February 2022 at Stourton

Proud to Support St Barnabas Hospice

Following our Enchanted Lights event in November where we had a donation ‘Wishing Fountain’ we were absolutely delighted to present St Barnabas Hospice with a cheque for £322.56p.

St Barnabas Hospice is the leading charity in Lincolnshire providing palliative and end-of-life care to adults living with a life-limiting or terminal illness. They do incredible work and we are very proud to have supported them. Please visit their website to donate or for fundraising ideas.

Outdoor Festival Activity Day – Volunteers Needed!

If you’d like the opportunity to help out for a couple of hours or 3 at the Launch of the Outdoor Festival to be held here on 30^th April please do get in touch!  We are looking for people to support various aspects of the co-ordination of the day including meeting and greeting and more generally supporting festival activity providers and visitors.  If you’d like to get involved an essential Site Tour and Briefing Session will be held on Wednesday 27^th April from 10am – 12 midday which you will also need to attend ahead of the event on 30^th April.  To register your interest please email contact@stourtonestates.co.uk and we will get in touch with more details.

We’ll be open EVERY SUNDAY from May – September!

We are very excited to announce that we will be open every Sunday from May – September 2022. You can come and come and enjoy our beautiful parkland and deer park at your leisure.

Red Deer safaris will be on offer together with self-guided walks around woodlands and lakes, with plenty of space for children and dogs to explore.  The open days will be supported by an ever-changing high quality local food vendor on site serving drinks and refreshments, with flushing toilets available here too!

Lovingly reared home-grown venison will be available to purchase for you to cook at home with a selection of tried-and-tested recipes for inspiration.

In order to maintain the grounds to a high standard, a small car parking charge will be in place; every penny of which will be re-invested to improve and manage the site.

No need to book – you’re free to simply turn up and enjoy what’s on offer here.

Venison – Recipe of the Month – Lasagne!

Lasagne is such a great family favourite and perfect crowd pleaser for the hungry masses! It’s great to make in advance to pop in the oven when you need it.  Why not give your lasagne a new twist by using venison mince instead of beef? Venison mince is full of flavour and a healthier option as the fat levels are lower than beef or pork. The cooking process is as simple as with other minces so the swap is easy to make!

Click here for our tried, tested and family approved Venison Lasagne recipe.

Also, if you are already planning your Easter Feast and would like to make venison the centrepiece please place your order now. Our venison joints are always very popular at this time of year and we don’t want you to miss out.

To place your order simply click here.  We have a good range of frozen venison in stock with more cuts available soon!  Delivery is free within a 20 mile radius of the farm (by road) when you spend £25 or more.

On The Estate

Guy is very excited as we are replacing our more weathered transit with a more shiny (second-hand one!) into our delivery fleet.   To make the trek to Bath to collect the new Transit van during half term week (!) more palatable for our younger members of Team Stourton we had an overnight stay and trip to the Roman Baths.  If you haven’t been to Bath it’s a great place to visit!

The new van is not yet on the road as it requires some modifications. We are fitting a mini crane so larger and bulk deliveries of logs are easy to load and unload as well as getting some branding applied.  We will take some photos when it’s ready for the road.

On the Farm

After an incredibly dry and mild winter, the storms of February certainly changed things a little. Thankfully we suffered minimal damage on the farm but the recent rainfall has shown up a few wet areas that may need some attention.

Our thoughts now move towards applications of nitrogen fertiliser to our winter crops as well as the sowing of our spring crops. We are currently waiting for delivery of sewage sludge for application ahead of our spring crops. This is a great source of crop nutrients as well as being a useful addition of ‘organic matter’ to our soils.

We are in unprecedented times as far as agricultural markets are concerned. As mentioned previously our fertiliser prices are sky high (directly linked to gas/energy prices). This has been accentuated by Russia’s disgraceful recent decision to invade Ukraine. Our thoughts are very much with the people of Ukraine at this time. I, for one can’t begin to comprehend what they are going through right now, it is deeply unsettling.

The Ukraine and Russia are both very important exporters of wheat and maize onto the world market. There is an estimated 15 million tonnes of wheat and 12 million tonnes of maize still to leave the black sea ports this season. As things stand this is highly unlikely to happen in the short term and has made markets incredibly nervous about tightness in global supply.

In other news we have been building a new farm chemical store/sprayer filling area in the yard. This project is coming along nicely now and will be a welcome addition to ease spraying logistics in the spring.

Deer Diary

It’s been a busy few weeks in the deer parks. All our deer have now been wormed and topped up with vital minerals in anticipation of the forthcoming calving season. May seems a long way away but it will be here before we know it!

The calves are all under cover in the new deer shed enjoying their luxury accommodation. However that said, they will be more than happy to be turned out onto the spring grass next month.

The recent storms have caused us quite a few headaches and a serious amount of additional work repairing fences which have been squashed by falling trees and branches. We are shortly to begin our parkland maintenance works – harrowing, re-seeding and leveling the pasture to ensure it is in the best condition for turn out.