SKY DIVERS RAISE £12,860FOR THE CHARITY, STARS DORSET
Eighteen sky divers took to the skies at Go Sky Dive in Salisbury on Friday 23rd July and raised a whopping £12,860 for local charity Sexual Trauma and Recovery Services (STARS Dorset).
STARS DORSET Sky Dive
The brave group of sky divers, the most the charity has ever had supporting them, consisted of staff members, volunteers and supporters. Each sky diver completed the challenge, some taking on the tandem jump altitude of 15,000ft and some the 10,000ft, which means this brave group had almost a full minute of freefall time! Each jumper smashed their fundraising target and so together raised such an incredible amount which the charity is hugely grateful for.
Charlie Souter-Philips, the charity’s Volunteer Co-ordinator and one of the sky divers said”I wanted to take on a challenge that would push me out of my comfort zone. I was really scared at the thought of jumping out of a plane however it was a brilliant experience and I would advise anyone who is thinking of doing it to do it! We were very blessed to have beautiful sunshine on the day too. The fact that I enjoyed it so much and we raised over £12,000 for STARS Dorset made it even better.”
STARS Dorset organises a Sky Dive at Go Sky Dive in Salisbury each year for supporters of the charity to take part in to help raise vital funds for the charity’s work across the county. All the services that STARS Dorset offers such as its one to one Counselling Service, its Support Line and its Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) service are free and donations from the public help maintain their provision. Last year STARS Dorset supported more than 2000 people across the county.
Sky Divers
If you would like to support STARS Dorset and either yourself or your business would like to take part in a Sky Dive for the charity please get in touch. Anyone who has been affected by sexual violence and would like confidential advice and support can call the STARS Dorset Support Line on 01202 308855 or visit www.starsdorset.org.
I think my fascination of wine started from a very early age. As a family, we would travel down to the Loire most school holidays. I would be allowed the occasional very weak white wine spritzer and allowed to have a whiff of the wine on any vineyard tours we booked. It’s probably the reason that I am such a Sauvignon Blanc fan – the lively, fuller aromas of a Sauvignon would simply jump out of the glass.
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The enchanting Loire is a wine region in the centre of France, named after the river which meanders through the area – just over 1000kms in length and running from the Ardèche through to the Atlantic. Aside from Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, many wine devotees – even today – continue to overlook the region for some reason or another but, once discovered, it makes for a beguiling glass.
It’s the beautiful long river, which is littered with picturesque châteaux, that bookmarks the wine quarters of the Loire; Upper Loire is where you’ll mostly find my beloved Sauvignon Blanc; the mouth of the river is magnificently Muscadet dominant, and everything in between is wonderfully varied. In fact, many different still wines are made in the region plus a sprinkling of sparkling Crémants and some gorgeous, sweet wines too. Many names you may have heard of are Anjou, Saumur, Touraine, Vouvray, Coteaux du Giennois, Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.
I’ve selected a handful of suggestions from our shelves that showcase the region well in this month’s column. As always, there’s always so much more to say than the word count allows, but pop along and see us to continue the conversation on one of our favourite regions.
Sample the Loire:
Domaine de la Noë Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie £10 – 100% Melon de Bourgogne grape, this is our ‘go to’ wine for any fish dish, flavoursome and refreshing but without acidity. I have yet to find a Muscadet better for under £10.
Domaine des Gauletteries Jasnieres Chenin Blanc £16 – 100% Chenin Blanc, Jasnieres is one of the smallest appellations in the Loire measuring just 128 hectares. This vineyard is situated directly between Tours and Le Mans. Dry, gentle pear notes rounded off with hints of fresh apple.
Domaine de Montbenoit Coteaux de Giennois £15 – 100% Sauvignon Blanc. Simply stunning, dry and crisp with the gentle acidity you would expect to find. Unlike the New Zealand Sauvignons this isn’t all just a ‘cut grass, gooseberry’ bomb. A lesser known wine that we love here at Vineyards, more elegant in the mouth and a great alternative to a Sancerre or Pouilly Fume.
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This weekend saw the return of the much-missed Sturminster Cheese Festival – and the crowds were out in force to celebrate, and of course eat all the cheeses!
Sturminster Cheese festival was started by a group of Sturminster Newton locals, sponsored by the then local creamery owners Dairy Crest, in 1999 simply as an event to promote local cheese – not just that of the creamery in the town itself but also by other cheese makers in the area, and other small scale food producers were invited.
