A FARM couple played open house to customers, suppliers and other guests prior to a busy summer season working across the region.

Martin and Judith Dryden run a largely arable holding at Murton Moor Farm, in east Durham, but are better known for the free range turkeys they rear in the run-up to Christmas each year.

But they also run a contracting business, taking labour and machinery on to farms across the North-East over the summer months to perform a range of tasks, from silage-making to harvesting.

Over the coming months their workforce of six labourers will be working at more than 40 farms.

The contracts with the client farms include the use of a range of machinery, spanning the modern era.

Pride of place in the Dryden fleet goes to a newly-acquired combine harvester, a German-built Claass Lexion. It was centre of attention among admiring visitors to the farm last night, although, of equal interest was a steam engine which performed tasks across the rural North-East in the early 20th Century.

Mrs Dryden said: "We're about to start the arable contracting season and so now appears to be the most appropriate time to invite people on to the site.

"It's a way of thanking customers and clients, and a chance for them to see the farm and some of the machinery we have.

"It's interesting for them to contrast the old and the new."

Visitors were given drinks, and, appropriately, turkey sandwiches.

The Drydens are preparing to rear another 400-plus of the distinctive KellyBronze breed of bird, taking them from less than a week old, in June, ready for the Christmas market.