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.

Tuesday 23 September 2014

WINTER TERM!

Hi everyone - welcome back!  We have been blessed with the most fantastic weather this summer; going into Autumn and everything is growing at an alarming rate - even the sloes are ripe already!

Sandy moved back to her woodland
home
Our students are all pleased to be back, and one of the first jobs we did was to move Sandy back up to the woodland - she is very happy to be back near / although not with her off spring.  We sold 6 of the weaners in the Summer holidays, and the six we have left are really thriving.  We have two gilts and 4 boars left.

The hens and ducks we bought in over the holidays look great - hens laying already, but sadly not the ducks yet - although they love their new surroundings especially the pond.

The Khakis settling into their
new home
We have had lots of produce available during the summer, runner beans, purple and yellow french beans, swiss chard, spinach and now leeks.   Unfortunately our sweet corn was supposed to be picked as 'baby' sweet corn (we only just found the label) so the pigs and hens have been enjoying them!


Feeding the ewes - this one
loves apples!

We are checking the lambs regularly, as we will have at least 4 hopefully ready to go off within the next couple of weeks.  We are hoping to sell some to the local pub....watch this space!
Rufus enjoying the sunshine!








Monday 22 September 2014

END OF TERM

I know......it's rather a long time since my last blog!   Lots has happened in between!

On the way back from picking up Ella we stopped at Gavin Davidson's near Huntley to re-stock our poultry.  We bought Black Rocks, White Stars, Lavenders and Speckledys - 10 in total.  They are 'point of lay' pullets, and we had two eggs by the time we got home!   They have settled in really well with our other hens, and are now laying about 5 small eggs each day between them.   The weather hasn't helped, being so hot (we love it though!)

The piglets were weaned at 8 weeks, and we sold 6 of them last weekend to a friend and local farmer at Whittington.  They are really happy with them;  hopefully we will get a photo soon.  They all loaded easily,(i grabbed them and passed them over....some of them weigh nearly 20 kgs i reckon!)  and looked fantastic - the students had done a really good job looking after them.

We have kept 2 gilts for breeding,  and 4 boars for meat at Christmas (bacon and ham)

Ella and i found 4 Khaki Campbell ducklings for sale last week, and went to Bisley to buy them, to hopefully boost our duck egg laying potential.

Nationwide Building Society have done a great job putting in a pond in the duck pen, and it gives them more room to splash about.
Nationwide volunteers weeding
the bank

more volunteers digging the pond
We had a great last day; giving the students their certificates and photographs, and a delicious lunch - slow cooked gammon from our Oxford Sandy & Blacks, and lovely salads from our volunteers.
very happy ducks!




We start again on 8 September; meanwhile we are picking madly each week for the Friday market, with volunteer help.  The runner beans have just started, and we had a huge crop of Pink Fur Apple Potatoes too!