Sturminster Newton Cheese festival 2021. image: Courtenay Hitchcock
A committee was set up known as The Cheese Board, who worked with the local National Farmers Union. A programme of events over the second weekend of September was devised – local town establishments provided refreshments and a barbecue, the scout group provided a marquee tent on the recreation ground for stall holders and there was even a fashion show, live music and a quiz in the evening.
The weekend was such a success that a second event was planned for the following year… and the Sturminster Cheese Festival has this year celebrated its 22nd birthday!
All the cheese from Westcombe Cheddar. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock
Though the event is far larger than was originally conceived, the spriit remains the same; the weekend is a wonderful showcase for local food and drink producers, mixed with entertainment and interesting stalls from local producers, craftspeople and charities it’s a popular day out for the whole family.
This weekend, Sturminster Newton was busy for the entire weekend as visitors came from miles to explore the marquees and stalls – of course there was cheese in abdundance from a host of local producers, but it wasn’t all ‘la fromage’. Other produce ranged from cured meats to savoury biscuits, chutneys to bread. Mixed with the food stalls were local drink producers (gin, cider and real ales abounded both in the producer tents and also outside as takeaways from the entertainment area), and a vast range of local craftespeople demonstrating their skills.
The busy craft tent atb the Cheese festival. Image: Courtenay HItchcock
It wasn’t just the children who were enthralled by the shows from Strawberry Jam (not going to lie, I was completely gripped by the science show myself), the popular and well-chosen local food vans seemingly had perennial queues, while the schedule of live bands kept the whole ground entertained.
Strawberry Jam had more than the kids captivated. Image: Courtenay HitchcockThe live bands were popular with the whole crowd. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock
It was wonderful to have the Cheese Festival weekend back – here’s to next year!
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From now through to Autumn is the best time to enjoy the many artisan soft cheeses that are made in the UK, particularly in the South West. This is because the cows, sheep and goats have been out on the spring grass and so the milk will reflect the changed diet and consequently the flavour of the cheese.
These changes are more noticeable in the smaller scale Artisan cheeses found in your local specialist deli as the larger scale producers of cheeses more commonly found in the supermarket will try to maintain the same flavour profile all year round as that is what the buyer expects.
Softer cheeses can reach maturity after a few weeks, even days for the very fresh cheeses! Knowing the approximate maturing time helps to estimate when the time of year the milk was produced, from this one can have some fun spotting the changes in flavour through the year.
While the animals are shut in during the Winter months, they are fed preserved grass, hay or sileage, and concentrated feed in pellet form but once out on grass they have access to fresh grass which causes what is called the Spring flush, a rise in volume but a drop in fat content, the cheese maker must allow for this when making their product. Just to complicate things slightly, the stage in an animal’s lactation also effects the milk content, after giving birth, the milk is higher in fat, and this drops until towards the end of the cycle when the volume decreases, and the fat content rises as a result.
An award winning fresh local cheese is La Fresca Margarita produced near Templecombe at Feltham’s Farm www.felthamsfarm.com, Best British Cheese at this year’s virtual cheese awards, inspired by the Latin American and Spanish queso fresco cheeses, and partners beautifully with figs and honey. Their multi award winning cheese, Renegade Monk, a rind washed, soft blue cheese is mature after 4 weeks.
These cheeses are both great examples of how milk can become stunningly different cheeses in a matter of weeks!
Good hunting, enjoy experimenting, comparing, and contrasting.
It’s September, and the first lot of early foals born in February and March have turned five months and are weaned and roaming their thickly hedged and tree-lined paddock in a mischievous gang.
Image by: Courtenay Hitchcock
Weaning is a gradual process which starts at around three months, with the introduction of a special youngstock cube mixed with chaff, a selection of chopped up dried grasses and alpha, which helps stop them bolting their feed. With abundant, good grass, the mares only need a small quantity of a nutrient dense feed with minimum calories. So, to stop the mares eating more than they need, the feed for the foals is put inside a creep feeder, a low metal ring or portable fence with foal-sized openings, which the foals can fit under or through, but the mares cannot.
Image by: Courtenay Hitchcock
These foals are all young Thoroughbreds bred for jumps racing, who are aiming to first get to a racecourse in their four year old year. We supplement their natural summer grass to encourage them to grow that little bit taller and stronger so that the bloodstock agents will be more inclined to buy them at the sales – small horses can make perfectly good racehorses, but the buyers are mostly after tall, well matured youngsters with lots of winning racehorses in their extended families. To have any chance of making a profit when it comes to the sales, it’s all about size and pedigree.
