Sheep, what sheep?

Here's the lane to our farmhouse from the main road (well, let's be honest, it's not a main road like the A1 is a main road, but it's the main road from the village to our house).  On the right out of sight is the gate to the camping field, straight up is the house.  Round about NOW this image should have sheep wandering up it as the blighters have escaped again!  Gggrrrrrr.

Workshop working

Only three days to go until we open for the summer camping season.  I have a list of jobs as long as both arms and a leg.  Dave is spending a whole lot of time in his workshop fixing things, pictured is his 'power tool area'.  He looks quite proud when he says it, like me showing off my carrot seedlings or presenting a home grown salad.

The field is muddy and wet so now I have to call all the campers who will arrive on Friday and remind them to pack wellingtons - is it normal to feel personally responsible for the rain?

RIP Dave

There is always a danger of naming your animals when they're destined for the pot.  However, sometimes we can't help ourselves.

In the last lot of lambs there was one pushy, bullying, greedy fellow that was always knocking the little ones off their bottles and trampling over anyone, sheep or human, in the hope of a little more milk.  So obviously we named him Dave after our own greedy, plate finisher (though I must say that Dave has never actually knocked me over to get to the last chip on my plate).

So it was with sadness this morning we discovered that Dave had died in the night.  Like some biblical warning to the danger of greediness his tum had split - this is Dave the lamb by the way not Dave the husband.  Never again will we have to hold him in a headlock to let the others finish their milk, we'll miss him.

RIP Dave

What size chicken laid that?

This is a selection of the clutch of eggs collected this morning.  Lovely petite olive and blue eggs from our fancy chicken friends, dark glossy speckled eggs from the Marans and something which although it was found in a nesting box, is surely not a hen's egg?

Well of course it is, we have a couple of larger feathered chickens who not only lay like clockwork everyday but have a propensity to the double yolker - when you hear violent, crazed, squawking coming from the hen house it's a sprint to be the first there to pluck out the huge warm egg and heading back to the house to make a fried egg sandwich.  Happy easter indeed.

Meet the family (2)

The Berridon big cat, camouflaged against the famous Berridon weeds.  There she strides up the broken stairs, little Rosie.  Blythe's kitten and the most adorable cat.  Loved by all, even Dave, who will tell anyone who mentions the C word "I hate cats".

The library

OK, not so much a library more of a box with books in.  But every year I try and get together a selection of books that the campers can borrow.  It's not as easy as you'd think to try and get books to cover every taste.  So we have everything from Dorothy Parker to Stephen King, from Paul Auster to Barbara Trapido.  There's a bit of Walter de la Mare and a couple of Mary Wesley's.  There's Camus and Harlan Corben.  And there snuggled in the middle is a nice bit chunk of chic lit.

Last year the box, ahem I mean library, grew as campers left everything from Jeffrey Archer (yes really) to Sadie Jones, let's see what comes of this year's visitors - will it be Mollie Panter-Downes or Dan Brown?

Know your onions

Spent a calm hour this weekend sat in the sunshine picking over the trays of stored onions and shallots.  Last year's harvest was mammoth, at one point in sunny August I had three large wire panels strewn with hundreds of bulbs in the courtyard.  Any which looked slightly soft around the neck were eaten straight away as this is a good indicator that they won't keep.  The rest were stored in trays on my vegetable rack in the farm pantry, which is a cool airy building which doubles as the camp site information and storage room during the summer.

So this weekend I checked the harvest, trimmed any leftover wiry roots and peeled off the top muddy layers of papery skin to reveal the rich colour of the onions and shallots.

Meet the family

Meet Lucy one of our baby buffalo.  Lucy is just over a year old but already MASSIVE.  The plan is to put her in calf when she's old enough and make our own mozzarella.  But for now she is just a lovely soft big baby girl who likes to be stroked.

The Eden project?

Much excitement today as we've found out that a bid we placed at a local auction site has won!  A house is being knocked down and we will be going to take away their geodesic greenhouse!  I've always wanted one, they are a bit star wars and allegedly the best design to keep a constant warm temperature, much better than my little glass pagoda.

So tomorrow we're heading out to figure out how to dismantle it and then re-erect it at the farm.  So, get ready for harsh words and arguments...

