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Recent Newsleters from the farm shop and Kestle farm

Newsletter spring 2010 News from the farm It has been a long cold winter; we have even had enough snow to go sledging twice in one winter. It has been great fun for the local kids and many parents as well, but it has made it difficult for our sheep. The grass which normally grows throughout the winter has just stopped growing leaving our ewes with lambs rather hungry. We have been supplementary feeding more rolled barley to the animals but really they need grass. We are having to move the flocks every four days to a fresh field, not that there is any more grass in the fresh field but it is a new set of hedges that the sheep can look at whilst trying to mastermind their escape route. The dry weather in March has been great for lambing the spring ewes, with all of the lambs being turned out on dry days easing the pressure on the lambing pens. I hope you saw some of the lambing live programme on the BBC; it was very interesting and a true to life depiction of lambing on a farm. We are busy at the moment planting hedging trees such as hazel, blackthorn and hawthorn on our new hedgerows. In our woodland we have planted 750 broadleaved trees in areas that we cleared of laurel last summer which you can see if you walk the woodland path. In a couple of our pasture fields we are planting a few individual parkland style trees. These majestic trees of the countryside can take many years to become mature and we hope our children and grandchildren will enjoy their beauty in 50 to 100 years time. To be effective it is important that we fence the hedgerows and the parkland trees otherwise the farm animals will just chew the young shoots. This fencing is expensive to erect and this work is supported by our Farm Environmental Stewardship Scheme. The TB story continues: hurrah we have had a clear test with no animals testing positive. This is a great relief to us as it now means that some of the trading restrictions have been lifted as two of the farms are now classified as free of TB and the other farm now needs another clear test to follow suit. We have replaced our TB infected bull and another older bull by purchasing three new bulls - one for each brother Lobb to introduce to our cows. The three bulls are all of the same breed, namely the South Devon which are a traditional west country breed which excel at producing top quality beef from grass. The bulls’ names are Jubilee, Eclipse and Trusty; we hope they live long and prosper. The prices farmers receive for grain has recently plummeted from £120/ton to £80/ton. We were hoping to get £130/ton for our crop this year which we feel is a level that we can begin to make a profit. Instead we have the disastrous scenario where we are planting and managing crops that are going to create losses in their production. What do we do? We have to harvest the crops to get some of our money back but should we order seed for next year? How are we going to store this year’s crop as our corn store is still partly full with last year’s crop? Do you remember when the price of grain went up to £180/ ton? There was a big fuss in the press and the prices of bread, cakes and lots of food items went up; well they haven’t gone down yet!!! I wonder if they will? With wheat at £80/ton the farmer’s share of a kg of flour priced at £1.35/kg is: £80 divided by 1000kg (ton) = 0.08p, £1.35 divided by 0.08p = 6%. When that flour is made into bread each kg could make two loaves for sale at roughly £1.20. The farmer’s share of a loaf is: Two loaves worth £2.40 divided by 0.08p = 3.33% When you hear somebody say that food is expensive please do not blame the farmers. Most of the money is made further along the food chain in the baking, transport, packaging and the supermarket’s margin. News from Lobbs Farm Shop The farm shop has an interesting choice of events occurring in the Barn:- Baking with Helen Chumbley 24th April £10.00 Lamb cookery with Pier Palena 22nd May £10.00 Hungarian cookery with Zita Tar 19th June £10.00 Greek cookery with Helen Chumbley 17th July £10.00 Pasty making with Anne Stanfield 21st Aug £6.00 These are very interesting and make for a stimulating day which may widen your recipe portfolio. These events normally run from 10am to 3pm-ish. Please book your tickets in advance - just ask at the tills or telephone 844411. The delicatessen will be trying a few new lines this summer such as Pier’s frittata with either mixed vegetables or courgette. A frittata is essentially an Italian omelette that has aspirations to be a pie without the pastry. The usual fresh pie selection (pork, homity, sausage rolls) should be available along with a few new ones like chicken and ham or bacon and egg. In the freezers we have a range of frozen prepared pies and dishes like lasagne, all made here in the farm shop for you to enjoy; an easy meal - just remove from the freezer and cook for 40 minutes. To accompany these meals we have a range of frozen vegetables, petit pois, Tuscan roasting potatoes, garlic and thyme roasted sliced potatoes, breaded garlic mushrooms, battered onion rings, and hash browns. All count as part of your five veg a day programme!!! The chest freezers also contain fish cakes at only 52p each, Yorkshire puddings (made in Yorkshire), pastry (puff or short crust) at only £2.35 per 500g pack, frozen Cornish pasties large and small, croissants, pains au chocolat and, one of my favourites, pains aux raisins which are lovely. Do try one; it’s amazing how much they swell up when left out overnight to defrost, yummmmy!!!! I know the croissants are good because Mrs Lobb uses them for her B&B’s breakfasts and she tells me they are best cooked from frozen. Winter 2010 News from Kestle Farm I am writing this just as the snow is beginning to thaw; luckily all of our animals came through the difficult wintery conditions well. When the grass was covered with snow I took out hay to feed the sheep but they were not especially eager to eat this. Presumably the sheep were able to scratch the snow away and grab a mouthful of grass from under the snow. We were fortunate that the snow was only a couple of inches deep unlike some of the snow-falls up country. The ewes with young lambs were all happy in the snow. I have been supplementary feeding the ewes with lambs with a daily feed of rolled barley and it has been very noticeable recently the numbers of birds that are taking advantage of this daily feed by clearing up any spilt corn and even joining in with the ewes at the troughs. On the coldest days we also saw a flock of twenty lapwings also enjoying this winter feed. I tried to get a photo for the calendar but the lapwings would not pose close enough for a quality picture. Hearing their pee-wits was a treat. I just asked Gill, our shop manager, how you describe the lapwing song and she does a remarkable impression - just ask her when you see her!! Unfortunately we have just heard back from the Animal Health Office that our one animal that tested inconclusive for TB in September has just been retested and is now classified as a reactor. This means that the farm is put under restrictions and we are only able to sell animals for slaughter which must travel direct to the abattoir. Although this disease is not transferable to humans through eating meat, it does potentially limit where we can sell our animals. The individual animal concerned is now isolated and will be sent for slaughter under defra instructions and will not enter the food chain. It’s sod’s law but this animal is actually our most valuable animal on the farm; it’s the bull, Tsar, which we purchased in the summer for £2,500. We will now have a meeting with the Animal Health Officer and they will inform us as to how much compensation we will receive for this animal that has to be culled. Hopefully he will have done his job last summer and we will see a few calves that are his offspring arriving in the spring. News from Lobbs Farm Shop We offered customers the opportunity of winning a free Christmas order and this was open to any customers who ordered before the middle of December. This year’s winner was Mr Collier from Gorran Haven; his prize was a free 20lb turkey and five packs of pigs in blankets. I hope he and his family enjoyed their meal courtesy of Lobbs Farm Shop. The butchery currently offers good value on several lines; our packs of mince are the same price as last year at £6.29 for five one pound bags of quality mince. These are excellent value and are just ideal to keep in the freezer at home. The packs of chuck steak are also the same price as a year ago; these are five one pound vac packed bags of diced chuck, each bag containing one pound of quality Cornish meat ideal for pies, casseroles and stews. Rump steak is one of my favourites because there are no bones with very little waste; absolutely great flavour and superb tenderness is assured as our beef is well hung for twenty one days. These steaks are great value at the moment as well as very tasty. If you prefer, the butchers can coat these steaks with either a chilli willi or a peppered sauce, to add that little bit more flavour, whichever takes your preference. The Heligan pheasant season is now coming to an end but we still have many products available from our freezer section. Please do look or ask the butcher for your requirements before it is all sold as supplies are limited. In the farmhouse kitchen our cooks have been busy preparing our pies, sausage rolls and quiches. The homity pies are still very popular and the quiches, which are made from West Country mature cheddar, Cornish smoked bacon and Cornish milk, are available from the delicatessen counter. The vegetarian quiche has mushrooms which replace the smoked bacon. In all of our farmhouse food products we try to maximise the amount of Cornish ingredients to enable us to capture that authentic Cornish taste, reduce food miles and support jobs here in Cornwall. This winter we have taken the decision to try to produce more of our own products that we sell in the farm shop. One area we feel we have the expertise to produce a quality product is fresh cakes. Helen, who has been working for us for several months now, previously worked as a cook and ran her own cottage business making cakes. In the future she will be working more in the farmhouse kitchen producing chocolate, coffee and Victoria sponges. These are proving to be popular and are sold in half a sponge style to enable smaller families and couples to enjoy them. Sticky lemon and lemon iced gingerbread are also on offer as are various flavours of fruit pies. Although we aim to have these