October (& a bit of November) 2022

Enchanted Lights – a great success, lots of thank you’s & some news about next year’s tickets!

Most of October was spent getting everything ready for our Enchanted Lights event this year. The three-evening event was a real success – with tickets selling out even earlier than last year!  For those who missed out this year, read on as we have some great news for the event next year….

Firstly we must thank everyone who came and wandered, marveled at the woodland lights, toasted marshmallows, watched LED & fire performances, supported the St Barnabas Hospice wishing fountain, laughed at the Gnome Party Tree, tied ribbon to the Treasured Memory Tree, had a drink from F.A.B or food from our wonderful vendors Curry Jacks, The Roaming Dough, Fleur’s Kitchen, Gourmazin, The Choowee Cookie Company & Delicious Delights Catering.

Without question, a BIG THANKS goes to the extended Stourton Team who worked their socks off to prepare the site and serve our visitors.

We are also delighted to announce that the St Barnabas Hospice Wishing fountain raised £325.00 over the three nights. Thank you to everyone who made a wish and donated to this brilliant charity.

By Saturday night the Treasured Memory Tree looked absolutely beautiful; twinkling with all of our visitors’ special memories captured as a ribbon. Thank you to everyone who contributed and left a special memory.

We’d also like to thank local photographers Anthony Brian & John Aron who attended the event over the weekend and we have created a gallery of all of the great shots that they took. Click here to have a look.

We love seeing your photos on social media, thank you for sharing your own experiences of the event. If you enjoyed it here please leave us a review on Facebook or Google plus, any suggestions for #enchantedlights2023 are welcome!

Now, drum roll please, for a LIMITED TIME we have put Enchanted Lights tickets for 2023 live on our website, held at this year’s prices. There is a limited number and once we have sold out they won’t be available to buy until September/October next year.  To place your order please click here. But hurry, they won’t hang around!

Christmas Trees – Delivered to your door!

Pre-order your Christmas tree now for FREE delivery with your kiln dried logs or landscaping products.  Orders will close on Wednesday 23rd November so don’t delay pre-order today!

We have 3 sizes of tree available to order from 5ft through to 7ft 6 and prices start from £37.50

As in previous years we have a beautiful selection of freshly cut Nordmann Fir trees. These premium trees have the added advantage that they hold their needles throughout the festive season and beyond!  Pruned and tendered throughout their growing season, they have a lovely conical shape.

Deliveries for Christmas tree orders will take place on Wednesday 30th November, right in time for you to decorate ahead of the festive season.  If you don’t decorate until later we would simply advising leaving your tree outdoors in a bucket of water & it will be fresh whenever you decide to unwrap & move indoors…

If you’d just like a tree delivering (without any other product) it is an additional £5 delivery charge within 20 miles of LN9 5PB.

To order your tree simply click here.

Also, we are delighted to be taking part in St Barnabas Hospice Treecycle scheme this year – we will tell you more about how to register your tree for collection (and make a donation to this amazing charity!) in our next blog.

Venison – more stock coming soon!

Please phone Tina in the office on 01507 578236 or email contact@stourtonestates.co.uk as we have plenty of steaks, smaller joints, mince, burgers and sausages in stock.

In the next couple of weeks we will be re-stocking the freezers with lots more including casserole & braising steak so there’ll be plenty for you to order over the festive season. We will put a post out on Facebook and Instagram letting you know when it has arrived and is ready to order, so keep your eyes peeled!

If you want a particular cut / size of joint over the Christmas or New Year period then please get in touch contact the office and let us know so Tina can add it to the Christmas order list and make sure you have it in plenty of time.

On the Farm

Since the last blog we have finished all of our autumn sowing (all bar 18acres of beans) with wheats and barleys all up and looking well.

With such an open back end to the year, autumn sowing has been relatively straightforward. The one downside to making the best of the weather window that we had is that we have nudged drilling dates forward compared to the last few years and there is noticeably more grass weeds emerging with the crop. All being well some herbicide top-ups will curtail some of the population but as far as ‘cultural controls’ go there really is no substitute for delaying sowing until the second half of October. The risk of doing this is quite large, once the weather turns these days it tends to stay in a certain pattern for a period of time. Some of our heavier land would not be in suitable condition to sow now, so on balance we are pleased to have pushed on when we did.

Attentions now turn, as mentioned to monitoring crops for any herbicide top-up requirements. Any trace element requirements, particularly on the lighter of our land and just monitoring the general condition of all crops entering winter.

We are due any time to lift our next lot of sugar beet, hopefully we can have a period of slightly settled weather so it doesn’t cause too much soil damage. All sugar beet land will now be followed by spring barley.

Ken has turned his hand to the various workshop jobs required. The latest being to change bearings on the tractor mower we use for around the farm, and repairing our old flat roll. Attention will then shift onto the main arable farming machinery, ensuring it is all in good condition and ready to go when next needed.

Since the weather has broken, a few wet patches have appeared so we will do some investigative work with the digger and make good any field drains that require repairing. As well as this, we have started our winter wild bird feeding programme.

We take a seed mix and place it in dedicated feeding buckets around the farm, an important source of food for a plethora of small farmland birds to help them through the winter.

Deer Diary

It’s all gone very quiet; it’s much calmer out in the deer paddocks and there’s much less roaring….so we think that the boys’ excitement has died down for another year and that the rut is over! We will move the stags out of their enclosures with the hinds at the end of November.  If the boys have done a good job we look forward to welcoming some new deer calves to the estate in late spring/early summer.

In the meantime, we will move the deer calves in late November/December to their winter home of the Roundhouse. This covered area provides then with that extra bit of warmth they need over the winter months and makes feeding them their winter menu of sileage, supplemented with a small amount of home-grown barley, and keeping an eye on their health much easier. Before moving them they will all be given mineral tablets to help keep them healthy.

On the Estate

As our last event of the year is now complete, we are moving into ‘winter mode’! We use the winter months to make any repairs, refurbishments and improvements to the grounds and to the safari tent venue. This also gives our deer herd the chance of a bit of peace and quiet in their Roundhouse.  We use this time to plan our events for 2023 and look forward to re-opening in the Spring time.

Once again a great big thank you to everyone in any way involved in the Enchanted Lights event.  We will let you know what to expect for an events calendar for 2023 in the Spring.   In the meantime don’t forget to pre-order your Christmas tree and get another job ticked off ready for the festive season!

Helen & Antony