Our regular students are now on holiday for 5 weeks or so, but of course there's still lots to do on the farm!  We had a lovely end of term picnic lunch last week and gave out our 'in-house' certificates and worksheets to the students.  They especially loved the mugs Gerry had ordered for them - each one had their own name and a photograph of their favorite Care Farm animal on the back! My mother came to the lunch along with Sue, one of our fantastic Trustees, and it was lovely to be able to show them what we had been doing this year.

The ducklings that Cheltenham Ladies College hatched for us are enormous!   They have now been out with the other ducks for a week, but still sleep in their own house while it's so hot...The chicks are also all in together with the main hens at night, but there is a definite 'pecking order' when they are let out!.

the ducklings sampling the pond!

can you spot what's in this photo? 

We had a visiting group of volunteers here today, from Mira Showers in Cheltenham.  They worked tirelessly painting the porta cabin and weeding, strimming and clearing the banks and round the back of the portacabins.   We are so grateful to everyone that can give up their time to help....and the whole site looks great now - ready for our School Age Summer Activities starting next week!

If you haven't booked your children in - it may be too late, but worth an email to Gerry just in case....
gerryfouracres@hotmail.co.uk

Dont forget to come along to the CAR BOOT SALE in NORTH CERNEY on SATURDAY 29 AUGUST at 10am!

JULY ALREADY!

Oh dear yet again i've got really behind with my 'blogging' - sorry!   So much has been happening here....we sold 9 of the weaners last month, and have kept 3 boars and a lovely gilt.   The two breeding gilts have gone to a lovely new home near Wallingford, and hopefully will be breeding before long.  Did you know that there are only 500 registered Oxford Sandy and Black sows in this country?   We are really pleased to be part of the breeding programme.

The fab four!

The weather has been SO hot this week, that we moved the 4 piglets up to their new home in the woodland where they have masses of room and lots of shade and they are loving it.  Sandy is in the next woodland area having a well earned rest.

We have had lots of chicks hatching from two of our bantams, but no such luck with the incubator...we bought 18 fertile eggs and incubated them, but yet again we only had 2 chicks hatch!  They are lovely lavender arucanas, and we are really hoping that they are both girls!
We have been given 5 lovely ducklings that were hatched by Cheltenham Ladies College pupils - gosh they are filthy little blighters, but very endearing!  They have been under heat lamps in the porta cabin but we have had them out during the day.

All our raised beds are brimming with vegetables and we have been thinning and picking regularly.   The salads are huge in the poly tunnel, and the fruit is coming along beautifully.  The sweet peas are flowering, and so we have been picking furiously to make sure they keep coming.  We delivered the first 70 stems to Oops a Daisy in Cirencester today - hopefully we will be able to keep supplying them for at least a month.

We had 3 very successful Open Days in June with lots of visitors and some great feed back. Open Farm Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, and Gerry and Jo with Danny, showed everyone around.  Lots of local people came having googled farms listed on the National Open Farm Website.