Sheep, meat and muddy feet.

Not a bad evening...

2012-01-27T21:31:00.000Z

Walkingaround the sheep this evening and there was no where I’d rather have been.

Itwas a cold evening, crisp but not biting - with no wind to disturb the solelesstrees. Stood to attention they were devoidof motion just waiting for the first glimmers of spring. The land was still and silent.

Asudden scream soon punched through the night air. Short, sharp and sudden itsuggests that something has just sat on a thistle or thorn. The staccatoshrieks continue unrelated, more and more piercing they shatter the silence. It’s only a barn owl, often heard, but onlyseen when they swoop like ghosts between the folds of cloud on grey foggymornings. Their tawny owl compatriotsoffer a more melancholy and haunting call as though planning the night’s workand bragging about previous successes.

Walkingacross the hillside the owl’s song is added to by the stream running along thebottom of the copse. Providing its owndainty tune by tinkling across rocks and weaving its way through the vegetationdraping down into the water, adding to the sound of the owls the harmonies soonintertwine with each other. Therhythmical beat of my footsteps soon provide more than just a steady thud, witheach step the sound of water being forced to shift through the soil sounds likean ensemble of rainsticks. The shimmering and silvery notes make it easy toforget the force, destructive and creative nature of the very lynch-pin oflife.

Thefields soon fall silent to announce the arrival of the solo; a single solitarycrow slowly ambles through the air. Jet black against the dappled blue-grey skythe crow heads toward the maelstrom of birds above the wood on the side of thenext hill. Laconic in voice with its’ simple ark-ark call the corvid thinksonly of roosting for the night, but that soon changes when it reaches thethrong milling around each other. Thechattering and nattering of hundreds of birds is in fact a tumultuous noiseagainst darkening night sky but they soon quieten, until frightened when oncemore they rise up, upon wing and voice. The solid ground and motionless air could actually be aboard a ship,rising and falling over the waves of the crow’s conversation – the land is nolonger still and silent.

Allthese single tunes soon combine to produce the most fantastic symphony and noteven the combined majesty of Bach, Mendelssohn, Beethoven nor Mozart couldinterweave these complexities to produce such unrivalled serenity. Not bad foran evening walk with the dog around the ewes.

Happy farming!

www.twitter.com/garethbarlow

www.garethbarlow.co.uk

gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk

Outstanding Newcomer 2011 - 2012

2011-11-23T21:41:00.001Z

It’sbeen a very busy couple of weeks!

I’vejust come back from the BBC Good Food Show which was also the host to the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2011. The NEC inBirmingham is the currently the centre of theuniverse for the all of the very best of food and drink in the United Kingdom.

Ilove food, and to be frank who doesn’t and if you don’t, why not? The presenceof the World Cheese Awards was a particular highlight as well as being able togo round and see some fantastic meat producers and suppliers. However, the mainreason for going was to see the presentation of the awards for the BBC Food andFarming Awards. I can’t remember everywinner and runner up (Click here for the list) but there will be two extended episodes of the Food Programme the first on 25th of November and the Second on Christmas day. As well as features on BBC1 Countryfileand Radio 4 Farming Today where all of the winners will be highlighted. For me as a young producer the awards and thefinalists featured were of great inspiration and sources of ideas as to where Icould possible take my brand and business. I certainly recommend listening tothe radio in the coming days and weeks!

I'vehad my own success of late, if you follow me on twitter @GarethBarlow and readmy tweets you might have seen that I won an award last week. At the Deliciouslyorkshire seventh annualawards ceremony held at Rudding Park, Harrogate Iwas delighted and honoured to be presented with the Outstanding Newcomer2011-2012 award. Members who entered whohave companies established after June 2009 were automatically entered into thecategory. The judges where looking forevidence of:

Quality – accreditation, company ethos, sustainability policies, product

Impact made – sales, awards won, PR, marketing

Potential to succeed – business plan, sales forecasts

CathClelland, chair of Deliciouslyorkshire, said: “Year on year the quality ofentrants has been exemplary and reinforces Yorkshire’s position as a leadingforce in the UK’sfood and drink sector. Many congratulations to all the entrants on setting thebar even higher this year – and special mention to Gareth Barlow for a very deserving win in a particularly competitivecategory.”