products available within the shop you can also order your choice to avoid any disappointment as it is first come first served. Autumn 2009 News from the farm It’s the end of another summer with a difficult harvest and now we start the process all over again with the planting of our crops of winter barley and winter wheat. These crops are called winter because we plant in the autumn, allowing the crops to establish over the winter and they should grow away early next spring to be harvested in late July and August. We would expect these crops to yield more than spring sown crops and this system of planting at various dates also allows for an extended harvest period. Many of you have seen the new shed at Corran Farm which Terry has had erected to house some of the cattle this winter. Richard has also extended his cattle shed at Higher Kestle which will be used to lamb the ewes and house calves during the winter. These buildings are needed as the farm is moving forward in a different way. The three brothers Terry, Ian and Richard have been farming as a partnership over the whole farm, each owning a third of the whole farm and a third of each farmhouse. We feel that as our children are now at the stage of leaving school and college, we should rearrange this so that we each own our own third individually and separately. This will, we hope, give each of our families more security for the future. In practice this process has been difficult to organise and, as you can imagine, sharing a cake out is not easy, but we have managed to proceed with this next step in our farming lives reasonably amicably; yes we are still talking to each other! As far as the farm shop is concerned, things will remain much the same as they have been with the beef, lamb and vegetables still being supplied from our own farms. Practically you will probably see less of us at the shop as we will each of us need to allocate more of our time to managing our own individual farming businesses. We feel this progression of our business is important as we have seen many a farming family that has failed to plan ahead sufficiently, which creates massive problems for the next generation to sort out. Our improvement of the farms has continued as you can see from this picture below of one of our new hedgerows; in total we have made over half a mile of new hedges during the last twelve months. News from Lobbs Farm Shop We are delighted to report that Lobbs Farm Shop has been awarded the Taste of the West 2009 Gold Retail Award for Cornwall and our website, lobbsfarmshop.com, has also been selected for the final shortlist to be judged for the best website category in the South West. Give a taste of Cornwall this Christmas. One of the reasons that we have been successful in these competitions is that we are promoting and selling a terrific range of Cornish and West Country food and drink. The latest idea we have been trying to develop is sending a taste of Cornwall and the West Country to people outside of Cornwall. Do you have Aunties in Aldershot, cousins in Cardiff or friends in Finchley because we can help with your present dilemmas? We can send a Lobbs box of goodies which could include joints of our beef and lamb, Cornish cheeses as well as any of the massive choice of preserves, pickles, beers and biscuits. All you need to do is come to the shop and select your gifts, give us a delivery address (there is a delivery charge) pay for your choice and we will wrap and send the package away. No hassle, job done. My mother in law has sent two boxes away to her sister and niece who have moved away from their Cornish roots. Both recipients were absolutely delighted to open a box of fine Cornish fayre. The meat, we were informed, was delicious and the pasties were cooked and eaten on the day of delivery!! If you are buying for yourself then why not try a meat box delivery to your home. Any order over £100 has free delivery to anywhere on mainland UK. You can choose the meat cuts on our website - lobbsfarmshop.com. Our professional butchery team will prepare your choice of fresh meat packed with ice pads in a recyclable box for next day delivery. Compare our prices with Donald Russell or the Well Hung Meat Company; we are competitive. We believe our meat is some of the best available, produced on our own farms using a grass based system. Our farm has won awards as one of Britain’s top wildlife friendly farms. Our beef is well hung for up to 21 days to maximise flavour and eating quality. Try our meat and taste the difference; you won’t be disappointed. Keep up to date with news from the farmshop at lobbsfarmshop.wordpress.com Summer 2009 News from the farm What a great summer we have had so far. The weather has been drier than normal which has allowed us to save our silage crop easily; it is much better to harvest the crop in dry weather as very little excess grass juice is created as the grass consolidates in the clamp. During June we have been busy making round bale silage (pickled grass) and hay during the hot summer days; these crops will be used next winter to feed our cattle and sheep. Terry, Ian and Richard have just purchased a new bull as Hector, one of our South Devons, is becoming older and we have several young cows that are related and therefore unable to mate with this bull. The new bull is called Tsar. He is a twenty months old and we paid £2,500 to his breeder, a farmer near Hayle. Tsar is now happily grazing with a bunch of cows in the field opposite the farm shop. We hope Tsar has a happy and successful summer - we shall see the results in nine months time. We managed to shear the sheep the week after the Royal Cornwall Show; the contract shearing team we use came to our farm and sheared 582 sheep in less than two days. In fact on average it took less than two minutes for each sheep - amazing. We pay the shearers £1.10 per sheep and when we sell the wool to the wool marketing board we get paid about £1.00 for each fleece!!!!. It seems remarkable that this clothing resource is so undervalued and yet it is such a “green” product. The sheep graze grass and grow the wool which is far better for the environment than using cotton from America transported across the sea, or the production of man made fibres such as nylon using oil as the primary resource. Wool has been an important part of Britain’s industrial heritage and many towns and cities such as Tavistock and Bradford’s wealth were based on wool. Woolsacks were placed in the House of Lords for the judges to sit on during the reign of Edward III in the 14th century, when the wool trade was big business. Sitting on a seat stuffed with English wool would remind those present of the trade that underpinned national prosperity. It was deemed so important that the Speaker’s chair in the House of Lords contains the woolsack in recognition of the importance of this product. When we have used up the easily available oil in the world, wool may well become an important commodity again. In the last newsletter I described the current TB situation on our farm where we have had a cow that may have been harbouring the disease. DEFRA vets have tried to grow on the organism in a culture dish from a sample taken from our cow. They have written to us to confirm that there were no visible lesions on the lungs when inspected and it has not been possible to confirm any TB from the culture dish test. Therefore we have not had a confirmed TB case but we are still under restriction until we have a retest of all of our animals, which are currently happily grazing our summer pastures. As each herd test creates a lot of work and expense we will probably do our next herd test in the autumn when the cattle return to the farmyard for the winter. News from the Shop The farm shop has been busy recently. We are pleased that people are returning to buy our quality food products - thank you for the lovely comments we have received. One visitor holidaying at a local campsite remarked that our rib eye steaks were the best he has ever eaten! The butchery counter display changes with the season and there is now a large range of BBQ products available. We have our own lamb steaks dressed in a mint sauce, our own beef rump steaks coated in a chilli willi sauce, and Cornish pork loin steaks coated in either a garlic or Chinese style sauce.The butchers are also cooking chickens and gammon knuckles which are great for that summer picnic. The delicatessen counter will also have our range of pies and quiches as available. These have proved to be very popular and we have had difficulty in keeping up with demand; we apologise if you have been disappointed but that is the nature of selling a fresh prepared product. Spring 2009 News from Kestle Farm Spring is here again and the swallows are back; although slightly earlier this year, there appear to be fewer. Let’s hope we have a good summer which will assist their increase in numbers. We have managed to turn out the cattle back to the pastures and it is great to see them run and stretch their legs again. One complication this year is that we have to inject the cattle with the blue tongue vaccine. This involves two injections, three weeks apart, which complicates matters as we now have to bring the animals back in for their second dose. We had our annual TB test in the winter and unfortunately one cow tested inconclusive; this then led to our farm being given restrictions as to where we can sell our animals. Farmers are not allowed to take stock to a livestock auction market, only direct to an abattoir, to reduce any chance of cross infection with other animals. This could not have come at a worse time for us as we were about to sell several of our prime cattle in the market where we believe good suckler cattle like ours can achieve a higher sale value. The majority of our prime animals we sell direct through the farm shop but in the spring we normally have more cattle to sell than the shop requires. We do have good contacts with other Cornish butchers and we have managed to sell cattle to Peter Morris Butchers at St. Columb (these are the guys that make the pasties that we sell from our freezer). The suspect TB cow was quarantined and then tested again 60 days after the initial test. She tested inconclusive again, so after a further 60 days she was tested again using the supposedly more accurate gamma interferon test. The result was a possible reactor. Defra’s vets wanted to cull her to confirm the diagnosis by checking the lungs and lymph glands for TB. The cow was valued at a standard Defra rate which was slightly below what we thought she was worth. This cow was pregnant and about to give birth so obviously we wanted to let the cow