As the weather has improved, there’s been plenty going on as we’ve been busy on the farm with lambing and checking on the Shires who are due to foal any day and hopefully getting some in foal for next year! With the Shires, Dad has decided for now, not to keep a stallion, so I’ve been on a training course and now I’m an accredited equine ‘Artificial Insemination Technician’(!) so I’ve been using my new skills recently and keeping everything crossed!!!!! Lambing has gone pretty well, most had twins and are now out in the field and with one ewe left, I’m looking forward to getting a good nights sleep again. It’s been difficult without Steve there, but my Dad and the kids have helped me and there’s a really great supportive Facebook group called ‘Ladies who lamb’ who’ve helped me a couple of time when I’ve not known what to do!
We will continue with supplying our own lamb, but as we cant keep the volume of sheep now, we’ve rented some of our land to a young local farmer called Ben Langton who breeds Beltex and Texel crossed ewes and together with his uncle, Philip Langton from Moorpool Farm in Holbrook they will
be supplying us top grade lambs, all reared outside and grass fed from only 10 minutes down the road in the months when we are unable to supply. We’ve also rented out a market garden to grower Jim Morrison who is busy planting like mad at the moment so that he can supply us with vegetables and salads and pumpkins later in the year! In the shop, we are busy creating a new decking area for summer eating, improving the play area with some new equipment (due next month) and the café have started doing Sunday roast lunches again, all using our local beef, lamb and pork .
The team are also getting excited about our first few events of this year. We are holding a Queen’s Jubilee evening Beacon Lighting and BBQ event on Thursday 2nd June and we will be once again holding our Open Farm Sunday event on Sunday 12th June where we will have the Blacksmith, sheep shearing, butchery demonstrations as well as other ‘Meet the Farmer’ displays and food stalls so hopefully we will see you there!