Image by: Courtenay Hitchcock
Once a foal is five months, is eating well and is spending less and less time at its dam’s side, we catch the mare and lead her out of the field, to the other end of the farm, out of earshot. Within a very short time, most foals have settled back with their mates and all is calm. The mares will often pace the field they have been moved to for the first couple of days and this, combined with reduced grass for a week or two, helps dry up their milk. The field group sizes vary but six or eight mares with foals at foot in a group is ideal, with two or three mares being taken out at a time. The group is then left to properly settle again for a couple of weeks before the next mares are removed, with the aim of making the whole process as stress-free as possible.
Image by: Courtenay Hitchcock
This is also the time of year when we start looking towards the autumn sales and helping our clients analyse their broodmare bands. It’s the time to consider whether any mares have been underperforming with offspring either not making a profit at the sales or, ultimately, not winning races. Time to decide whether there are mares that should be sold or bought, always with an eye to improving the quality of the mares being bred from.
Ultimately, September is the month for the final tidying of both paddocks and buildings to get ready for the winter and, whilst we’d like to be picking blackberries and sloes, we spend most of the time praying for a long dry Autumn so the horses can stay out as long as possible.
Unlike any other industry, everyone has a connection with farming. Why? Because the food you eat has been produced by farmers. The National Farmers Union (NFU) was set up in 1908 to represent the interests of farmers and that principle remains today as we are here to give our British farmers a voice. Our purpose is to champion British agriculture and horticulture, to campaign for a stable and sustainable future for British farmers and to support our members with advice and guidance.
Aerial view of summer country farming landscape and wheat field being harvested by combine harvester with trailer and grain in foreground
We feel that if UK farming is to continue to produce the food we eat and meet the challenges of climate change and food security, as well as rearing and producing our farmed animals to the high standards that the UK public expect, then farmers need a level playing field in which to work and trade. It is our role at the NFU to ensure the industry is granted this and it has never been a more important role than right now as trade deals are being negotiated; we work so that our sector is not undermined by allowing in food imports that fail to meet its high ideals.
The NFU prides ourselves on our local representation. Nationally we have a network of more than 300 local offices joint with the NFU Mutual. Here in Dorset, there are six local offices with two in the Blackmore Vale – Sturminster Newton and Sherborne. Jude Green and Justin Pinder lead the Sturminster Newton office and Shelley Goodfellow leads the Sherborne office. These NFU Group Secretaries can provide professional advice and help to NFU members, supported by the extensive network of over 200 NFU staff on a county, regional and national level. Between the local Group Secretary and the County Adviser, they play a crucial role maintaining grass root relationships with farmers and stakeholders in Dorset.
Coronavirus has impacted everyone’s lives, for farming one of the biggest impacts has been from the loss of the restaurant, pub and takeaway trade, what the industry refers to as the ‘out of home’ sector, through the lockdowns. This accounts for up to half the fresh produce that is sold in the UK – the proportions vary depending on what is being supplied, but it is a crucial market for meat, milk and vegetables. One thing is for sure, the NFU will continue to work tirelessly to support farmers through the problems we have and continue to face and make sure that after the coronavirus has passed, we re-build a more resilient and sustainable domestic food and farming supply chain.
Alongside this, our team scrutinise trade deals; address workforce shortages; lobby to grant more resource for rural crime; act as ambassadors for farm safety; bring farming alive in the classroom through our education work and deal with species re-introduction proposals. Our work is certainly varied!
Watch out for Back British Farming Day on Wednesday 15th September 2021, this is the NFU’s public-facing campaign, driving support for the British food and farming sector through simple actions like buying British produce or enjoying the countryside responsibly. More information can be found on our Countryside Website at Back British Farming | Countryside Online
There are many challenges facing the industry now, but farmers – who are nothing if not resilient and resourceful – are continuing to work hard to make sure we have the food we need alongside managing our great British countryside. There are also many opportunities, and our farming industry has scope to be able to provide the solutions to many of our challenges. Above all we must protect the high standards of food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection that the British public value so highly.
We look forward to contributing to the BV’s monthly magazine and we hope we will bring you along with us during this exciting and challenging time ahead for the farming industry. We look forward to discussing the farming issues of the day with you as well as introducing you to some of the farmers in our area and their businesses. It is also a chance for us to highlight some of the farming campaigns such as the #LoveLamb Week running now – 1st to 7th September – showcasing the delicious, nutritious, and climate-friendly British lamb.