calve and suckle her calf for the first 6 weeks which we have done. In the last week of April the cow was sent to the abattoir by Defra and they were unable to find any visible sign of TB!! But they will try to grow the organism on in a culture disk from a sample taken from the animal. We have been paid compensation for the individual animal but we now have a calf to feed by bucket and we have had to put all our animals through the cattle crush four times. The restriction of not being able to market our animals as normal has reduced our sales - at a rough estimate it has cost our business £2000 in the last twelve months. We are lucky that it is only one cow; many farms have lost far more with a few losing over 80% of their herds which is a crippling position for that business. Where did the TB infection come from? We do not buy stock in from other farmers except young calves which are minimal risk and older bulls which are all pretested for TB before movement. The borders of our farm are double fenced to reduce the likelihood of infection from adjacent cattle. There is the possibility of infection by wildlife, possibly deer which are very rare on our farm, or probably badgers which are common. Badgers are beautiful creatures and are fun to watch but badgers with TB are a menace and are causing huge problems in the countryside. This is a real crisis which Defra needs to address as soon as possible. This disease is causing huge problems for badgers, cattle and farmers. Every year it gets worse. In 2008 nearly 40,000 cattle were slaughtered for TB which was a 42% rise. Government ministers have avoided taking the tough decision of culling diseased badgers due to the fear of becoming unpopular. But government should be about taking informed decisions to benefit the country as a whole. The current situation is unsustainable. Action has to be taken; the longer it is delayed the more animals will suffer and the more it will cost Government and the farmers concerned. Many of you have inquired about the earthworks at Corran. Terry is excavating a site for a new shed to house cattle during the winter. The earth removed has been utilised to create new hedgerows and to increase the depth of soil on the brow of the hill where soil has been shallow. A new hedgerow is being created where there used to be a fence; we believe the hedge is more sustainable and will eventually be useful for wildlife. News from Lobbs Farm Shop We had fantastic feedback from those of you that came to Pier’s Italian cooking demonstration. He made fresh pasta with a delicious tomato sauce (Sugo della Nonna) and pesto. Everyone also greatly enjoyed his Carpaccio di Manzo (fillet of beef thinly sliced and marinated in olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper which is eaten raw – so tender it melts in your mouth), Scaloppine de Maiale e Pollo (a chicken and pork dish with lemon) and also grilled aubergines marinated in olive oil, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper. To finish everyone tucked into a delicious lemon polenta cake. His volunteer assistant for the day was Kay Lobb, our sister, who is well qualified as a teacher of domestic science herself. We hope to have more of these sessions next winter and they will be advertised in the shop next autumn. Pier’s cooking is available to buy from the delicatessen. There are quiches, pork pies, sausage rolls, homity pie and many salads. In the freezer there are lasagnes and shepherds, beef and ale, and chicken and mushroom pies - ideal for that easy meal when you are busy with life. Our butchers are again creating our own BBQ products: minted lamb, Chinese flavoured pork ribs, peppered steaks and lemon pepper chicken. A new line this year is our own faggots; these are made from belly pork, pigs’ livers and hearts mixed with a selection of spices and wheat flour. Please do try these products and let the butchers know what you think - your feedback is appreciated. Winter 2009 News from the farm We are absolutely delighted and proud to have won the National FWAG Silver Lapwing Award, this beautiful trophy, yes it is a silver Lapwing on a pedestal, sits in pride of place on our awards display. It is the first time that this prestigious award has been won by a Cornish farm. This could not have been achieved without the assistance and commitment of our families, staff members and the continued support from you, customers of Lobbs farm shop, thank you. We are still attempting to plant our crops for next summer’s harvest; the incessant wet weather has hindered harvest and planting activities. We already have the autumn barley seed in the barn and we need to plant this before spring. This crop requires a period of winter to allow it to grow through its natural growth pattern. We need to plant this crop before February; otherwise we will need to get new spring seed which is suitable for planting from March onwards. Although both autumn and spring Barley appear the same at harvest they are two different crops with differing establishment methods. There has been several press reports recently about the difference between grass fed beef and the more intensive alternative process of cereal fed beef. The grass fed beef has a higher level of important nutrients and has increased benefits for the human’s digestion system. I would also add that grass fed beef allows the animal a more natural life and in my opinion a happier life than animals kept in feed lots. There is also a difference in the taste, texture and flavour of the meat, the superior eating quality of grass fed beef is one of the reasons that we continue with this system on our farm. The majority of our cows and growing cattle are now in their winter housing and are being fed a ration based on grass silage. The cows are fed big round bale haylage, this is dry silage similar to hay. We have found that this product is better for the cows as it keeps their digestive system in balance and reduces the liquid urine produced by the cows allowing a much dryer bed of straw to be maintained in the yards. The growing cattle are eating better quality clamp silage which has higher protein levels supplemented with a ration of rolled barley and lupins. Together these rations grown and produced on our farm enable us to produce top quality beef for sale through Lobbs farm shop. News from Lobbs Farm Shop This year we offered customers the opportunity of winning a free Christmas order open to any customers that ordered before the December the ninth and the winners were the Elks family from Heligan. Christmas sales went very well and we managed to keep the queues at the tills down most of the time, the system of order sheets certainly helps us to provide you with the right goods on the correct day, thank you for making the system work by bringing your order sheets with you. We provided free samples of two products from Cornish orchards; Wassail a fruity punch of Cornish cider infused with citrus and spices and secondly their mulled apple juice. These were both served warm and proved extremely popular we still have these drinks in stock and will be an ideal tonic for the cold winter evenings, please do come and buy your own bottles to try at home. Another winter warmer on sale at the moment is our range of soups all made by our chef in the farmhouse kitchen, currently we have Carrot and Coriander, Broccoli and cheese, Leek and potato, or Mushroom soup available in pots for two people. These can be found either in the fresh dairy cabinet or frozen in the cabinet adjacent. The Butchery will have offers throughout the winter, our mince is always good value at £6.69 for a 2.26 Kg / 5 llb pack of quality mince meat packed in five llb packs ideal for the freezer for use in lasagnes, cottage pies chilli’s etc. Similarly the chuck steaks packs are priced at £12.35 for 2.26 kg again in five llb packs, great for stews, casseroles pies or pasties. When you eat out do you ask where the meat comes from? We are currently supplying meat to the Kings head at Ruan Lanihorne, the Salamander restaurant Mevagissey and the Ship inn at Pentewan uses our meat for its popular Sunday roasts. We have eaten at all of these hostelries and we do recommend them. Autumn 2008 News from Kestle Farm First the good news: we are delighted to have won the Cornwall FWAG (Farm and Wildlife Advisory Group) Otter Trophy for 2008. This is the second time that we have won this award; the first time was in 2003. Winning this award is important to us because we believe that we have a responsibility to care for the countryside and this award is recognition of our efforts to do this important work. We have many different habitats on our farm providing opportunities for wildlife to thrive alongside our productive use of our farmland. Winning this county competition enables us to be entered into the national FWAG Silver Lapwing competition. We are fortunate to have been selected for the final shortlist. We may well struggle to win this award because our farm is a typical Cornish mixed farm; we do not have any special wildlife rarities on our farm such as ospreys or a rare orchid. But what makes our farm special is that we have made care of the countryside an integral part of our business. We endeavour to explain to customers and visitors including many school groups just how we produce food and care for our farm crops, animals and wildlife. We are trying to demonstrate that it is possible to produce quality food and conserve our environment and it does not mean farming has to be organic to achieve these results. This is sustainable farming in the real world; quality food from a quality countryside produced at a realistic price. What enables us to do this is the support of you, our customers, who buy food from Lobbs Farm Shop. The harvest began well; we managed to harvest 80% of our barley in near perfect conditions. It was fantastic to bring in the grain and not have to dry the crop; the straw was good and a lovely bright golden colour. We were able to bale the straw at our convenience and carry to store in our sheds all in the dry. As you all know, August has been a summer disaster. What a change; rain, rain and more rain. Wheat harvesting has been extremely difficult and expensive. The grain has required drying - we used £400 worth of gas in four days, and the straw has had to be turned to enable the wind to dry the swathes. This has all meant extra work for us and the galling thing is that our grain buyers have informed us that grain prices have dropped to £105/ton from £180 which is a similar price to 5 years ago; at that price it is uneconomic for us to grow wheat. We have yet to see the media report this news and I