You will see from the rest of the site that our Grandad used to farm here too. Well he started farming in his own right in the 1930s with a breed of cattle called Shorthorn. These cattle were the native cattle from our part of the world and were originally dual purpose cattle. That means they were dairy cows that were good for beef too. They came in a range of colours from red through roan ( a sort of mottled red and white ) to white.

They were cattle that could thrive under even the most difficult of conditions and were exported around the world. But during the 1950s they started to fall out of favour as dairy farmers specialised and started to use Friesians. Then the Shothorn breed split into two, Dairy Shorthorn and Beef Shorthorn which is probably nearest to the cattle Grandad had.

So a couple of weeks ago Andrew and I went to a Beef Shorthorn sale in Carlisle. We have been talking about returning to the breed for a while as we feel they will suit a post peak oil style of farming when artificial inputs will be limited. Any way we got two pedigree red heifers and so Shorthorns have returned to Mearbeck after nearly 60 years. We are inordinately and idiotically proud of these animals. We hope to breed and sell pedigree Shorthorns eventually but they will make really good eating too. It also feels like the wheel has gone full circle. If our father and grandfather were alive they would probably think we were bonkers. They might be right.