New Home, Shop Local, Butter-making and Milk Sales

Well, we have now been in our new home for two weeks and all is well. Most of the hundreds of boxes are now unpacked though there are still a number of boxes of books waiting for shelves despite the Farmer having made what seems like miles of shelving already. This is a very quirky little house and surprisingly spacious after all the work we have done on it and now beautifully decorated throughout so is looking very spruce. We were able to bring only some of our furniture with us, the favourite pieces on the whole, and they look as though they were meant to to fit into this house so it really is home now.

Our great move coincided with the Great Lockdown which in many ways was a good thing as it kept us very busy and distracted from the sadness in the outside world. As farmers we are used to a life of isolation and in so are not really finding life very different except we do not have friends and neighbours coming in to drink coffee in the kitchen and of course we are not able to welcome friends and family to our new house. As soon as life returns to neormal we shall have to have grand house-warming party.
The move meant we did not have any internet connection for several weeks, having to rely on taking my mobile phone for walks around the farm to get any kind of signal, so our communication with the outside world was rather limited. In these days of lockdown when everything seems to be happening via the internet one realises how fragile that dependence can be. Long gone are the days when we were content with just a landline telephone and the the Royal Mail.
We have adapted to limited access to shops and use our small but well-stocked village shop rather than going in to our local market town. This is very good for the village shop which has seen increased trade and as they now offer a delivery service have probably extended their customer base considerably. Many of the outlying farms are occupied by older and retired farmers who are understandably nervous about going out during these strange times so to have their groceries delivered is a great boon.

I have just had a visitation by Elder Son and his children from across the yard. The children are very excited by having been making butter. They have of course been home from school for weeks now and so finding little projects to keep them busy and entertained is quite a challenge. Butter making seems an excellent idea especially as we have some milk to spare as the milk price has dropped so dramatically. With the closure of the main coffee shop chains and MacDonalds etc. the milk market has been badly hit for those who were sole suppliers to these businesses. If you are dairy farmer whose milk buyer is contracted to provide all the milk to Costa or Nero then things are very serious indeed. The milk could be sold on what is called the 'spot price' but this is now down to 0p per litre some days. Disaster if your price of production at minimum is about 27ppl.

The beautiful warm sunny days over these past weeks has been wonderful though we do need some rain but nonetheless the orchards are full of blossom now and our lambs are frolicking in the sunshine while their mothers watch on benignly.