Wild Bird food and Racing Pigeon food

Farmsolation Week 2

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I think it has been the most bizarre week ever - the shop has been unbelievably busy with people stocking up on dog and chicken foods mainly, but also pigeon and wild bird foods. We have had some laughs among the stressful days, people’s humour has shone through rather than sadness or anger but in these uncertain times its so lovely to see the best of people rather than the worst that has been seen in supermarket queues and fighting over loaves of bread and toilet roll. It is so true that our lives have been turned upside down and will remain so for several weeks or months, especially if the social distancing measures put in place by the Government aren’t adhered to and people continue to crowd to our lovely beaches and countryside. I did mention how sad it is that the coronavirus has invaded our daily lives when the...

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Farmsolation

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Sadly, there’s not a lot of good news around at the moment and these are certainly worrying times for us all. Sky News is full of scary updates from all over the world as we are caught up in the Coronavirus pandemic with life as we know it being very restricted and many more changes ahead. Working from home or being in isolation from family and friends is challenging and can be very different for the whole family. We have two daughters who usually live away from home because of work they are both at home here on the farm now, along with Chris and me plus George, our son.  Add to the mix our two dogs and cats and that’s a lot of mouths to feed, extra toilet rolls and opportunities for arguments over the smallest things which I’m sure most of you will be familiar with – the pressure...

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Pause for Thought

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Chris & I have been out in the pickup, (with the dogs too obviously) down the fields to feed the hedgerow birds, and we were both remarking on how calm the weather is today & how there might actually be a light at the end of a very long and wet Winter tunnel we have been in since mid-September with all of the wet, windy and extreme conditions we have all endured.While we were on our way down the track Radio 2 ,Pause for Thought was on, a portion of the show where visiting contributors from a variety of faiths have a segment where they talk about life, their faith and everyday life. I listen if I’m in the car usually and today seemed so poignant. The contributor (I don’t know his name) mentioned about how we are all surrounded by nature but lots of us are oblivious or ignore it....

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Watch the birdie

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  Some of you might have seen me and Chris in the article in the Newcastle Journal on Saturday, pictured next to our new pond at our newly planted nature reserve.  I put a link there from our Facebook page too, so if you follow us you may already have seen and read all about this. Its great to have some publicity for our new venture and many thanks to Angela who took the photos, and had her photo taken by me (pictured here) and Keith who wrote the article. The pictures were taken on a rather blustery day, and we had to abandon the pickup as the route was so wet and walk rather a long way so rather than thinking I’d look windswept and rather like a Barbour advert, instead I look short and rather bedraggled! The area is coming on so well, we have ordered more trees for...

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Is it over yet?

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I think everyone knows how stressful it can be for farmers at this time of year, and people are very appreciative for the most part. I thought it would be fun to write a post of the top 5 typical harvest mishaps that make Chris’s hair end up more grey every year! I don’t remember a year that a combine, tractor or something else hasn’t broken down in a vital place or time!Just because he is working long and strange hours does not stop us from selling our bird foods at normal times in the day.The food that I’ve made never tastes quite as good once it’s been sitting on the stove for 5 hours! Although, I know he would never complain!!Going from busy to not busy just because of a little rain – I don’t think there’s too many jobs that would make you wait 3 days until you can...

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Thistle be a butterfly invasion

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They’re here!!! – a once every 10-year migration of Painted Lady Butterflies, and we have seen them in our new eco project and woodland, how amazing is that? I had no idea about this until I looked it up when we got home, all I knew was that as we walked the dogs around there were clouds of these beautiful butterflies hovering over our heads and landing on the thistles. I can honestly say that I have never seen so many butterflies in one place at any one time and am totally in awe that they decided to visit us. My photo is lousy, but we decided to just enjoy the situation rather than worry about getting the best photo possible. Apparently, these tiny butterflies fly at speeds of up to 30 mph and at a height of 1km to reach our shores from Africa en route to the Arctic Circle,...

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Have you got a bully in your garden?

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Have you got a bully on your feeder? Now, we are not here to discuss birds and wildlife that bully others off their perch today, but more to talk about the favourite of my regular visitors – the bullfinch! The male can be easily spotted by a blue-grey back and bright rose-pink breast, belly and cheeks, whereas the female is more pinkish and brown. Whilst looking outside at the glorious weather of late I realised that I may love to look at them, and yet know very little about them in comparison to many other animals, wild or tame. Of course, known as wild birds in the UK they were once a popular cage bird too, probably before we began to bring parrots and other exotics. They would even imitate like parrots – perhaps a lot smarter than would be thought of this small red-bellied bird.  These stout birds are also...

