Venison for sale

While we have been selling venison at Attingham for many years now, this season has seen a major change - instead of sending off the meat to be butchered, we now have our own on-site premises to prepare the cuts. This means that Attingham venison travels less than a mile from the deer park to butchery to shop - you can't get more local than that! Stocks of burgers, sausages, diced meat, haunch and steaks have been flying off the shelves so far; throughout the culling period, we will be restocking the chiller in the Shop every Wednesday evening. Venison is a lean meat and is increasing in popularity as people become more health conscious and choose lower-fat dark meats, so why not come and try it?

This week has flown by so far! On Monday I spent some time at Willowdene training centre taking my manually-fed woodchipper test while the volunteers continued to put up a new stretch of fencing; on Tuesday the team were cutting logs and I had a group of staff and volunteers from RSPB Lake Vyrnwy come for a tour of the deer park and walled garden; and today we have been hedgelaying, chopping wood, collecting up leaves for the leaf mould bays in the orchard and interviewing prospective students for placements starting later this year. No wonder my boots keep ending up like this...

A wardens work is never done... without getting really messy!

Finally a lovely moment from Monday morning when I arrived at work and the sun was just beginning to emerge; Attingham was silent apart from the birds singing their morning song. The rooks at the top of the trees in Rookery Wood behind the Stables were particularly raucous and stayed still just long enough to snap a quick picture before flapping away in disgust at my disturbing the peace!