around the farm - Barn Field

I often write about the fields on the farm and I wonder if you have a true image of them. When I read in Australian blogs about paddocks I have to remember they aren't like a small English paddock. So, I thought I’d take you around our fields every now and then. 

We’ll start this week with the farm entrance, which turns off Blackley Lane. In 2000 the Great Notley by-pass was built across our old farm chase and so a new entrance was made with oak trees planted both sides to form a Millennium Avenue.

Barn Field

Little Barn Field by the Yard

The new chase divided Barn Field into three smaller fields, which Bill with great inventiveness renamed Barn Field, Barn 1 and Barn 2. Unfortunately I can never remember which is 1 and which is 2 so they get called Little Barn Field by the Yard and Little Barn Field by Rothwell. When the children were young we flew their kites in Barn Field and so they always called it Kite Field.

All three fields are down to grass as 1 and 2 are far too small to grow wheat (they’re only a third of a hectare each) and are grazed by horses kept at livery here.

earth bund next to Barn Field

blossom on hedge

When the latest barns were built, the excavated dirt was used to form an earth bund around the yard – useful for security and now that we’ve planted a hedge along the top it should screen the buildings a little from the road. Well, it will when the hedge has grown.

To be continued ...