I was shortlisted alongside three other finalists;Drewton’s Ltd, The Yorkshire Pantry and Wilsonand Richardson Food Ltd – they’re all brilliant companies who produce andsupply some amazing food. Check them out!

As for all the other events over the past fewweeks – I’ll get to those in the next

couple of days!

Happy Farming!

Gareth

P.s If you listento BBC Radio 2 today (Thursday 24^th Nov) at 18.05 – 18.25pm youwill hear Nigel Barden, Radio 2’s resident foodie cooking my premium rare breedHebridean Lamb on Simon Mayo’s show.

gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk

www.garethbarlow.co.uk

Follow me on twitter; @GarethBarlow

National Farmers' Union Tenants Conference 2011

2011-11-13T22:42:00.001Z

NFU Tenants Conference

Last Thursday November 10^th the National Famers’ Unionheld their biggest ever Tenants Conference at Harper Adams University College.The aim of the conference was to get together major industry figureheads tohave their say on the tenant sector. Speakersincluded; Jim Paice, The Minister for Farming and Food, Peter Kendall, NFUPresident and Julian Sayers of The Tenancy Reform Industry Group. Speaking during the afternoon session were; BertieRoss, Chief Executive of the Duchy of Cornwall, Will Gemmill, head of farmingat Strutt and Park and two tenant farmer case studies Rhys Williams and GarethBarlow (that’s me).

The conference was a great event and which allowed for debate and discussionon a wide range of tenant and sector wide issues including CAP reform. For a blow by blow account of the day andwhat was said I advise checking out Neil Wilson’s Twitter feed. Neil tweeted live the whole way through theday and will give a much better overview of the topics and what was said than Ican here. You will also be able to find out more on the #aggen timeline.

I gave a brief outline of my business development over the pasteighteen months and my goals and projections for the future. I also highlighted key formative periodsduring my early years such as farm visits and work experience on the Duchy of Cornwall Estate Home Farm in Tetbury. It was the time spent on farms whilstgrowing up and the opportunities I had to explore agriculture and what it couldoffer me that were so crucial in directing me to where I am today. I strongly suggest to anybody thinking ofpursuing a career in agriculture to gain as much experience as possible beforedeciding what path to take.

It’s crucial when discussing the Next Generation and #aggen issuesthat careful consideration is given to the dialogue used. I refer to a commentmade at the Tenants Conference by The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Jim Paice MP. He made a valid point that owning or rentinga farm might not be suitable to everybody wishing to pursue a career inagriculture and that some entrants may be better suited to managing or workingon a farm instead. A statement that I support and a situation that willcertainly be the case – not everyone can or will want to own a farmingbusiness.

He then followed this statement by suggesting that a better livingcould be made by following this career path than ‘scratching around on twohundred acres’. For many of the Next Generation two hundred acres will bea key steeping stone or goal in their business development and such a statementcould be hugely disheartening and a blow to prospective new entrants.

In fact according to figures on the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs website, 33.6 thousand holdings fell in the 50 to under 100hectare bracket in 2010. A bracket that includes 200 acre farms – you can read thepaper here.

I hope in future The Minister is more careful with the rhetoric he chooses.

Happy farming!

Gareth

www.garethbarlow.co.uk

gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk

Follow me on Twitter

If at first you don't succeed...

2011-10-27T15:17:00.000+01:00

It’sonly when you try and do something or achieve an objective do you realise how faryou have to go before you reach your ultimate goal.

I'mputting the rams in with the ewes at the beginning of November and in preparationI’ve been sorting through the sheep and giving them a pre-tupping service. The ewes are on a hillside and the best wayto catch them is to make the pen along the fence-line at the top of thefield. The Land Rover and trailer made itup the incredibly wet and slippery field. Very slowly; low range, differentials locked, second gear.