wonder when the price of bread will drop!! News from Lobbs Farm Shop We are now selling English apples again with the new season’s crop of Discovery apples looking great. We have a few of these trees in our own orchards and the apples are a lovely red colour and taste great. Every cloud has a silver lining - the wet summer has meant the young saplings have not needed extra watering. We are interested in selling more local apples. We currently have a couple of suppliers that are able to source limited amounts of fruit; if you have any good quality eating apples why not bring them to the farm shop and let us sell them to other interested apple connoisseurs. By reinvigorating the local food economy we can encourage more local production of fruit and support Cornish producers. Locally two growers have been successful with their fruit products; Cornish Orchards and the Cornish Cyder Company apple juices and ciders are very tasty. Both orchards are now producing a pear cider which has been very popular this summer; both are well worth trying. Lobbs Farm Shop has won a Taste of the West Gold Award for our homemade meatballs, using a mix of Kestle Farm beef & Cornish pork, in tomato sauce. The two new sausage varieties have also done us proud; the pork with wild mushrooms collected Silver and the pork with green pepper and shallots won a Bronze award. Well done the butchery team, especially Lesley our specialist sausage maker. Lobbs Farm Shop stocks 59 of this year’s award winning products; please look for the labels on the products or on the shelves and try these excellent products yourself. There is still time to enjoy a BBQ; we will continue to stock the full range of burgers, steaks and sausages right into the autumn. You could try our meatballs with any of the Italian pastas that we sell; the choice is Garganelli, Boccolotti, Spaghettini, Strozzapretti, Lasagne and Fusilli. To complement the pasta we have cooking sauces such as Mamma Donna’s amazing pasta sauce from Halzephron Herb Farm or Bay Tree’s tomato and wild mushroom. We have now employed Pier, an Italian chef, to prepare our farmhouse kitchen range of foods; he has been busy making the quiches, pies, lasagnes and salads during August. In the autumn he will be developing more kitchen products which we hope you will try. The next taster day is on Saturday, 20th September when we hope to have a few of these products available for tasting - yum, yum. Summer 2008 News from Kestle Farm I am writing this as the rest of the farm team are busy shearing the sheep; it poured with rain last night but we kept the ewes in the sheds so that the wool remained dry otherwise the wool will rot. The ewes will have to be kept in sheltered fields for a couple of days while they get accustomed to the lack of a coat! Eventually when the sun shines, the ewes will be a lot happier and far more comfortable. We are shearing the sheep earlier this year because last year we experienced several ewes that were affected by fly strike. This is when flies lay their eggs on the backs of the sheep and the wet warm conditions enable the eggs to hatch out into maggots! It’s horrible as you can imagine; the affected sheep are treated as soon as possible but it can still be unpleasant for the animal. Is this another sign of global warming? Talking of global warming, many people are purchasing carbon trading benefits to offset the effects of their travel flights on the environment. I have researched some of these and often the end result is trees being planted in a far off part of the world. We are doing our bit right here in Cornwall; we have planted 160 fruit trees in our three new orchards, over 1000 trees in our woodland and over 1000 hedgerow trees in three new hedgerows. This is part of our Stewardship scheme, we have established a permissive path across our farm which people can now walk; the path is open every day of the year except eight days during the shooting season (winter). The path enables walkers to access Heligan from the Gorran (south) side of our farm. The main road can be busy and dangerous so this new route can provide a safe alternative and is a pleasant woodland walk. We have just sold several bullocks, which were more than the shop could utilise, through our local livestock market at Truro. We have been delighted with the prices received and were pleased to see that our cattle were in demand by other butchers in Cornwall, with our cattle often in the top 10% of those offered for sale. Free school visits have been occurring with Mevagissey, St. Mewan, Kenilworth (Coventry), Truro College, Lanjeth preschool and Gorran preschool among the most recent to visit. LEAF Open Farm Sunday went well with many people enjoying a free farm tour, completing seven separate trips with many compliments received. Thanks to Peter Oatey, (sheep shearing), Jeremy Hosking (plants), Jim Briggs (Heligan pigs), Charlie Pennal (Red Tractor). News from Lobbs Farm Shop Have you tried the freshly squeezed orange juice? Tasty and hits the spot, yummm! Local salad bags with Cornish leaves are really fresh, full of flavour and great for the summer. Let’s try and keep jobs in Cornwall. We are again producing our prepared salads with Algerian salad, potato salad, 5 bean salad, waldorf salad, homemade houmous and a colourful tomato/mozzarella salad. These will be great with our own cooked cold meats: beef, pork, ham, tongue and Deli Farm salami. We will also be cooking gammon knuckles and chickens in the rotisserie, as well as our own pork pies and sausage rolls - great for a picnic or a trip to the beach. Our summer meat selection includes a range of barbecue products; we are doing lemon peppered chicken pieces, chilli willi flavoured steaks, Chinese ribs and minted lamb steaks. Our barbecue specials packs of Chinese pork ribs are only £1.80 for 420g and belly pork packs retail at only £1.05. There are now even more varieties of sausages with beef and Guinness, pork and wild mushroom, beef and horseradish, pork with green pepper and shallots. The beef burgers are very good value at only 55p each for a quality burger with a high meat content. Pork burgers are only 55p each whilst the lamb burgers are only 70p each; these are very well priced compared with other quality outlets. The burgers are made on our premises here at Lobbs Farm Shop and contain proper ingredients. Meat is good value especially if you choose the cheaper cuts such as our rib eye steaks which are tasty and sell at about £4.00 per steak. Brisket is only £3.99/kg and is a great meat provided it is cooked long and slow; some of our customers put the meat into a slow oven overnight! Slice when cold and use in your sandwiches. Popular products are our packs of chuck steak (2.5kg for only £11.15) and mince beef packs at £6.09 for 2.5kg; excellent value and well worth keeping a pack in the freezer for that day when you haven’t the time to go shopping. We often have mutton in stock which is a cheaper alternative to lamb but please remember to cook long and slow like brisket. We have mutton chops at £3.60 for three chops and leg of mutton at £5.20/kg (a whole leg would cost about £6.45). If you cannot find the cut of meat you require please ask our butchers who will be happy to cut your joint to your specification. The freezer section has been enlarged and we now have a selection of pastries such as croissants, pains aux raison, and pains aux chocolate. We are also stocking Peter Morris pasties which we have tasted and liked; these are made in Cornwall and frozen for you to cook at your convenience. The frozen fruit is still popular with summer fruits being our customers’ favourite, other varieties include Scottish raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberry, kiwi and pineapple as well as Californian fruit salad. Why not try the fruit with our West Country meringue, with a dollop of Cornish clotted cream, lovely. Spring 2008 News from Kestle Farm It’s spring, well it’s supposed to be, but I am writing this during a tremendous gale with the wind trying its best to rip off our doors and shed roofs. We have suffered damage but fortunately not catastrophic damage. When we originally built the farm shop the idea was that the farm shop would sell what the farm has produced. That has now been turned around completely so that now the farm produces what the farm shop needs when the farm shop needs it. We have adjusted the ewes’ lambing dates to coincide with the expected demand from the shop. We have just sold the last of our June born lambs, so we have weighed our November born lambs not expecting any to be fit for market yet, but on cue we have several that are of the correct weight; sometimes we do get our forward planning right. We will have these new season lambs in stock from the 19th of March, just right for Easter. February was busy for us as we were lambing again and as I write we have about 15 ewes left to lamb. The weather has been extremely good for these lambs being dry and reasonably warm; consequently most have grown away well. Another new venture for us this year is that SEF (Southern England farms) are growing cauliflowers on our farm which they harvest for the supermarkets; obviously these will not be as fresh as the ones we sell in the farm shop. Traditionally these crops have been grown in west Cornwall but now are extensively grown in this area as well. The prices that farmers have received for cauliflowers this year has been poor with a low of 18p at one time which is totally unsustainable for the farmer. These low prices have made a few farmers question whether to plant any cauliflowers this year; it’s the boom and bust cycle appearing again. What farmers really need are long term contracts with fixed prices, so that the farmer, wholesaler and supermarket can all plan ahead. We have completed planting our three new orchards with 160 traditional apple trees. We enjoyed great assistance from our sheepdogs with the planting; for some reason they really enjoy digging holes, planting and then christening the trees! There is a good picture on the website of our puppy Ben with a newly dug hole. February was a milestone reached for the farm as we sold beef cattle in Truro market that made an average price of 125.5p/kg which is the same price we achieved on 20 March 1997. It has taken us 10 years almost to get back to where we were on that fateful day that Stephen Dorrel announced that there may be a link between BSE and CJD. The bitter irony for us is that we have never had a case of BSE on our farm, but we have had to endure years of depressed prices and extra food safety measures imposed on us farmers by government. The problem for farmers is that although