A New Calf & New Courses

I was caught on the hop last weekend when Imogen produced her calf two weeks earlier than expected, but Mumbleys Bryony is just beautiful and loving being the centre of attention of both her mum and Susie the heifer, who can't quite work out where she came from and why she keeps checking her udders!

A gorgeous little Shetland calf, Bryony is even rarer still because she is a red & white Shetland.  The gene is recessive and quite a lot of inbreeding has been done in the past, so we were careful to find an excellent bull genetically and are thrilled with the result.  Sadly, we can't keep her unless we find another bull, but she will stay with us until she is old enough to leave Imogen.

For those of you still thinking about beekeeping, we have added two more courses to meet the huge demand, 14th July and 24th August, but the former already has two bookings, so dont leave it too long.

Hard at work having fun!

Oh heck, it really is a while since i blogged - tweeting is definitely the lazy person's blog and i'm not even that good at that!  We have had our first craft course, Rag Rugging, which was a fantastic success and i was only sorry that i wasn't on it myself as it looked fabulously creative.

Well, Easter has passed, the piglets have sold like hot cross buns, as have the lambs and some of the sheep, though they haven't all gone to their new homes yet, so there are still plenty to see. Once again, i am cutting back on the amount of livestock as the courses take up so much of my time, that i don't have time for breeding as well, which is a shame. There are still plenty left, including three boar piglets, Salami, Pastrami & Chorizo, who we are fattening up.

The bees loved the spell of hot weather at the end of March, but are no doubt as confused as the rest of us by the weather. There is rape growing in masses of fields around us, so as soon as the weather warms up again, they will be off, filling the hives with honey as fast as they can.  I have lots of new styles of hives which i am trialling, which is fascinating, including a polystyrene one and a purple octagon!

Take a break from logging

The first Volunteer Day was a great success and we got so much more done with so many hands, as well as consuming a large quantity of brownies and cherry cake. The next one is on 29th April when we will be limewashing, sorting out the sheep, planting veg and sowing a wildflower patch.