasn’t had to interact with the public this season.

In the absence of visitors, we decided to produce a series of short, informative clips about what was going on in the lambing shed at Butterbox Farm. To our surprised delight, we received over 10,000 views in the first day. Pete has realised he has hidden potential as a farming Vlogger and Gavin has realised he says “basically” about three times in every sentence - cue many, many retakes until Gavin kept his “basicallys” to a respectable amount. By this stage we determined he was starting to behave like, basically, a bit of a diva and to restore normality we had to ditch the video camera and go back to some plain old fashioned farming. Keep an eye out for more 'life on the farm' videos on our Facebook page in the future. Not such a hardship though, being a farmer this month, because what a beautiful month it has been. The sun is shining and there’s adorable lambs frolicking on the farm. But wait, this is a farming blog and I haven't actually moaned about the weather yet...So, if only now we could get some rain so that the bloody grass will grow! (Sorry, its legit a farming blog now).

Gavin and Pete have finished lambing now and the next job is to turn all of the cattle out for the grazing season. I will endeavour to hang about enthusiastically, waiting to spring out and capture this on camera for the Facebook page. In the meantime, we are taking orders for our popular Hogget boxes, the next availability is for the end of May. A Hogget is simply a lamb, which has been kept for an extra few months grazing. This enhances the flavour of the meat and you also get a larger meat box! Drop us an email at meatsales@butterboxfarm.co.uk if you have any questions or wish to place an order. Otherwise, please give us a like on our Facebook page and we can keep in touch.

We hope you are all safe and well,  and we look forward to catching up when we can.

All the best,

Holly and the team at Butterbox Farm

3 Comments

    Author

    Holly

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2021
    April 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Site powered by Weebly. Managed by 34SP.com
  • Home
  • About us
  • Our Beef & Lamb
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Blog