The march towards Christmas continues at pace up at Jamie’s Farm Skipton, with visits across four days of the week from Co-op Oakwood, Co-op Beckfield, Upper Wharfdale School and Co-op Priesthorpe. It has been a wet and windy month here, but the determination and resilience of our visiting groups has been outstanding, bringing an amazing positive attitude to all they’ve done on the farm.
During an incredibly rainy morning (one of many!), our group from Co-op Oakwood were braving the downpour on their farm tour and were rewarded with one of the most amazing rainbows we have ever seen! It was such a perfect analogy for what we do here on the farm, and we were lucky enough to get some awesome photos.
The cows have arrived! Our barns are coming alive again with the delivery of 76 cows who are eagerly tucking into our delicious (or so our Head of Farm, Mark, says) silage. Bedding up the cows is now a favourite job of our visiting young people, who no doubt will still be finding straw in their pockets/socks/hair for days afterwards. An amazingly productive couple of days recently resulted in both the completion of the woodland tidy we have been working on in order to get some pigs, and the planting of 400 daffodil, iris, crocus, and tulip bulbs along a large section of our driveway – incredible work!Â
One of our colleagues, Rob Carnie, came up north to help out on the farm, sharing his passion for nature with us and our visiting groups – inspiring our planting plans for multiple areas across our site. Even more excitingly (for some of the team at least), Rob spent some time teaching Mark and Ben about the Soilmentor app, which helps us learn what healthy soils and flourishing biodiversity looks like on our farm.
One of the young people who recently visited the farm had a lovely session planting daffodil bulbs with Mark. Her her key worker was blown away by her dedication and focus for a solid hour – something which she doesn’t always get to see in a school setting.
During that same session, another young person rediscovered his passion for gardening, unlocking memories from planting bulbs in India when he was four years old, and is now genuinely considering going on to work in that field when he is older – much to the delight of the green-fingered Rob Carnie who was leading the session.