WhenI first started with sheep everything was heavily reliant on wooden hurdles anda lot of blue baler twine. A lot of twine! Recently wood has been replaced bymetal hurdles to pen up the sheep; they’re a lot quicker and easier to use. Forcontainment they’re perfect but if you want to perform a task such as worming,drenching, ear tagging etc they’re less that ideal. It’s like having to work your way through aten way rugby scrum – less than ideal for operator or sheep. A mobile race like this one would be incredibly useful as the sheep are in several differentlocations. Just need to save several thousand pounds first!

OnTuesday seventy-seven sheep had to be rounded up to select ten for the restaurantsI supply to. In the past, as with theewes, wooden hurdles formed a pen and unpowered electric nets were strung out,to funnel the sheep into said pen. The electricnets are great at sending the sheep in a general desired direction (assumingthe respect the barrier and don’t jump straight over it) but they are also incrediblyflimsy and don’t hold up to any degree of force, including seventy or so sheep.

Toimprove on a setup that was heavily reliant on polypropylene in its variousforms I constructed a post and wire fenced permanent funnel and pen in thefield. However, after being used everyweek and with increasingly soft ground the pen was somewhat bashed about by thesheep on Tuesday. It was partly due to mystinginess with posts and a lack of lateral rigidity – I'm on the hunt for someArmco barriers or corrugated metal sheets to fix to the plethora of posts thatI’ve put in. It’s definitely a learningcurve borne from a mix of failures, successes and surprises….

Throughworking with the sheep I'm often made aware that nothing is ever infallible or perfect;the importance is the degree to which the lack of perfection is present. Add to any situation, sheep that have anincredibly high propensity to do the opposite of what’s required and these imperfectionsare soon made obvious and often amplified. A distinct nuisance at the time, but without constant use and evaluationnothing; infrastructure or myself will ever improve. So I suppose that a sheepgoing the wrong way, a breakage or the failure of a process is actually ablessing in disguise!?

HappyFarming, Gareth

gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk

Its a marathon, not a sprint

2011-10-22T00:29:00.002+01:00

It’sbeen fantastic over the past few days to read and reply, to engage and beengaged, to sit back and take it all in.

Forthe majority who read this I probably won’t need to define ‘take it all in’. Incase you’ve missed it I'm referring to the conversations, discussions anddebates that have been taking place on Twitter and beyond about the NextGeneration in Agriculture issue or #aggen – click to find out more.

It’sa terrible shame that the #aggen issue is so great for the industry, but at thesame time there is a positive side. Thankfully unlike other problems this won’tbe a flash in the pan that will survive any short lived frenzy or media storm -it won’t go away today, tomorrow or even the next day after that.

Ithink two points are important to remember; firstly this isn’t a new issue orstory. Its affected agriculture for sometime and many people have tried and are trying to address it – we’re currentlyin another round of widespread conversation on the problem. Secondly the requirement for a huge number ofnew entrants isn’t just the preserve of the agricultural sector. The IT industry reportedly needs one hundredthousand new recruits in 2011 alone! (Source) We’re not alone and there will begreat scope and capacity to learn and build upon the experiences had in other industries.

Thegrass roots and ‘bottom up’ aspect of this round of discussion and debate onthe Next Generation in Agriculture issue does make it stronger than one thathas begun at the top and worked its way down. For any plan or event to work and trulysucceed will require the active involvement, input and influence of those whoare affected by the issues it aims to address. If the widest possible base ofthoughts, ideas, experiences and voices can be drawn upon from the outset, thenthe outcomes from whatever is established will be of much greater use to thelargest possible majority.

Communicationand the correct use of language are key if good connections and conversationsare to be formed and maintained. Thisisn’t an issue of young or old, it’s about the Next Generation of agriculturalindustry workers and the Current Generation, irrespective of age. Those who areon the fringes or outside of the industry but desperately want to be involved,immersed or employed in farming and agriculture must also not be forgotten – wecannot afford to solely concentrate on people already in the sector.

Thereare a lot of discussions taking place to plan the next steps to move #aggenforward – once some concrete plans have been agreed I’ll let you know.

If in the meantime you want to get in touch please drop me and email at; gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk or find me on twitter @garethbarlow

Untilnext time, happy farming!

