birthday treat planning

firstly i apologise that this blog is late! i had a day out yesterday with my Nuffield Scholar group and did not get home until gone 1.30am, and then i still had to see to the new ducklings that had arrived in the day!

Today i visited a couple of inspiring farms, firstly fellow Nuffield Scholar Ben Stanley at Blackbrook Longhorns (a bit boastful i thought, though his fiance did look happy and was quite a hottie so there must be something in it) see his farm at http://www.blackbrook-longhorns.com/

I had a full tour of his fantastically tasty looking longhorn herd. Am i the only person out there who when they see rare breed animals think they would make a nice rug? when i was on safari in South Africa earlier this year i could not help but think how all the animal would look hanging on my wall. I don't think i would make a great conservationist, i just want to eat or stuff the most interesting animals. my point was proven when Ben cooked up some Longhorn Beefburgers for lunch and they where the best i had eaten for a long time, at least since the BigMac i had on the way up to his.

seriously though it is a fantastic breed producing truly superb English meat, for sale direct to the public. i came home with a superb looking rib joint which i am looking forward to eating!

next we visited an amazing dairy farm (Nottingham University Trial Farm) where the cows are milked by robots. it is spectacular. the cows are free to enter the machine whenever they like to be milked, the robot recognises each cow, feeds it, cleans and milks it (using lasers to find the teats!) it got me thinking, after spending some time in Addenbrookes newborn special care unit with our first child and seeing the new new mothers struggling to express milk to feed there premature babies i could see that an adapted robotic milking unit could be money well spent in there!

As part of my Nuffield Scholarship i have to produce a 25 page report which will i hope will encourage other farmers to have a go at developing their diversification ideas and increase there farm incomes. I had eight fun weeks traveling around Australia and South Africa visiting farms etc. Quid pro quo though its not a bad deal, i did manage to eat sheep brains on toast, which are surprisingly not as nice as they sound and dive with great white sharks which was fun, though the signs telling you to keep your arms and legs inside the cage where completely unnecessary.

i was told yesterday that i have to produce a precis of my study to be published in the annual report so once i have done it i will put it up here for my farming reader. i still live in hope of one!

on a lighter note Mrs G has been nagging me about what we are going to do for my birthday treat, (as it is tomorrow) I suggested possibly as it was going to be my birthday, leaving the lights on during 'snuggle' time. however it turns out that she wants my treat to be something we could both enjoy. She then pointed out that i did nothing special for her birthday, to which i took great offence as i had made love to her twice on her birthday. it turns out that was what she meant by nothing special. Nice.