Author: wiltwhatman
Why we graze our sheep and goats on wildflower meadow. (It’s sustainable. They taste great.)
This is a post about flavour. Deep, complex, flavourful lamb and goat. It’s also about wildflowers. Diversity. Sustainable farming. Pine martens. And grazing. But it’s fundamentally about flavour. Which is what grazing boils down to. We believe how we farm gives our lamb, goat and hogget a taste of place. A unique taste that’s a […]
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Adaptability, Cold Antler Farm and Farmer Jenna
Cold Antler Farm is a six acre farm in the USA run by Jenna Woginrich. Graphic designer, blogger, writer, farmer, fiddler, hunter, falconer and soap maker. Hit her up for soap, logos, graphic design work, pork shares, sheep, soap, or lessons in fiddling and falconry. Today’s post is about farming, adaptability, and Cold Antler Farm. […]
Read MoreShearing 2018
The shearers came. Late in the evening. A day before we had agreed. A quick scrambled call gave us an hour to be ready. It’s that way with any harvest on the farm. Work is done when the weather and the workers are there. Schedules are a kind of moveable feast. We gathered metal hurdles […]
Read MoreAt sea on dry land and the sound of ships in the stormy night…
I woke to the sound of the sea. The sound of creaking timbers. The sound is of sea on sand. I live 50 miles from the coast. There was a storm the night before last. The sound was the sound of the forest. In high wind the trees creak and groan. The wind on the […]
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Where the wild things are…
It’s summer. Glorious, rarely seen, actually warm summer. Day after day of sunlight. I personally know people who have been able to grow tomatoes in this weather. It truly is the end of times. We’ve been letting the verges, the driveway and the yard run riot with weeds. They are choked with grasses, wildflowers,and wonderful […]
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Wildflower Walk, Hawthorn Hill Farm, May 2018
Biodiversity is at the heart of how we are farming here. We want the wildness in our pasture. We want wildness and weeds. It’s better for our land. For our soil. For our health. For our sheep and goats. And it’s better for our produce. A complex, healthy mix of plants, flowers, herbs and grasses […]
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Rewilding the Devil’s Chimney
The Devils Chimney is on the Sligo Leitrim border. It’s the highest waterfall in Ireland, it carves a jumbled channel down through the rocks. It’s set into the sheer side of the Glencar Valley, hedged in close against Glencar Lough. The waterfall takes a solid vertical slice from the hill. It’s home to something beautiful […]
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Wild orchids and what they mean for this farmer
In the Quarry field, tight by the road, once more, our wild pink orchids bloom. This makes me as giddy as a kid in a sweetshop. This is Christmas, and Hannukah, and the all Ireland championship and a Monster Truck rally all rolled up into one for me. There are drifts of Ragged Robin too. […]
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The Half Wild Hill of Kilronan
It’s a place where the wild mountains tumble down to meet the close cropped green of the valley fields. Kilronan Mountain. We climb up the green road that grips the side of the hill, up through the lane of wild blueberry and gorse, past the just unbudding ash trees, their unfurling leaves shocking purple, up […]
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Long live the wildness…
We are working to make our farm something more wild. More wildflowers. More diversity. More alive above and below the ground. For lots of reasons. Because it’s more sustainable. Because it makes a kind of economic sense. Because it makes for better food. Because it makes for healthier, more fertile, and cleaner soil. And it […]
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