Twitter and the next Agricultural Generation

2011-10-19T22:15:00.000+01:00

I've been on Twitter for a while now but the past week hasproved particularly enjoyable and the today has been even more so. Theconversations and debates that been developing over the course of theday have proved the unrelenting might and far reaching power of thisbrilliant resource. A simple post by one person, picked up upon by acouple of others and expanded and diversified by a few more again hasresulted in a thread containing hundreds of tweets by tens of individuals andorganisations.

To distil the essence of the discussion into one, maybetwo sentences isn't easy as the breadth and range of issues beingconsidered is huge. However, the general theme is based on how new entrants andthe next generation of farmers and farm workers gain a footing in the industrywhether as employees, self employed or partners etc.

Not having a farming background or a farm it’s anissue I've have found myself talking about for many years and its not an issuethat upon which I alone am talking. Check out #aggen on Twitter for proof!It isn't a debate that's the preserve of Twitterites aloneeither, last April I featured on a ten minute 'John Craven Investigates'article on BBC1's Countryfile programme which looked at the requirement forsixty thousand new entrants into the agricultural sector in the next ten years.Watched by eight million people on Sunday prime-time and highlighted on otherprogrammes such as BBC Radio 4 Farming Today, this isn’t a subject for theperiphery or minority.

It’s often reported in the media that the average age ofthe UKfarmer is fifty eight, a statistic used almost as a shock tactic to inducechange and incite debate.

The average age of fifty eight. It’s no bad thing.

agriculture wouldn’t be at the forefront of internationalfarming if it wasn’t for the huge wealth of knowledge and experience held byour current farmers and custodians of the land. The adaptiveness to change is also incrediblyimpressive, and any argument against that statement should first consider how onlya few years ago the vast majority of fields were being worked with a Grey Fergyor Massey 135, instead of the mechanical and technical juggernauts of today.

There is however an undeniableneed for new entrants into the sector. There is also an undeniable desire held by many to enter an agricultural profession – the big questions are; How? Withwhat? With who? When…. They aren’t issues that can be answered overnight andthere’s no single answer that’s applicable to all, but there does need to be asector and nationwide conversation to provide answers to questions and ask newquestions in their place. The entrance of any new entrant into the sector needsto consider the current incumbents and how best to work with them to insurethat knowledge, skill sets, support and responsibility are interlinked anddevolved in a way that suits and strengthens each party involved. Specifics can only be addressed by theindividuals; however support and advice, useful for all who wish to access it should be available and sourced from the widest possible base from within theindustry and beyond.

Its why in the coming months Iwould like to see, and aim to start, a forum or conference that will begin theconversation on the widest possible platform - to help thosecurrently fully employed in agriculture, those who aren’t and those who aresomewhere in-between (like myself). Hopefully the result, whatever it may beand wherever it may end will be formed not just by decision makers at the topbut the by those at the grass roots too.

Please do email me at; gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk or follow me on Twitter; www.twitter.com/garethbarlow if you would like to get in touch.

In the meantime, happy farming!

Deliciouslyorkshire Awards - Shortlist Announced!

2011-09-08T16:42:00.001+01:00

I've been short-listed for the Best Newcomer category of the Deliciouslyorkshire Awards, it's the biggest showcase and celebration of the very best food and drink in Yorkshire and I'm delighted and really excited to be short-listed. Can't wait for the awards night!

You can find out more on the awards and peruse through the rest of the list at your leisure on Deliciouslyorkshire Awards Page

You can also read an article about the awards on the

York Press Website

I'm also really pleased to announce that I have secured a new customer which might mean that there's now a pub near you that serves my rare breed Hebridean Lamb!

Provenance Inns own and run the The Durham Ox - Crayke, The Oak Tree Inn - Helperby and The Carpenter's Arms - Felixkirk and they are currently serving my lamb at The Carpenter's Arms, look out for it on the specials board!

If all the talk of food is making you hungry here's a picture of a finished plate of my lamb at Marcus Wareing's two Michelin Star restaurant at The Berkeley, Knightsbridge.

