A Word from Westyard

Mid winter early morning sunrise Tiz the season and all that!  We're having a busy time on the farm - I think I open this blog with that line every time, I must come up with something more original for next year .   We have dispatched our first lamb, and it was the turkeys turn at the weekend, ready for the festive table. Everyone is talking about how mild it is.  The 'Ologist returned from a walk round the fields only yesterday saying he'd spotted a primrose in full bloom.  It is only a few weeks since the lovely rose outside the front of the farmhouse lost all its leaves.  We can see the daffodils already pushing up and still no sign of coolers times.  The small girl is very keen for snow - having been born overseas in warmer climes she has only ever seen it in photographs - she has never been able to lie in the snow and make snow angels.  Who knows what nature will make of this warm winter - I guess as the new year roll...

As the Autumn rushes in and out, leaves all a-swirl, it reminds me what a wonderfully cleansing time this is.  It is time to shed and let go.  As I watch the ponies' coats thicken up in preparation for winter days out on the land, it makes me reassess and think about my own position in the field.  Having recently celebrated a year of living here, it's a good time to reflect on our achievements and our failures. Bottoming out our Northern boundary We've had an excellent start to the Autumn, with Phase Two of fencing now complete.  We are now over 50% fenced which means we can work the land in a much more organised and structured manner.  Early autumn was all about intensive hedging.  Not only siding up, but major bottoming out.  Are you with me?  Basically we thinned out the sides of the hedges and lifted the horizontal growing branches to make room for the fences to go in.  The bottoming out was intense.  Our North facing boundary...

Its been months since I had the brain capacity, let alone the time, to sit down and download my photographs and thoughts into a logical digital order. Mainly, the summer holidays stole all our time.  Long, lovely days filled with friends, family, sunshine and plenty of outdoor activities.  We have even been exploring the county somewhat and testing out the beaches. For the first three weeks of the summer holidays we had back to back guests.  Mostly they came with small children (some 3 at a time!) and what a blast we had.  It was a challenge at times to keep on top of the catering, but everyone mucked in and cooked, picked, dug or harvested vegetables for us all to eat.  Even little Charlie Cook (nearly 2) helped to dig up the potatoes and had much fun washing them - I think he got muckier than when we started but who cared....it was all part and parcel of being on the farm. We visited quite a few of the beaches along the north Devon co...

Its taken a rainy afternoon and an angle grinder to get me out of the house and garden and sit down to write this blog.  Although I love to write, I'm time poor and job rich currently which leaves me with little else outside of the daily grind.  Although I must say village life is getting better and better.  We went to our first barn dance recently.  It was fancy dress - a Baywatch/beach theme.  They had even built a pool with some cleverly stacked bales and ground sheeting.  They had a Samba band to kick the evening off and get the vibes going with lots of foot tapping and bum wiggling.  This was followed by a smaller band doing brilliant covers and then a DJ.  There was a hog roast, barrels of cider and lots of fun was had by all.  Most party goers had made at least a little effort to dress up in theme.  I was a mermaid with a full tail of shimmery nylon netting and long red Ariel wig; there were lots of life guards, two sharks, a je...

We have a science experiment on the go.  In fact, its more of a biology lesson...or life lesson indeed.   Our two bantams - the hens we inherited when we bought the farm - have gone broody.  When we first met them they were very, very skittish and nervous of us.  Up until now they have been pretty full time freeloaders.  We have seen the odd egg or two from either one of them over the eight months we have now been in residence.  Other than that they just eat, poo and scratch about, oh and cause quite a bit of unrest in the coup with our other 4 hens.  On more than one occasion the Ologist and I have decided that we must do something...as in DO something about them.  I can't do that...but I know a man who can.  He would be willing to dispatch them, so long as I could give a fair and honest reason as to why.   Anyhow, it looks as if the bantams have given themselves a massive 'stay' of youknowhat as they are both broody.  O...

 It's been another packed month or so on the farm.  We've continued our programme of tree felling in earnest; we've had the contractors in the fields ploughing, power-harrowing, tilling, liming....now fertilising and rolling with some seed thrown into the mix;  the builders have gone and as a result the ED is now installed in his annexe and a distant memory ago we had the Easter holidays where we all went a bit feral. We've now cleared a triangle of ground in front of the annexe which faces west.  This is our sunset side and in the past week with this glorious weather and wall to wall sunshine we've had the small girl's supper on the lawn every evening while we light our bbq to toast a few tasty local morsels - our tree fella also shoots in the local woods and farmland (necessary culling) and sent us to the local butcher....the venison steaks were all gone but we managed to snap up some lovely venison sausages which were a treat. Lower East - t...

 The new orchard:  before & after (below)  It is highly satisfying, for me at least, to take a piece of rough waste ground that has let Mother Nature loose on it, and lick it in to shape.  I occasionally alarmed my hort. college colleagues with my voracious use of secateurs and pruning tools....this was in the days before my power tools!  Now....stand well back and watch. It took me just over three hours one Sunday afternoon. The Daddy hero had taken the small girl to a birthday party so I decided to head up to the area we have identified for a new orchard.  It is overrun with brambles, nettles and far too many Salix caprea that have run rampant (aka goat willow or pussy willow).  My trusty mower did the deed and together with a bit of hacking and slashing with my hedgetrimmer it has come up a treat.  I have now defined the edges and mown most of rough grass and nettles.  We can now invite the chainsaw in to remove the unwanted tree...