our prices have improved, we now find that the input costs for fertilisers and fuel etc have all increased dramatically. We are still playing catch-up! News from Lobbs Farm Shop Well the shop renovations are almost over; we just have to install the rotisserie oven and a couple of new freezers. We are pleased with the refurbishment and we hope you, our customers, agree. We will be moving products around the shop as we are unsure as to where the best selling spots for each product is, so you may have to hunt for your favourite products. Please do ask any of us if you require assistance; we are here to help. Bags are a current issue and we are supporting the use of bags for life and the recycling of bags. The butchers have begun to pack the meat in biodegradable bags which is another step forward but the best option for us all is to choose products with minimal packaging. Butchers Phil and Simon have been busy creating a new line of chicken cushions. These are chicken, stuffed with Lobbs’ own sausage meat blended with gourmet cranberry, apple and herb stuffing, wrapped in Cornish dry cured streaky bacon and topped off with a slice of fresh orange. Phil has also made meatballs which are a blend of beef and pork minced and formed in his fair hands and then coated in a tomato sauce. New season lamb, born and reared on our own farm, will be available from Easter, but with Easter early this year we will not be able to accompany the lamb with Cornish new potatoes. We are also promoting mutton in the butchery with joints as well as mutton chops on offer. We recommend that these are cooked slower and for longer than lamb to get the best from this flavoursome meat. Again please try and give us your feedback; it is valued. We now sell the RSPCA Freedom Food approved corn fed chickens. These birds are reared to a higher standard that normal barn reared chicken and were featured recently in Hugh and Jamie’s “Chicken out” campaign. Please try, and let us know what you think about chicken production ethics. We will also continue to stock free range chicken produced here in Cornwall. Another new product is Cornish sea salt which comes in lovely blue packaged pouches (225g for £3.85) or in a large sealable tub which is suitable for catering use. We have also sourced a supply of tasty, fresh salad leaves. These seasonal salad bags currently contain rocket, mizuna and pak choi leaves, accompanied by watercress which is high in calcium, iron and folic acid and is classed as a “super food”. We are organising a taster week in April from the 14th to the 18th. We have invited several producers along and we will of course have tastings of our own farm shop produced food to try. Please come along and why not bring a friend to visit Lobbs Farm Shop at Heligan. Winter 2007 News from Kestle Farm Nell, one of our Border Collies has given birth to six beautiful puppies. Rebecca Lobb has had a good Christmas hosting “Come and see the puppies parties”. Very soon these stars will be off to their new owners, and new flocks of sheep to chase. It is noticeable that there are now fewer and fewer farmers with sheep on their farms so therefore less need to have a farm dog to assist with the work. We have managed to find new owners for some but not all of the puppies yet. We will keep one bitch for ourselves as Fly our oldest sheepdog is now less inclined to run past the sheep when required. It is important that we have a young dog here in training, whilst the older dog is still capable because the young will watch and learn from the older more experienced dog. The lovely weather in the autumn was ideal for us to plant the winter wheat and barley; all the crops went into perfect seedbeds and at this point in time are looking well. The animals are also looking well; many have lovely shiny coats which are a sure sign of health. This year we have kept several cows and heifers outside rather than housing from November. The mild and dry weather has been good for these cattle and they are looking healthier and happier than the housed cattle at the moment. This is also beneficial to our winter stocks of feed and bedding as less is required. The weather normally averages itself out over the long term so I suppose we can now expect a wet spring. We have begun to plant three new orchards on the farm with traditional apple varieties; this is part of our environmental stewardship scheme. There used to be six small orchards on the farm which, as the trees have got old, have not been replaced. We will eventually have three large orchards with a total area in excess of the original six orchards. The varieties that we are planting are many and varied from Bens Red, Cornish Aromatic, Manaccan Primrose to Lord Lambourne and Bramley. Cornish Gilly Flower was one variety that we had to grow because one of the new orchards is on the site of a long gone orchard, which has a lane that leads to it called Gilly Lane. News from Lobbs Farm Shop The alterations to the shop were suspended during December but are now back on track. We are planning to relay the rest of the new floor boards during the end of January and through February. During this time the shop will still be open but slightly rearranged. We hope that we have not inconvenienced any customers during this interesting time; we believe that the shop will be bigger and better and there should be more space to allow for easier access to the enlarged butchery and delicatessen counters. Our own farmhouse kitchen range of prepared food on offer in the farm shop freezer includes a range of soups such as potato and leek soup, parsnip, butternut squash, and mushroom. There is also a choice of our own home made pies made from our own ingredients with steak and ale, chicken and mushroom, and now the new flavour of pigeon and mushroom. The butchers have been busy preparing our game products such as local pheasant, partridge, venison and rabbit. A brace of pheasant retails at £6.80 which is a similar price to a free range chicken but with a stronger flavour. Recent TV programmes have investigated chicken production methods with both Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall encouraging consumers to choose free range if possible. It was surprising to see on the film that many people did not remove the chicken meat from the carcase and use in a pie or other meals; I was always taught that the tastiest meat is nearest to the bone. There are three types of chicken production: Industrially farmed which is meat from super-fast growing birds reared indoors at high density with low animal welfare. Barn reared which is meat from slower growing birds reared at lower stocking densities able to move around a large pen with medium animal welfare. Free range describes a system where birds are of a slower growing type with access to the outdoors, able to roam, peck, and with good animal welfare. We sell barn reared chicken supplied to us by a Cornish abattoir; these chickens are British grade A reared to the red tractor assured standards and free of antibiotics. We also sell free range chickens from a Devon supplier that has won awards for their farming systems. These chickens are allowed to roam grassy fields yet have the protection from predators and the elements in their specialist housing. Birds are fed a low density GM free, additive and antibiotic free diet to allow slower growth, greater maturity and better flavour. Birds are reared in small flocks to reduce stress and increase freedom. A simple diet, greater maturity and a natural environment produces a happier, better tasting chicken. We have also managed to source free range chickens from two local Cornish chicken producers; Phil and I have visited these farmers and seen for ourselves how the chickens are cared for, and it is reassuring to see happy contented chickens allowed the opportunity to exhibit their natural behaviour. If you are able to buy free range, please do, as you are supporting good animal welfare practices. If price is important be assured that our barn reared chickens are of a high standard for that type of production method. The choice is yours! We do sell our own reared Beef and Lamb which are well cared for and range freely over our pastures. Your purchasing decisions do make a difference to how farmers care for animals and care for the countryside. Autumn 2007 Newsletter News from Kestle Farm The harvest is in and we are ploughing the fields for the next crop, the yields that our crops produced were less than expected, this is probably due to the unusual weather pattern experienced this summer. Incredibly the wheat price per ton has increased from £70.00 to £170/ton because the yields are down worldwide and many farmers like us have reduced the area growing crops due to the lack of profitability. Now food appears to back in demand, unfortunately for us we are only growing about 60% of what we used to grow 10 years ago. We now have to decide whether we should resume growing crops to sell to cash in on these high prices! The threat of animal disease has been with us now for several years, with foot and mouth, Tuberclerousis, and now blue tongue disease. It is difficult to keep happy healthy animals at the best of times without all of these extra risks. It still amazes us when we hear our government announce that the export of our meat is banned because of disease, but yet we continue to import meat into the UK from other countries that has endemic disease in their herds. In previous newsletters I have written about the cows, sheep, crops and wildlife but not about another breed on the farm: the farmer. There has been a farmer Lobb at Kestle farm for generations, Terry, Ian and Richard are the fifth generation. We would like to think that one or two or more, of our children will decide to become involved with the farm and farm shop in the future. There are seven young Lobbs at the moment three girls (Louise, Rebecca, and Georgia) and four boys (Darren, William, Tom and Harry). The oldest is 17 and the youngest 12 years old; all help out when required with various tasks on the farm and the farm shop. The majority of our vegetable plants have been planted by them and one of the children would normally be working in the shop at weekends. Now these children are getting older we have a considerable workforce to keep busy. Our business has grown over the years but will need to continue to develop if we are to fully employ all these extra hands The farm presently employs three people, Derek who has been working for our family for over thirty years and knows the farm like the back of his hand. Paul has been with us for twelve years and Gregg who has been with us for ten years. Their expertise