Maple Field Milk: Full-Tilt Farming

Reader Contribution by Nick Snelgar
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Both my colleague, Rupert, who is training alongside me, and me passed our Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) Certificate. Another move forwards. The Environmental Health Officer from the New Forest District Council came to collect samples of all the products we intend to sell from the dairy on Tuesday morning. He plunged them in a cool box, tagged them with secret ‘links,’ and carried them to Public Health England at Porton Down for a run of tests to confirm our own tests. It’s ok — it’s all for our safety. We shall know the results next Tuesday.

We have made haylage in Springmeadow field (6 acres) just one field up from Maple Field. It is actually two 3-acre fields divided by a thick mass of enclosure act hedge all packed with the old favourites – traveller’s joy, ash, dogwood in three varieties, wild furnaces of blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), field maple climbed by tenacious’ Chris Bonnington’ honeysuckle. In came Gerald and Neil, the contractors from 2 valleys over.

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