week 5!

Weather definitely better this week!  Work has been devoted mainly to getting the pig fencing up along the side of the track - it's looking great and reckon after tomorrow we could see the weaners in their new site...! They will love it, as there's loads of small shrubs/weeds to grub around with!  The sty is ready in situ, and we just need to find a water container.

Emily, John, & Laura painting with Danny

Wednesday, our friends from the Owl Barn came over armed with paints and the students had great fun 'priming' the porta cabin!

We've also been planting out more veggies, and seeds in our raised beds - hoping to get carrots, peas, beetroot, leeks and broccoli and purple sprouting before long... especially with the last few days of sun we've had! 
Big excitement on Thursday morning, i came downstairs to hear 'squeeking' - and found the Quail had started hatching in the incubator!  We now have 6 - although one had a rather ropy start...but fingers crossed!  They are TINY - can't believe how much smaller they are than chicks!

We are busy getting ready for the Jubilee fund raiser, and i have persuaded Gerry & Penny, two of my volunteers to cut out blue triangles for our bunting...any help gratefully received for help on the day!

We are hoping to have lots of stalls, and games and have a great Clay Pigeon Shoot competition organised - you can also try your hand at dry stone walling and if you take to it, you can come up and finish our stone wall at the Care Farm!

Ella asked me to make sure i told everyone that the new ducks are called Jake, Lavinia and Dorothy..!

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3rd and 4th weeks Summer Session



Happy as a pig in clover!

Well we've found it hard to believe it's the Summer Session! Last week was pretty much a wash out - we spent most of the week in the poly tunnel re-potting all the seedlings we brought back from Coln House school.  We've had a terrible time recently with a fox 'picking' off the chickens, bantams & ducks in broad daylight... So we had to invest in an electric poultry net at VAST expense - so far so good; but he / she managed to pick off Deidre duck, 3 laying hens and 3 bantams over the last two weeks



a few minutes before more rain ....!

This week we've been concentrating on building the fence along a strip of woodland to move the piglets out of their run - it's such a quagmire (great for them; they love it!) but quite a serious risk assessment before we can let any students  near them!  Only a few more weeks to go before they will be leaviing us - let's hope the weather improves and starts to dry everything up a bit.
I'm sitting here in glorious sunshine at the moment...!
We have been given 5 chicks this week, so with the others that are nearly full size; we should have a series of hens coming on to replace the ones that disappeared off with the fox.  We also have a dozen quails eggs in the incubator and are hoping they will all hatch next weekend...