and knowledge is very important we could not manage our farm as well without their support. Because we can rely on these guys to get the jobs done we have been able to grow the business in other areas. Currently one of the three Lobb brothers would normally be at the shop while the other two works on the farm, but it is a juggling act trying to match the demands of the farm and the farm shop. News from Lobbs Farm Shop The shop is also reliant on the hard work of our excellent members of staff; the daily numbers fluctuate with the seasons from eight in the summer to five in the depths of winter. We have five full time employees; Gill in the office keeping the records in order, Heather supervising the shop floor, Shelley our new deli lady and two full time butchers Phil and Simon. There are also a host of part time and seasonal staff that allows us to cope with the seasonal demand of our business. When we originally put in our business plan to secure Objective One funding we had to forecast our employment levels and expected sales, we are pleased to say that we have exceeded our initial assumptions. We believe this is because we are able to satisfy the local and visitor demand for quality distinctive food products. The most important person in our business is you the customer, none of the above jobs would be secure without your support, we are very appreciative of your comments and we thank you all for your continued support of our business. The recent tasting day was a slightly different day for us; we changed the format into a demonstration day. Phil the butcher demonstrated the various ways to cut up a lamb into the individual joints and he also shared a few of his “jokes” with the audience. Steve Hall who previously ran the Salamander restaurant in Mevagissey followed with his cooking of three of his recipes; Greek lamb stew made from shoulder of Lamb, Morrocan spiced lamb using neck fillets, and stuffed Leg of Lamb. The recipe sheets are available to download from the website or on display at the farmshop. Tracklements came to the day and had an enormously successful tasting of their products. We oven cooked our own Cumberland and Lincolnshire flavoured sausages which were then liberally coated in Tracklement onion marmalade and left in a warm oven for five minutes, these were absolutely delicious yum yum yum, so good in fact that we completely sold out of the onion marmalade. But do not despair more is winging its way to us and should be in stock soon. There were also tasting’s of Cornish Lust a strawberry and cream liqueur, Nevek a fresh cream chocolate liqeuer and Cornish dream a fresh cream and fudge liqueur very nice, hic, apparentlelly best served chidlled over ice, hic. The day went very well and graet fun was had by all, cherers. The next event will be advertised in the shop and will be on a first reply first booked basis, seating for these events is limited so please book when you get the chance. Summer 2007 Newsletter News from Kestle Farm Wet! Wet! Wet! What a summer, so different to last year which was so dry. We have grass in abundance but it is almost impossible to conserve into silage and hay. We need three dry days in a row to make good round bale silage and ideally five or six dry days to make lovely sweet hay with a “nose”. The smell is difficult to describe but horses can tell and if it hasn’t got a nose horses will not eat it. If hay is made in the wet the grass deteriorates and moulds will grow which can cause severe lung problems for horses, cattle and sheep, so it is extremely important that we can make good hay when the sun shines. The cereal crops have also suffered with many of the barley heads breaking off and falling to the ground due to the incessant wind and rain. We have managed to combine a few fields but the yields are down because of the weather and the grain crop requires drying to enable us to store for next winter. The straw crop is best left in the row to dry for a day before baling but this year we have watched the weather forecast and decided we had to bale the straw right behind the combine as rain was on its way again. This year we also have an abundance of rabbits, slugs, snails, carrot fly and pigeons all intent on eating our vegetable crop. We are fighting back with plastic fleece to protect our plants and scarecrows to deter the blighters; we have also had to resort to the gas bird banger. The modern bangers are very hi-tech and we can now select a dawn delay for the first bang as well as being able to vary the frequency and size of the bangs. You may have noticed the margins that we have left around our fields that we have not harvested; these areas are part of our stewardship scheme and will provide habitats for wildlife. We have four owl boxes on our farm which in previous years have only been occupied by pigeons but this year we have been honoured by the presence of Barn Owls and two chicks have been successfully reared. These chicks are two great big balls of fluff for weeks but eventually the brown colouring appears and we expect them to fledge soon. Have we assisted the successful brood by our land management policies? Who knows but it must help. The public are obviously extremely interested in watching wildlife as has been proven with the huge success of the Heligan and the BBC springwatch co-operation this year. We need to make the link between wildlife, their habitats and how farmers manage the countryside and crucially where consumers buy their food. This is the message that we have tried to get across to the school and college groups that have visited us this year. We have hosted farm visits for groups from Truro College, Exeter University, Carclaze infants, Penair and Poltair schools. We were delighted to have been able to host a tour for two groups of less able people; Headway and a Cornish visually impaired group have both written back to express their enjoyment of the tour. The comments received back from schools have included; “Children focused and engaged—a fantastic day out” (Carclaze infants school). “Very interesting & informative, excellent” (Penair School). News from Lobbs Farm Shop The new extension to the shop is progressing; the cold room has been fitted and will be operating soon. The butchery and store room specialist, easily cleaned floor has been laid and we anticipate being able to use these areas in August. There is still more work to do in the new deli area which we plan to complete with as little disruption to the shop as possible. But we will need to close the shop for a few days to join the old with the new; we will put up notices in the shop nearer to the time to explain the details. This will probably occur in October. The room upstairs has been completed and is now awaiting the installation of furniture The sale of the new deli products, pork pies, quiches and sausage rolls all made on the premises are progressing as are the new salads that Sally has created. Currently we have Montgomery’s Cheddar cheese in stock which is made in Somerset by farmer / artisan James Montgomery, the champion cheese maker of the world this year. Have you tried this with one of our lovely chutneys such as Tracklements Apple and Cider Brandy? We have continued with the fish on Fridays throughout the summer this year due to increased customer demand for quality fresh fish and we hope that you will continue to support this counter so that we can widen the range of fish on offer. If you are arranging a dinner party or an event we can accept orders in advance to ensure that we have the right fish in the right quantities provided the boats are able to catch during that week. The butchers are eagerly awaiting the arrival of summer and the BBQ season. We do have an extensive range of meats on offer such as the popular flavoured chicken packs, good value at three packs (12 pieces) for only £5.00. I personally like the lemon and black pepper pieces, great taste, easy to cook. The packs of Chinese flavoured pork ribs are only about £1.80 and contain six or seven pieces and our own made stir fry costs £2.10 for a pack (0.5Kg). If the weather remains wet then be resolute and have that BBQ you planned, but cook your food in the grill or as my son did for my birthday use the BBQ hotplate, place on the stove and cook your steaks on the stove. Rain what rain? The food still tastes great especially with a glass or two of Cornish ale or wine, cheers. News from Kestle Farm Spring 2007 Kestle Farm has successfully been accepted for the DEFRA Higher Level Countryside Stewardship scheme, we are now able to take school, college or any special interest group of six people or more on a free farm tour. Do you have children at a local school that would be interested in a visit to see our cows and young calves or our ewes and lambs, please inform us or the school so that we can arrange a visit soon, we want to show our young people and the wider public where their food comes from and why they should support local food and farming. Spring is here and it has been very busy on the farm, when the weather is wet we have our yard work to complete every day; feeding the animals, checking on their health and cleaning out where necessary. But when it becomes dry the list of jobs that require attention becomes endless, planting, fertilising, fencing, hedging, fixing gates it goes on, every day a new task to complete. We have a great variety in our work which is part of the joy of farming but sometimes we just wish we had more hours in a day. The ewes have finished lambing and we have just begun weighing the lambs that were born last autumn. These are sorted and the ewe lambs (females) are kept as replacements in the flock, we will need about 120 this year. Ewes normally live to about six years old and will have on average, eight lambs each during their lifetime. The rams normally live to a similar age and are expected to serve 35 ewes during each tupping period which is spread over six weeks. Our rams are fortunate in that we lamb different flocks of ewes at different times of the year, consequently their activity is encouraged in June, September and December, lucky chaps! These boys could in theory father up to 500 lambs in their lifetime. The ewes remain pregnant for five months with the young lambs requiring milk for four months, supplemented by grass from about four weeks of age. This year we have decided not to plant as many fields of wheat or barley because the crop prices are still very similar to what we received 10 years ago, instead we are planting more grass fields which will allow us to produce enough grass for our animals without having to use much in the way of fertiliser. We are reverting back to a