LOCATION!

We are located 4 miles north of Cirencester, between the villages of North Cerney, and Woodmancote. From A435 you take the turning towards Bagendon, go up past the Church to the T junction. Turn right towards Woodmancote and Scrubditch Farm is approximately 100 yards on the right. The Care Farm is situated down the drive, up the track on the left.
From A417, turn off at Perrotts Brook/Daglingworth, and proceed towards Perrotts Brook. Just before the A435, turn left towards Woodmancote. Go for approximately 1 1/2 miles and Scrubditch Farm is on the right, just past the Bagendon/North Cerney Cross Roads.

Thursday 27 March 2014

nearly Easter break....just one more week!

We have had some lovely school visits this term, two from Shrubberies Special School, near Stroud, and one from Paternoster School in Cirencester - they have all been really successful...the first class from Shrubberies are coming back for their second visit in May.  The year 6 children from Paternoster school have been finding out about jobs in the community, so were asking us lots of questions!

We have had another set of twins today - both ram lambs, and all doing well!  It's a shame we have had to lamb inside this year, but the weather has been so bad off and on from January, and we have less grass here on site, that we felt it was the best solution...but hopefully after the weekend, the ewes that have lambed will be out in their field again (with sunshine too fingers crossed!)

Gerry was cleaning out one of our old hen houses this week; ready for the students to do some refurbishments, and found a hedgehog hibernating in there!  We have put it in a box in the tool shed for now...until we find out where to best put it when it comes round....

We also keep finding bantams eggs in the funniest places - 12 of them hiding in a load of old barbed wire - laid by several bantams over the last few days!  One of their favourite places is in the hay bales in with the ewes.

The students have been really busy over the last week or so; helping Dan to finish off the woodworking shed - it now has wonderful sets of shelves, and a fold away working bench.  We really needed the extra space, and can't wait to get started making and designing some items to sell in aid of the project.

Next week is our last week before our Easter Break, so we are having an Easter Picnic next Thursday with all the students and volunteers - let's hope we can have it outside!


Sunday 23 March 2014

LAMBS!

We have our first set of twins!  Born Saturday morning - i checked them at 6.30am .....nothing then - left Mike in charge of feeding at 9 am, and got a phone call from him saying that they had arrived!
Spring is 'springing'...violets on the
track!
LAMBY with her twins

more beautiful violets

Thursday 20 March 2014

week 10 / 11

Our quail have been hatching!   We had 10 hatch...but only 8 are still with us - they already have their full wing feathers after one week, and are stuffing their faces - so in 6 weeks we could have egg-laying quail (as long as they are females - not easy to tell yet!)

No lambs yet...although we think it's any day now - some of the ewes look very full and 'dropped' ready for the off - so i will be blogging some photos by the end of the weekend i'm sure!

We have put plastic covers over two of the larger raised beds outside to try and warm up the soil ready to plant out our chitted potatoes by the end of the month - although the weather's seriously gone on the turn again right now....and the seeds that students planted a couple of weeks ago are looking great inside their glass house (in the poly tunnel)  we have cabbages, cauliflower, rocket and basil plants

We are trying to harden off the sweet peas ready to plant out, but i have to bring them in at night as we keep getting frosts!

The Thursday students mended the hay rack today (with the help of Dan and Mike) and it looks fantastic.  It now has 'carry handles' at either end too (photo to follow from Gerry) and it has new 'pallet' ends - fully refurbished ready for the ewes and lambs in the field next month.

We had a visit from Paternoster school key stage 6 students this week - they are doing a scheme of work, looking a the 'work in the community' and wanted to ask us some questions about what we do at the care farm.  They really enjoyed looking round; helping to feed all the animals, and perhaps some of them might be able to and see us regularly in the Autumn.

We have a student from the RAC hoping to do a work placement from the end of June; and she has reliably informed us (when she visited today) that Sandy the gilt looks as if she is definitely 'with pig'.....so that's brilliant news!

Monday 3 March 2014

After Half term!

Last week we made the decision to take the two 'barren' ewes to sell at market - so on Thursday, we met the students at market (well not quite all of the Thursday students...some got lost in Driffield village!) and saw our ewes make £65 each - not bad for last week, as the average was £55.00 - it was a quiet week for all livestock apparently

We also put 24 quail eggs into our incubator - we have been collecting them up, hoping to increase our quail production for this year.  They will hopefully hatch around 17 March.

Dan, one of our new volunteers, helped by the students, has been busy putting up the new pig ark, that we have been given funding for.  It's going into a 'nursery', where we really hope Sandy will go at the beginning of May - ready for farrowing....!  It looks very majestic sat on it's concrete plinth in the field!

We also got our wonderful little trailer back; completely over hauled by 'Firefly' Phil, from Cerney House (just down the road)  It looks amazing, and will be really useful her for stock moving around the farm.

Funniest thing happened today (Monday)  we discovered that one of the Marrans we hatched last year, is a cockerel - we were convinced we had two hens, but .....he is definitely a cockerel, and looking far more majestic than last week - he's not crowing yet, but doing everything else!
We had a busy day with the students today - they all worked really well as a team, mucking out and getting the stables ready for the horses; mucking out the ewe pens (which we do twice a week at the moment) and looking after two visitors this afternoon.

We have a new sign up again at the Care Farm - thanks to Cotswold Signs, and one on the drive to direct people up past the yard to our site!

Photos to follow - i can't remember how to download them off my phone again.....sorry!