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Floods & Finches

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What a week weather wise! I don’t know if you’ve had floods, freezing temperatures, driving wind & rain where you live, but we certainly have up here in Northumberland. The crops are soggy and battered whereas last year they were droughted off and suffering with extreme heat. We’re hoping that the weather will stabilise a little this week so we can make our haylage crop for Winter horse fodder for our Livery stables, but there again we hoped we could do that three weeks ago. The gardens are so green & the water baths for the birds most definitely have not needed filling, although the keeping the feeders filled has been a constant job. I’ve been watching soggy little sparrows just out of the nest lining up at our bird table (thankfully a covered one) being shown by the adult where the easiest grub is. The poor birds were struggling to...

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Is the grass always greener?

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Come for a walk he said. How romantic I thought, but how wrong could I be. My first indication should have been when I wasn’t allowed to take our 2 dogs. Into the pickup we went, strange when we were supposed to be going for a walk. When we got to an outlying field, I found out why I had been invited for a walk. Blackgrass. One word but it can mean ruin to cereal crops. Last year Chris found a rogue patch of Blackgrass which appeared in the corner of a field, he rogued it which means walking up and down the rows, pulling out the rogue grass, by the root and then burning it well away from other crops. As it had been raining it was apparently an ideal evening to check for blackgrass as the rain would mean that the grass would be easier to pull out and...

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Podcasts and Pigeons

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This is a first for the family; Robyn has been interviewed for a Podcast called Rock & Roll Farming run by the lovely Will Evans, a farming journalist with Farmers Weekly & also a farmer. He heard about Robyn from the article she did for Farmers Guardian last year, in which she talked openly about coping with epilepsy whilst living on a farm and the difficulties that can arise. One such problem being that we live in an isolated place, and so isn’t on a bus route – this makes it a real difficulty for her to get out independently. All things that most of us take for granted, like being able to lock the bathroom door (we have no locks on our bathroom in case Robyn has a seizure, so we can reach her quickly), or not going to parties and clubs with strobe lighting due to the fact she...

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Packaging Nightmare

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We have had our Internet shop for about 5 years and have sent out countless bags of our Bird foods all over the UK. Our woven polypropylene bags transport amazingly well and we are really proud that we are ‘doing our bit’ for the environment as our bags are recyclable, and indeed we have seen them used for a number of imaginative projects after they are emptied, growing strawberries, potatoes, fishing boat floats and even clothes for a recycling project! We have now been told by our couriers that if we don’t wish to incur extra charges for a ‘non standard parcel’ we have to put our bags into boxes so they can be processed more easily through the ‘hub’sysytem. I have argued and pleaded with the agents, but they are immovable on this, unless we box up our bags, we will incur a £5 per parcel surcharge. We certainly aren’t...

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I swear we haven't gone nuts

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I swear we haven’t gone nuts! Gardening really does take some patience – the same can be said for farming – however, growing trees does seem to be a slow experience! It was lovely to take the two dogs down with Robyn to see their progress, not only has Walter expanded a lot since the two of us visited that plot, but the trees are really looking healthy as can be. I really am enjoying watching the project progress, a few years ago it was just an idea, then it was a query, and now they’re verging on 2ft tall! It’s so lovely to feel as if Chris and I are setting up this woodland that can be enjoyed not only by the wildlife of the future, but also people of the future! Our own little biosphere continues to grow in all manners, Robyn and the dogs played in the, now...

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Home made Fat Balls

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I’m sharing a blog post from our Facebook friends at Sloane & Sons, about how to make Fat Balls to feed the birds as I’m sure that lots of our customers would be interested and there are lots of parents or teachers out there who could be looking for a wildlife project just like this one for either their children at home or their class as a project. I was going to write my own blog about this, but Sloane & Sons have very kindly allowed me to copy theirs and I’m sure you will agree that it is an informative post, and as well as saving me writing one, its also nice to be able to share. Here goes … and please don’t forget where to buy the bird food to use for your home-made fat balls, or indeed your Garden Furniture! https://www.laverockhallfarm.co.uk/wild-bird-food https://www.gardenbenches.com/ You can of course choose to...

