A Word from Westyard

The Easter holidays came and went and seem a blur on reflection.  Even though we are well into the new term already, we are all still a little tired from the all too short but rather feral downtime. We are such homies.  We have to remember sometimes that there is more to life than our lovely farm and green fields.  We sometimes even force ourselves to venture further than the end of the lane. One amazing holiday excursion worth a mention was a day trip to the Jurassic coast.  The small girl had a class topic last term of dinosaurs...the Ologist, well, the clue is in the name.  This was a trip down memory lane for him. As a young student of Geology he was sent here for the day to explore and came home with a prize ammonite that he carried for about two miles to the bus (and still moans about the weight!)  It sits proudly at the entrance to his father's cottage and is a great reminder that if you really want something it is worth the sweat and tear...

It's been a month of cake making, ground clearance and very positive forward movement with our 'Grand Plan' plans.   The pig ark has been salvaged from its woodland tomb and rebuilt with love to provide our three new pigs with a fine home.  They are 4-way hybrids; Dorset Blue and Landrace.  Basically, pink pigs that oink and squeak and are doing their best to make a mess.  They were very shy when they arrived, but now know that the 'man with the bucket' - aka the Ologist, is well worth giving attention to and they save their very best squeak for him.  I told the small girl that we won't name them as we're going to eat them...she seemed to think that was ok.  While I'm not a great cake maker, I enjoy the process and unfortunately greatly enjoy the eating up part too.  I made very successful Simnel cakes for Mother's Day and an Easter cake for the 20 or so children that attended our annual Easter Egg hunt - a Lamb cake!  It was r...