system of farming that our grandfather would have recognised. When he was farming every Friday the trap was loaded up with our Granny’s butter, milk, eggs and cakes and off to our local market town they went. We have gone full circle as we are farming more like our grandparents and we are selling our food direct to you the consumer at Lobbs farmshop. Nature watch.We are delighted to see the swallows back the first arrival sat upon the wires in the farmyard on the 8th of April, which is seven days earlier than last year. The local pigeon population has decimated our crop of spring greens, fortunately we grew two patches of greens this year and we have been able to harvest from this remaining patch News from Lobbs Farmshop The building work has been progressing as can be seen, the shell of the building is almost finished with a few jobs left to complete. Internally we need to install the new cold room and freezer this will allow us to continue to hang our meat for the three weeks that we believe is important for enhanced flavour and tenderness. The shop area itself will eventually be larger with the Delicatessen moving back about eight feet and away from the Butcher’s cabinet. This will enable us to extend the butchery cabinet allowing for an improved meat display. Unfortunately we do not envisage that the work will be completed before the summer; we feel it is important to do the job right, rather than rush for a quick job. We thank you for your support during this process and apologise for any inconvenience created by this building work. Through the spring we have been developing recipes to improve our range in the Deli and the Butchery. Sal ‘our Deli maid’ has asked customers for suggestions of products they would like to buy and has come up with some deliciously enticing salads made on our premises. New products for the summer include an Algerian salad, Potato salad, 5 bean salad, Waldorf salad, homemade Houmous and a colourful tomato/mozzarella salad. All these will be available with our own popular coleslaw and cous cous salad for the summer. Many customers have requested a wider range of cooked meats; we are now offering cooked ham, beef, pork and tongue. During the summer we will again have cooked chickens and gammon knuckles available. We have also started making pork pies in two different sizes for big or small appetites, great for a picnic or a trip to the beach. The wonderful weather this spring has seen a early demand for barbecue products, we are doing lemon peppered chicken pieces, chilli willi flavoured steaks, Chinese ribs, minted lamb steaks as well as our own burgers and sausages, happy sizzling. Simon in the butchery has created our own Lobbs farmshop Hogs pudding which is selling very well. Many B& B’s are offering the complete Cornish breakfast with hogs pudding accompanied by Lobbs sausage, Cornish bacon and eggs for a great start to the day, proper ‘ansome my dears. For the true flavour of spring, why not try our speciality home reared shoulder of lamb marinated in rosemary, roasted and eaten with new Cornish potatoes and succulent Cornish asparagus from Tregassow Farm. Ahhh Cornwall ! News from Kestle Farm Winter 2006 We are delighted that our higher level stewardship application to DEFRA has been accepted; we will now receive grant support for our care of the countryside. We manage our pastures with little inputs of fertiliser or chemicals which is beneficial to wildlife improving the flora and fauna of our farm. This spring we will begin to plant a 6 metre margin around our fields which will provide suitable habitat and feed sources for many creatures increasing biodiversity - it should be interesting to see what changes we can achieve with the population levels of the many different species of wildlife, whether it is bees, butterflies or bats. Our ewes that lambed in the autumn are now eating the forage rape fields one of which is situated opposite the road junction leading towards St.Ewe. These lambs have grown dramatically as the mild winter has increased grass growth enabling the ewes to suckle the lambs well. The weather does seem to be changing; we have noticed differences from year to year. The recent Stern report has focused attention on this issue, stating that “the scientific evidence is now over whelming: climate change is a serious threat, and it demands an urgent global response.” Have you clicked onto the website? Just search Google with “Stern report” and read the executive summary! We are trying to reduce our carbon footprint and be environmentally aware but it is an ongoing process. There is no doubt that local food sourcing is important, we can reduce food miles with fewer trucks on the roads and less unnecessary transport of food around the world. We do not need to import lamb from ‘down under,’ instead you can buy tasty Cornish lamb from Lobbs Farm shop and help to save the planet! On the farm we have three collies; Fly is older and wiser and works at her own pace if you don’t mind. Nell, another bitch, is 5 years old and normally works in third and fourth gear without any first or second gear! Sharp, our trainee dog is almost 3 years old and is a late developer, but has recently improved tremendously. He will now go to the left when hearing the command “come bye” and right for “away to me”; without these three clever dogs we could not care for our sheep and cattle to the same standard of care. You may well have seen our dogs with their heads peeping over our shoulder when they ride on the back of our quad bike. Richard has three spaniels, Millie and her two six month old puppies Poppy and Bruce. Millie regularly attends the local pheasant shoot in the woods here at Heligan whilst the puppies are still in training. There are also two Jack Russell terriers on the farm, Rose is Derek’s dog and she often accompanies him when he is working on the tractor. Occasionally she loses sight of him so she sits in the yard and howls; eventually Derek returns and they are reunited resulting in much tail wagging, from Rose that is. The other terrier is Dan who can be described as a trainee terrorist looking for chicken or pheasant to terrorise, he has been known to attack and kill many a tennis ball which lie scattered around Lower Kestle yard. One of the many joys of being a farmer is that we are able to work with animals especially our faithful friends, our dogs, a joy every day. News from Lobbs Farm Shop By now those of you that purchased food from us over the Christmas / New Year period should have a copy of the Lobbs Farm shop calendar. All of the photographs have been taken on our farm by members of our family and we are pleased with the quality of the pictures. It does prove the point that our countryside is beautiful and is worth preserving; we are very fortunate to live in such wonderful surroundings. Thank you all for your kind words and remarks regarding your seasonal Lobbs Farm shop food purchases, from turkeys to ribs and the system for processing your orders on the busy days. It is really great to hear your comments as it increases our enthusiasm for our work, Thank you. In the delicatessen cabinet we have our Lobbs Farm shop cooked tongue, pork and beef presented in foil packs. We are currently increasing the range of prepared foods in the freezer; we are selling Lobbs homemade pies - £3.50 for two frozen pies. The range includes; Chicken, leek, bacon & spring onion pies or chicken and mushroom pies. Beef and ale or beef, onion & mushroom pies. The butchery has on offer at the moment, frozen sausages where if you choose three packs you get one pack free. Why not try a new flavouring such as pork and cranberry, lamb and mint, pork and cracked black pepper or even turkey sausages? Game is still available either fresh or frozen depending on the season, we have pheasant, rabbit and venison all in the frozen meat cabinet. You can now purchase a range of flours and yeast for your own baking of cakes and bread. Alternatively we sell Martin’ bread, our own baked bread, or Baker Tom delivers every Friday with his specialist breads. Have you tried the smoked bacon & red onion or the sun dried tomato & thyme loaf? Yummmy! email:lobbsfarmshop@btconnect.com www.lobbsfarmshop.com Autumn 2006 Well summer is over and the wet cold weather is back; how the seasons change. The dry summer did create a few problems with a lack of grazing for our animals; fortunately we did not have to use any of our winter feed, unlike many farmers that have had hungry animals to feed. This is probably because we graze our animals very extensively which means that our animals have more meadows and pastures to graze over rather than relying on grass growth fuelled by high artificial fertiliser inputs, which is very dependent on regular amounts of rainfall. The dry weather did bring an early and quick harvest for our crops of wheat and barley. We actually finished earlier than we can ever remember, and not a single trailer load had to be dried which was a significant saving as drying corn is a very expensive process (£12 to £20 for each ton dried). The yield was slightly reduced because most of the grain was very small and pinched, but despite the reduced national yield the prices are still low with each ton being worth only £65/ton. Ten years ago wheat was worth £100/ton and one of the reasons for the low price is that apparently we can import cereals from the Black Sea for this value; now isn’t that near to the Ukraine and Chernobyl! This year we have seen huge numbers of butterflies. We have seen the Clouded Yellow and the Common Blue. In one particular field which was a mass of clover flowers we noticed that the blues prefer the white clover whilst the yellows frequent the red clover flowers; perhaps the length of proboscis in relation to the position of the nectar within the flower is the reason for this phenomenon. During a recent farm walk that we hosted for the RSPB we were lucky to have an expert Lepidopterist explain the importance of old pasture grass and herb species that are crucial in the circle of life for larvae and pupae that become butterflies. This illustrates the vital importance of a species diverse pasture to encourage biodiversity. On our farm we have many such pastures on which we graze our animals and due to your support and purchases of meat from Lobbs Farm Shop we are able to continue this traditional system, working with nature producing quality Cornish food. Thank you. Recently we had a school visit from Gorran school, years 3 and 4. The kids loved seeing the cows being fed hay whilst the calf took the opportunity to suckle milk. It was great to hear the feedback from parents visiting the shop saying: “My son