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Sticks & Storms

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The weather has been rather blustery here today on the farm, the remnants of #StormGareth mean that the farmyard mud has dried up but there are branches from the trees everywhere, young Walter is thrilled as he loves a stick and to prevent any accidents, he has been trained to bring them to mum in exchange for a gravy bone. This system seems to work very well, and he is now systematically clearing all sticks from our front garden when he is let out for a wee, a massive task but we are getting there, and it also helps with his training too. The farm is quiet apart from putting fertiliser on the Winter crops, but we have been very busy in our bagging shed. Our newest ranges of caged bird feeds have been very well received and we have had to make several batches to keep up with the demand,...

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Birds go Wild for our Food

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Chris has been making more of our Laverock No Waste Wild Bird Food today - the one that the seeds are coated in Aniseed Oil, lots of you comment on this food and it is one of the first ones we made and is still just as popular with our customers today,  as the birds just keep coming back and back to the feeders. It has some great high energy ingredients including sunflower hearts, safflower, groats plus cut maize, Niger seed & canary seed, cut maize & more. We call this our No Waste bird food as all of the seeds are without shells so there should be no waste in your garden. People have confused this by thinking that the seeds are no mess, ie. the seeds won't grow in the garden if they drop. For this to be the case they would have to be heat treated, sort of...

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Has Spring Sprung?

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What a difference a year makes! Last year at this time we were battling the Beast from the East which lasted about 2 weeks, we were blocked in here as the snow was just drifting across our road and as it was blowing directly from the coast the snowploughs just couldn’t keep it clear and safe. The drifts were above the hedges and the landscape looked very pretty but oh so cold and rather dangerous too. We braved the snow in the 4x4 pickup to feed the birds down the fields and I tried to video it but the wind was blowing so strongly it was almost impossible. The birds flocked from all over where they had been seeking shelter in the hedges and I’m sure they were almost starving poor things. Chris walked and poured bird food from the bags & the birds just swooped in almost over his head...

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Woodland update

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Chris and I visited our new pond and woodland today, the pond has filled nicely, the deer fence is up, and the trees are now being planted so there is major progress for our farm project so I thought I'd share it with you on this lovely day. It was such a lovely uplifting morning to visit the site, the sun was shining, the dogs had a great walk and sniff of the hedgerows, and the lovely birds were singing, it was almost deafening! I saw my first skylark, ok Chris pointed it out to me, and I heard it singing as it flew past otherwise, I wouldn’t have known what it was, but hey, now I do. The site looks huge, it covers almost ten acres, so it is going to be a substantial woodland for a bird and wildlife haven on our farm, it’s been a few years in...

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Watch the Birdies

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We’ve been asked on several occasions as to why we don’t have small caged bird food in our Laverock Hall range of bird foods, and we can happily say that as of today we do now. Chris has worked closely with a locally well-known bird breeder and they have come up with a range of three new caged bird foods. These are Mixed Canary Food, Mixed Budgie Seed and Mixed Finch Food. They are a great addition to our Laverock range of bird foods and hopefully they will be well received by the caged bird breeders and by people who keep birds as a hobby too. They contain a good variety of seeds to suit most caged birds and are of the highest quality, so you can be assured that your birds are getting the very best food. The new mixes are packed in 5kg bags and 15kg bags, so they...

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RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2019

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The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch takes place 26-28th January this year. It’s the biggest survey of birds in the UK as over half a million people take part. The data is important as the survey has been going for the last 40 years so when it is all collated it can be used to compare year on year information about trends in species plus it’s a snapshot of bird numbers across the UK so is comprehensive and is most important in helping spot problems and can be the first step to help to protect certain species. The big garden Birdwatch was started in 1979, but it wasn’t until Blue Peter featured this in a programme that it totally took off, although adults weren’t invited to join in until 2001. If you wish to join in with the Big Garden Birdwatch it couldn’t be simpler. Firstly, you need to find a good...

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Veganuary

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  Dry January began a few years back in 2015 and is a great way of keeping healthy after a, perhaps, boozy festive period! This year a few official bodies have been encouraging ‘Veganuary’ to ask people to try and be vegan for one month. This may not be our cup of tea down on the farm, but one initiative we can get behind is the vegan mentality of looking out for the great outdoors and the wildlife within it – is the Laverock Hall lifestyle becoming fashionable? As some of you may know, myself and Chris are often spotted down fields and hedgerows spilling bird foods around in the cold weather to make sure our feathered friends are eating well, and to check up on our prickly friends and those with fluffy tails! Venganuary might be quite a tough challenge to keep up, and it might be a large lifestyle...

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