Can't get to a restaurant in Yorkshire or London but would still like to buy some of my lamb? Email me at gareth@howardianhebrideans.co.uk and I can post whole or half carcasses, butchered to best suit your requirements straight to your door.

Happy farming, and eating! Gareth.

Countryfile

2011-07-26T12:09:00.000+01:00

I was on Countryfile on Sunday night talking with Adam Henson about my premium rare breed Hebridean Lamb, the growth of the flock and business too.

Click HERE to watch the programme again on BBC iPlayer - the piece about me is on after thirty one

minutes.

Several People have contacted me to ask the name of the pub we went to - its the Black Swan at Oldstead, which is owned and run by the Banks family. You can find their website HERE

The ewes and lambs in an alternate field whilst their's has a facelift!

2011-07-18T17:44:00.002+01:00

I love rain

2011-07-18T17:29:00.002+01:00

I love rain! No, I really do.

As there is a brief respite in the rain at the moment I've popped out with the dog to check the sheep. The fields where I'm currently walking and where some of the sheep are, haven't been grazed for a couple of years and are suffering with weeds and especially thistles at the moment.

As I don't have any machinery to spray off the weeds, and as killing off all alternate vegetation except for grass goes against my philosophy of giving the sheep a varied and diverse pasture to graze on, I had the weeds topped off last week. I had a contractor come with his tractor and fail mower and cut down an entire field. Flail mowers make a great job mulching up the vegetation into much smaller pieces before it falls back down to the ground - however it does make the field look a little messy at first and not at all pristine! However, thanks to a couple of days of heavy showers, a touch of sunshine and an equal measure of warmth the grass is starting to grow back a treat. All of the cut weeds and grass is rotting down brilliantly to help feed and further the growth of the pasture and soon there will be some great grazing to put the sheep back on.

Simple, and all that's thanks to a few billion rain drops. Oh and a man with a tractor and thousands of biological processes and millions of microorganisms and....

Happy farming!

The Prince of Wales supports young farmers and me

2011-07-18T16:08:00.000+01:00

I doubt any of my other blogs will feature a picture of me with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, solely because I've never met them before and I don't think in the near future there is much chance of us meeting again!

The reason for meeting the Prince (we didn't bump into each other in a book shop as the photo might suggest!) starts off with a letter.

Imagine a seventeen year old boy living in rural North Yorkshire with a couple of chickens, a couple of dogs, a large vegetable patch and seven Hebridean sheep - rural idyll for many but far removed from being the farmer I yearned to be.

Seventeen is the age when amongst other, probably more pressing issues at least in the mind of the teenage adolescent the phrase work experience constantly crops up. It seemed to me that if I was to be sure that my heart lay truly with agriculture that it might be wise to work on a farm for a couple of weeks just to be sure. Where better than possibly the best known farm in the country? The Duchy Home Farm in Tetbury could offer me a fantastic insight into a wide range of agricultural process and practices and would help me to decided which aspects of farming I really enjoyed. Plus they had Hebridean sheep!

So I wrote to the Prince of Wales and his farm manager explaining how I wasn’t from a farming background but how I’d love to be a farmer and would they be able to provide some work experience. After not hearing anything for a couple of weeks I sent another letter and got a response explaining that I was more than welcome to come down for two weeks unpaid work in the summer. Upon completion of two fantastic weeks I was asked by David, the farm manager if I would like to return the following summer for a couple of months paid work. Yes please.

Fast forward four years to a large marquee at the Great Yorkshire show in Harrogate.

I'm now twenty one, I have around one hundred and fifty Hebridean sheep, around fifty acres of grazing and I supply premium rare breed Hebridean lamb to fine dining establishments in both London and Yorkshire.

I never got a chance to meet His Royal Highness when I was at Tetbury but finally last week I was able to thank him for giving me work experience that resulted in being so formative to what I'm doing today. We chatted about the virtues of Hebridean sheep and their meat and the urgent need for more young farmers. A truly memorable few minutes, ones that will never be forgotten and for which I’ll be forever grateful.

The rest of the show was incredibly busy, as has life on the farm and in the butchery – I won’t bombard you with it all today, come back tomorrow!

Happy farming and enjoy the rain!