And the price £330!  bearing in mind I've seen a similar model for £3,000+, and this one had lovely wooden staging, I think I've got a bit of a bargain.... well that's before D and I fall out over my own version of Eden Project of course...

See you at the baa

Feeding one lamb is lovely, however bottle feeding lambs en masse is slightly more tedious. To get around the problem Dave's dad created this lamb bottle rack from bits of old wood. It's not very portable (weighs a ton!) but you simply slot the bottles into the holes and the little fellas can suck away while you stand there with your hands on your hips saying "aaahhh".

Although when the camping season starts (15 days and counting) there will be no shortage of lamb feeders.

Garlic growing

This early sunshine has given the garlic I planted before Christmas a real growth spurt. The two rows to the right are regular garlic, while the next two rows are elephant garlic which, you guessed it, promises huge chunky bulbs.

Together with the garlic planted earlier this month and a proper storage system the plan is to be completely self sufficient in garlic this year. It's one of those small things that is thrown in the shopping basket at every trip with little regard to the cost but actually those little white bulbs will add up to quite a large annual bill. At least that's the plan, it could be rotted bulbs and back to Waitrose before Christmas...

That's one big pig

Haven't quite captured the scale of my friendly piggy friend here. He was enormous, like a baby hippo. We had a visitor to the farm this week who marvelled at the size of our baby buffalo. They're about 15 month old now and the size of a Reliant Robin.

Perhaps there's room in the North Devon area for a farm of GIANT animals, The Giant Pig, The Impossibly Enormous Cow, The Chicken The Size Of A House. Yes. There's definitely something there... now where's my book on genetic engineering using a kettle and a hand whisk.

A new pig (or 14)?

We are currently without pigs on the farm. Well, that’s not quite true as we have six parma hams currently maturing, a plethora of salami hanging in the drafty rafters from a barn and a large (very large) deep freeze packed to the brim with pork chops, joints and the last of the sausages and meatballs.

But, spring is here, almost, and the time has come to get some pigs back on the farm. It takes a few months for the ground to recover from the daily puddling and rooting of pigs but now the grass is back and lush, just ready for a complete trashing at the trotters of a couple of rare breed piglets.

Still searching for the perfect pigs, but the image above shows a beautiful sow and her litter at the market last week. Dave was off at the machinery auction and if I wasn’t holding a child and a large bag of cake my hand would have been shooting up to by this lady. Not sure what him indoors would have said, there’s a world of difference between two pigs and 14!

Sunny daze

The weather is just stunning and it's beautiful to see the trees burst into life in the woodland in which our Featherdown tents are situated.

Sunny Saturday

After The Worst Winter Weather in 30 years (according to the Daily Mail) we've had non stop sunshine for well over a week. Bitterly cold of course but wrapped up warm you can almost, almost, imagine it's a summer's day. This morning we headed to the beach and lay in the sun on the dunes while the children dug a large hole. Simple pleasures.

Then a grilled lemon sole at Life's A Beach overlooking the beach in Bude (whole sole, WITH chips and peas for under a tenner! Bargain!) and back home to plant some garlic.

I'd planted some already earlier in the winter but realised that I needed to get some more in so planted a further four bulbs. Each clove will produce a whole bulb to be harvested late summer which should keep all the way into spring.

Little lambs

I'm already missing lambing live on BBC2 with Kate Humble and the ginger farmer. But to keep me company I'll head up to the stables and visit our own orphan lambs. Nine poor tiny little lambs arrived a few days ago in the back of an estate car and we've been feeding them three times a day.

Lambs are adorable and the lamb bottle feeding is one of the most popular things with the children of our campers. The only bad thing is they grow up! Last spring we were still bottle feeding the lambs over a month after they should have been weaned - sometimes the lambs were bigger than the children!

Chickens and foxes - not best of friends

Today we're been slightly sad as a less than fantastic Mr Fox has been having fun with our faithful chickens. We've been incredibly lucky that our farm has been fox free for years, but someone has now discovered our free range flock and in the last two days eight of our girls have gone.

These girls are the most prolific layers we've ever had and have laid six eggs a week each all through the winter so we're really sad that some foxy fiend has been on the attack. On that note am heading now down to the field to check on the girls.

Only a short few weeks until the Featherdown season starts again so now as well as all the other prep we also have to get some new chickens - one of the things that our smaller campers love is collecting fresh eggs so we mustn't let them down!