loved the tractor tour; he told me they went to a real farm where they have real food”. Summer 2006 Newsletter On Sunday June 11th Kestle Farm as the only LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) demonstration farm in Cornwall hosted free farm tours. Terry and Ian Lobb took trailer loads of visitors and farmshop customers around part of the farm, each tour took an hour or so depending on the number of question from our guests. During the tour passengers were shown crops of barley, lupins and a wild bird seed cover crop. The tours began and finished at Lobbs farmshop where Richard Lobb with our families and staff were providing roast lamb and sausage baps for the returning travellers. If you look on the website at Lobbsfarmshop.com you can see a few photos taken on the day, including one Will Lobb has taken of a Dragonfly resting on barley. In Coney Park, one of our pasture fields, we saw the South Devon cattle with their young calves and met Trewint Hugo the third, our resident South Devon Bull. Finally a short demonstration was given by Fly one of our border collies of how to round up our flock of Dorset Horn sheep. Our young sheepdog called Sharp also had a run out and surprisingly did not disgrace himself, managing to drive the sheep through the cattle and back towards the tour trailer. Phil and Simon, our butchers, had previously prepared several boned and rolled legs of Kestle Farm Lamb in a Rosemary marinade. These were then roasted in our new demonstration kitchen and served to our visitors, a real taste of the countryside. We received several comments about the flavour of the meat which was delicious, why not ask our butchers to prepare one for your next dinner party. On the farm Darren,Tom and Harry Lobb have planted several rows of vegetables and a few early turnips for sale later in the summer. Unfortunately the pigeons have been pulling up some of the plants so we have had to employ our scarecrows to do their work. The swallows that have been raising their young in the farmyard have recently been terrorised by a sparrow hawk. I witnessed this incredible bird catch a swallow in mid flight an amazing feat as swallows are themselves remarkable aeronauts. Following this attack all of the swallows in the farmyard then chased the hawk over the barn and out of sight presumably attempting to rescue their compatriot. We have recently applied to DEFRA to enter the higher level stewardship programme. This is an initiative to support farmers with grants, providing the countryside is maintained and natural environmental features are enhanced such as parkland trees, hedgerows, ponds and pastures. The application process is quite detailed and we have had to map all of the features on the farm, which for our farm is a mammoth task. Let’s hope our application is successful. News from Lobbs farmshop Summer 2006 Newsletter We have managed to source yet more local products to tempt your taste buds. At the far end of the shop we have a display of herb dressings and marinades from Kernewek and Halzephron the range is huge with incredible flavours. To compliment these we have freshly picked salad leaf bags, from two local suppliers, some even come with a lovely nasturtium flower. Teoni’s in Devon are now supplying us with delicious Oat Crunch Cookies half dipped in chocolate and all butter shortbreads – yummy! Be quick because these are selling like hot cakes sorry biscuits! The butchery department has been busy creating new products such as our own made pork and apple pies, as well as our steak and ale pies. These are available either frozen or cooked hot to take away, please try them and let us know what you think. Now that summer is here we are extending our range of barbecue food, we are packing the meats in individual portions or in family BBQ packs. The choice is huge with chilli willi beef steaks, peppered beef steaks, minted lamb chops and ribs, pork steaks and ribs with a Chinese marinade. For the chicken packs we use chinese, garlic and butter as well as the lovely lemon pepper coating. There is also the full range of Lobbs farmshop produced burgers and sausages with the latest offering of a Orange and Country Herb sausage another taste sensation, try a pack and please tell us which ones you like! The delicatessen has extended the range of cooked meats; we now have Cornish ham, cold tongue, and cooked Kestle beef as well as rotisserie cooked chicken. We are also making our own coleslaw and Cous Cous salad with cheese and hazelnut, available from the upright chiller above the Cornish Gammon. Adjacent to these there are locally made mushroom and pepper quiches as well as the expected bacon and egg. We were delighted to hear that Lynher dairies have recently won two gold medals at the annual World Cheese Awards for their Yarg Cornish cheese and Wild Garlic Cornish cheese, both available from Lobbs farmshop. Spring 2006 newsletter Spring is definitely here now, we have daffodils and camellias in flower and the sheep are lambing, the weather has been great for the lambs with very little rain during the first few weeks after birth. They are now growing away, grazing the meadows around the farm. The ewes that lambed in the autumn and their twin lambs are grazing fields further away from the farmyard at Tregarton and Treleaven with one flock of ewes with single lambs eating the turnips that didn’t make the grade for the farmshop. These older lambs are now at an age where they have races across the fields – great fun! The suckler cows have also started calving with two of the South Devon cows giving birth to twins obviously our new Bull Hugo is full of youthful vigour! We will have to keep these cows and their calves separate from the others for a while so that we can lavish some TLC (tender loving care) on them and extra food rations for the cows. Unfortunately one of our cow’s calf was born dead, after a difficult calving, so we have bought a spare calf from another farmer to foster onto the cow. This involves us tying the Cow up each day with a halter and then encouraging her to allow the calf to suckle, hopefully after two weeks of this effort she will accept this calf as her own. This system has worked in the past and hopefully if successful the cow and fostered calf will graze the fields along with the rest of the herd. Twitchers required: we have recently been contacted by the RSPB regarding surveying part of our farm for bird activity. As members of the RSPB Volunteer & Farmer Alliance we have accommodated previous surveys of the farm with the results displayed on a map with explanatory text in the Countryside barn. A volunteer is required to walk the fields every two or three weeks and record what birds are resident and nesting during the spring and early summer. It is an ideal opportunity to get up with the lark and enjoy the countryside that is not normally available for public access, if this interests you please get in touch with us here at Lobbs Farm Shop on 01726 844411 or Deborah Hanlon at the RSPB on 01392 432691. News from Lobbs Farm Shop Spring newsletter 2006 Roskillys ice cream and fudge has now been certified as fully organic congratulations to them. We have recently been contacted by a new soup producer called Rainy Day Soups; these are handmade from the finest produce sourced exclusively in Cornwall and are free from additives and colouring. These delicious wholesome soups are available now with flavours such as Winter Vegetable, Sweet Tomato and even Perfect Pasty! These are sold in 600g tubs and are priced at £3.75. Our regular suppliers of home made cakes, Rebecca’s Cake Tin on Mondays and Helens cakes on Thursdays have created a few new recipes to tempt you into trying one of their delicious creations, but you will need to be quick as these do sell well or you can order in advance to reserve the cake you require. The range of chocolate has been added to with Easter eggs and bunnies from £1.79, made in Cornwall by Trenance Chocolates. We also stock Green and Black’s Maya gold eggs which are organic and fair-trade chocolate with Orange and spices – yummy! A new aspect of the shop is our “store cupboard” which is a food basics area situated in the corner next to the teas and coffee, items such as Suet, Yeast, baking powder, treacle, golden syrup, tomato puree and tinned chopped tomatoes and red kidney beans. We have even found vegetarian rennet which can be used to make lovely junket sprinkled with organic nutmeg from our huge spice range. If there is an item you need which you would like us to stock, please let us know. The farm tours will begin in April once we have put our calves and cows back into the fields to graze, if you ever wondered how we look after our animals this is your chance to find out and see these animals in their natural habitat, the beautiful Cornish Countryside. Making the news- we were delighted to be included in an article in the Times supplement about Farm trails with our tractor tours around the farm. The writer Nick Wyke suggested “that talking to a producer was like having a talking label telling you things other labels leave out”. My brothers and I thought this was a very good description of the extra information you get when buying from a farm shop. Cornwall Tourism Awards 2005 Winners of The Cornish Distinctiveness Champion Of The Year Lobbs Farm Shop. This award highlights the creation of a product that is truly cornish and recognises outstanding achievement in contributing to Cornwall as a quality brand. We also usually have plenty of Kestle Farm home-grown leeks, curly kale, chard, broccoli, white cauliflower, romanesque broccoli, swedes, cabbages, celeriac (see recipe page), sprouts on stalks come & see for yourself. Thanks to the Lobb brothers and their band of merry men the veg is all cut 'morning-dew fresh' for you each day - be sure to come in good time to avoid disappointment. We are delighted to announce that we have won the gold award from Taste of the West as the "Local Retail Outlet in Cornwall for the Year 2005" and have been put forward a further stage of judging to identify the South West Local Retail Outlet of the Year 2005 - fingers crossed! Terry, Ian & Richard are delighted to announce that Lobbs Farm Shop Limited has been awarded gold as the "South West Retail Outlet of the Year 2005" in the Taste of the West Food & Drinks awards. Terry & Ian have been to the award ceremony at Highgrove to receive the award from HRH Prince Charles. We also won bronze awards for our home-made Pork & Cornish Blue Cheese sausages, Pork & Cracked black pepper sausages and our home-reared Kestle Farm lamb. Come & buy some today!

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