Gareth

I must write my blogs more often!

2011-05-05T17:21:00.000+01:00

Life's been a little busy of late...

All of the ewes have finished lambing! Well almost, I had twenty four ewes scanned as being in lamb and one barren(empty) ewe - of the twenty four due to lamb twenty two have. One of the ewes was highlighted to lamb a lot later than the rest but about ten days before the due date she had a miscarriage. The subsequent twenty two have all lambed well with few mishaps, I had to help a first time mother who was having a breach birth and another had mastitis but apart from those minor issues it was all problem free.

That just leaves one ewe left; UK130226-325, the problematic one! She was scanned as having twins but there is no evidence of her going to lamb any time soon, time will tell as to whether she's very late or has absorbed the lambs. I don't hold much hope for a positive outcome as over the past four years two of her births haven't gone well - I should replace her but as I've always had so few sheep she's always got away with it, unfortunately the same isn't going to happen this year.

The weather has been great help over the lambing period, I haven't had any need to house ewes and lambs at all and now the lambs are a good few weeks old they don't need to come inside anyway. The lack of rain is starting to become an issue however, with the lambs growing fast there's now over double the number of hungry mouths to satisfy but grass growth is concerningly poor due to the dry conditions. I've started to praying to the gods of the Met Office to forecast some nice steady decent rain for a few days - hopefully it'll come to fruition soon!

I must dash as I'm meeting a customer who's buying some legs of lamb off me, so any police going down the A64 and see two cars parked up and a transactiontaking place, don't worry it's perfectly innocent!

Happy farming (rain dances hugely appreciated!)

Hay ho,

2011-03-16T09:58:00.000Z

I'm on holiday, away from the butchery for a couple of weeks so time to catch up with some jobs, have some days off and go and visit people.

The ewes are due to lamb in about 17 days, if they're on time! Hopefully it'll be an easy year (probably spoken too soon) hebrideans on the whole lamb very well and tend to make good mothers. Their lambs are incredibly tough and thrifty, they're often up and tottering around in less than thirty minutes and after a couple of hours you'll soon be outpaced by them!

Last years lambs are fattening up well, with poor grass growth which is still suffering from the cold winter and heavy snowfall the lambs continue to need hay as well as finisher pellets. The cost of feed is certainly at the forefront of every producers mind - hay is especially expensive this year. With having no forklift or tractor to move large 5ft round bales I've been buying small square ones, they are a handy size but at £4 a bale aren't cheap. I have sourced some three foot round bales that work out cheaper and you can just about pick up which helps the profit margins. It's another goal to aim for in the future; production of own feed to allow greater (still not absolute) contol of costs - just need to fork out the thousands of pounds on the kit to allow me to produce it. Don't have have the thousands, best carry on buying feed in then!

A quiet week

2011-02-23T22:38:00.000Z

With the butchery a man down while he's off sunning himself in South Africa for a month Ive spent the majority of the past week there, well every day apart from today.

It's now about six weeks until the ewes are supposed to give birth, whether they will actually be on time is another matter! The first year I had lambed my ewes the five sheep gave birth over a period of twenty four days - it seemed a very long and protracted process to the ever impatient, impetuous novice farmer that I was! Hopefully this year the lambing season will be a touch more compact. About a month ago I had the ewes scanned by a father and son team that had come across from Leyburn to our area to scan some of the sixty thousand ewes that they had booked into the diary. All apart from one of the ewes are in lamb and Tim was the bearer of good news regarding the percentages. All of the ewes who are in lamb for the second time or more are due to have twins and the ewes lambing for the first time are due singles. Hopefully there won't be too many problems...(touch wood!).

Pedicures all round!

2011-02-16T21:51:00.001Z

I had a day off from butchering at Castle Howard today so I went to the machinery sale at York Livestock Centre. The sales are a huge monthly event; think of approximately 5000 lots in a very muddy field, then bear in mind that one man's rags can (possibly on occasions) be another man's riches! I.e rows and rows of rust, rubbish and the damn right ridiculous punctuated with stuff that you might actually spend money on!

I was looking for as the sweeping description in the catalogue states 'livestock requisites'. This included anything from wooden sheep hurdles and electric fencing of which there were plenty, to a self-propelled ration mixer and grain augers. However luckily for the bank balance I was outbid - one lady bought up all sixty of the hurdles on offer in one go so that was the end of that! I did manage to pick up eight electric sheep nets for ten pounds a piece - they're effectively four inch square fishing nets about three foot high and fifty meters long supported by thin plastic posts. They're brilliant portable fences for when the sheep need rounding up or moving them between fields.

Some of the nets were pressed into service this afternoon when I rounded up the male lambs from last year. With the very wet ground conditions a careful eye needs to be kept on the sheep's hooves to ensure they don't succumb to issues like foot rot and scald. All of the lambs had their hooves trimmed and each was dosed with wormer before the heaviest half dozen were taken out to put into the barn to fatten up, keep clean and dry before they're sent off to the restaurants and farm shops.

As for tomorrow, I'm back at the butchery.

All the best and happy farming!

Jack of all trades? Master of.... Cooking?

2011-02-07T20:36:00.001Z

If you had asked me to butcher an animal eighteen months ago I'd have looked at you blankly, cut myself a plethora of times and again looked at you blankly but now covered in plasters as if they were swaddling bands. I'd like to think things have changed somewhat, although the head butcher might disagree!

The weekend just gone although a touch grey, wet and windy was resemblant of most weekends at the butchery, manic. Whether it's a tourist taking home a couple of my Hebridean lamb chops or a few sausages, to one of our regular locals restocking the freezer, once the lie ins and hangovers have subsided by mid morning it gets busy.

Now if you'd asked eighteen months ago what a butcher did my answer would have been, 'Butcher and sell meat. Whilst managing to avoid the plaster box'. On the whole that's right, however I've found out you need a few other skills to ply the trade with but most of all you need to be able to cook! The queries of how long a joint might take to cook or what to do with a haunch of venison or pheasant legs are frequent and not noteworthy. 'Twenty minutes a pound plus twenty minutes, but check it as all ovens are different' is soon rattled off or 'try your venison with red wine and juniper berries'. There is however one incident that particually sticks in my mind.

A mother and father with accompanying children appeared at the counter and bought a selection of burgers. After the customary chat about the weather, having a nice day, where they'd come from (and for good measure to finish off with) the weather. Said parents then asked how they should cook the burgers. Cue on my part a jumbled response about how they could be done on the BBQ, in the oven or griddle pan - caught off guard I think I baffled them even more than they were before asked!
They came back a week or so later for more as the last were very good and luckily for me the children weren't showing any obvious signs of food poisoning as a result of my shoddy cooking instructions!!

Thankfully early February isn't really burger season so I won't have to face that challenge again for a while. It was instead a visiting Australian who asked what flavour Cumberland sausage was that made me stop and look blank instead.

Hello!

2011-02-05T22:29:00.000Z

Well I'm a farmer,

I breed rare breed Hebridean sheep, Hebrideans aren't your conventional big white meat machines! Instead think small, black, woolly with a variety of horns - but what the breed might lack in size it hugely makes up for in flavour.

I live and farm just North-east of York in the Howardian Hills an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, home to Castle Howard. My farm is a touch different to most, I don't have one. Or any farming background. Its always been my ambition to be a farmer and after a year at Durham University I realised I had to try and make it work! I kept Hebridean sheep as a hobby for several years while I was at school and I've now grown my flock from the six original ewes to around eighty sheep.

The meat from Hebridean sheep is unrivalled; it has a incredible depth of flavour and is much leaner than mainstream lamb and its incredibly succulent and tender. Its these qualities that lead my Hebridean lamb to be sold in farm shops and restaurants both here in Yorkshire but also in a top Michelin Starred restaurant in London.

So hopefully one day I will be writing on this blog of how I have moved onto my own large farm, however for now I'll have to write about journeying around my scattered fields, tending my flock, working part time as a butcher and hopefully of more filming and recording with the BBC.

If you cant wait till the next post then check out my twitter feed @Gareth Barlow or my website www.garethbarlow.co.uk

But for now. Happy Farming!