Lambs, Pigs and a lot of cake.
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 rainy and windy, like a typical holiday Saturday usually is, but our children were bold and intrepid and not one child complained about being cold or wet.
We spent the best part of an hour hunting high and low through most of the farm, through fields, up muddy banks, across skiddy ditches and finally got a tractor ride home to the farmhouse where Granny was waiting with hot chocolate and snacks. It was great fun and very satisfying so see the children all join in with such gusto.
I am a list maker and a planner. We have daily plans, weekly plans and an overall plan (aka The Grand Plan). We have plans of things to do, and plans of doing nothing. Most of this planning is totally within my control and most of the time I have the capacity and ability to change the plan at a moment's notice. I had a solo day out recently during the holidays, leaving the small girl in charge of the Ologist. As I started to give instructions of a few jobs to do the small girl hollered....'waaait Mummy,' and rushed off to her bedroom. On her return she had a pencil and a note pad opened on a fresh page. 'I'm going to make a list so I don't forget,' she informed me. I was told she crossed them off the list once the tasks were completed. A girl after my own heart!
For the first time ever I feel like I'm in control of the garden, rather than it controlling me. For many months I've been overwhelmed and not known which way to turn, or which weed to pull - there are so many. Over the winter we've continued to fell trees and lay hedges and finally as Spring rounds the corner I can see the shape of things to come. Having made a purchase for myself last year of a wonderful Stihl product with 3 attachments (strimmer, chainsaw and brush-cutter), I was highly disappointed with the strimmer as it wouldn't do the job I wanted it to do. Everywhere I tried to strim the cord continued to break and I had to stop every few minutes to reload the head. It was infuriating. I gave up. And swapped it for the brush-cutter which is fearsome and scary and I thought I might cut my foot off so left that too. As the winter proceeded I got braver with the brush cutter and cleared a lot of rough ground. This spring, I have rediscovered my strimmer and realised that the job was too harsh - its a pleasure now to buzz through the soft weedy material and cut it to the ground.
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| The Cob Barn |
Our plan is to renovate two agricultural buildings on the farm
which are no longer of use given the modern day adaptation of the farm.
With 20 or so acres we can't make a real go of farming stock and expect
to make enough of a living to support our family. Our intention is to
farm people instead - in a holiday capacity. In the agricultural
buildings, once they are renovated.
One of these buildings is an
old cob barn that is virtually falling down, but we were told may have a
fascinating bat collection. We were not convinced. Especially since
the winter storms have ripped tin sheets off the roof and let the light and
rain in.
Last week we were liberated. This came in the form of a lovely bearded, (probably) sandal wearing older gentleman Ecologist who was pragmatic from the start. He asked our intentions, studied the architects plans and then rooted through his briefcase for a head torch.
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| A former pig shed, now my growing room. |
He followed the Ologist on a tour of the dwellings in question and declared them to be most definitely a bat-free zone. He looked in the farmhouse attic and found the bats we already knew to be there. Then he gave us practical and realistic advice as to how to move forward with our building plans (the farmhouse needs a complete new roof including all new batons and slate - the previous owner applied spray foam ten years ago on the underside of the roof for insulation rendering them totally unsalvageable, and an expensive nightmare for modern day legal disposal).
So,
together with a structural report, our Ecologist's report will now accompany
the full planning application to our local council to get permission granted
for our building plans to commence. Exciting stuff for us, if all goes smoothly we could be looking at starting work this summer.
While
the above is all good news, I am now faced with a dilemma. The other
dwelling to be renovated is an old pig shed. The previous owners replaced
the tin roof with plastic sheeting turning it into a greenhouse of sorts.
This was a good roofing manoeuvre as it happens, and our crops last year
were plentiful. This building sits in a beautiful spot on the farm and now that we have laid the boundary hedges to the north we have a spectacular view all the way to Exmoor on a clear day. To the south we see Dartmoor - there must be some marketing mileage there - you media types out there, any suggestions?
My dilemma is whether I should plant out my tomatoes and
other crops here only to find the building being demolished before we even reach harvest time. I have thought I may invest in a few grow bags and utilise the large pots I have in which case our crops will be portable should the need arise. 
One rather big surprise were the lambs that appeared one evening a few weeks ago. Our Zwartble sheep are rentals; the farmer who owns them pays us for them to graze our ground. We in turn watch over them and of course care for them as if they were our own. The Ologist was doing the usual evening routine of checking sheep, ponies, shutting up chickens etc when he saw what he thought were our two black cats at the very bottom of our furthest away field. Upon closer inspection he saw they were lambs and rushed back to get us to come and see.
They were minutes old and fortunately were fine, but it was a shock for the farmer who wasn't expecting these ewes to lamb for at least another two weeks. We brought them in from the field and put the ewe and her lambs in one of the pony's stables as it was still cold overnight. The farmer came to collect them and the rest of his flock to lamb the rest at his home farm, but not before the small girl and I got a few lamb cuddles in before school that day!
It is probably over 30 years since any lambs have been born on this farm. It is so nice to know that we are slowly re-establishing the farming element to this farm. The small girl and her friend got to bottle feed a few lambs at a neighbour's farm not long ago which was another highlight in her short life.
Our small woodland is also cleared now - its more of a small copse really - and I have got to the bottom of the forest floor. I have managed to get an old mower in there and chew up the ivy, bramble and nettles to make way for some prettier wildflowers. It has been too dark and the fast growing evergreen trees with their thick lower foliage formed dark curtains which didn't allow any light to penetrate the floor. Even the bluebells which are quite adept at adapting to harsh conditions didn't manage to propagate in this area through all those years of neglect. We saved a slice of our huge cedar tree and together with a few sturdy logs we now have a lovely woodland table and seats. Even though its still rough and unplanted with bare scars of trunks, its a lovely space to enjoy and has much potential for the future.
A recent Sunday afternoon spent ambling around our local RHS gardens has given me inspiration and hope for the future. After so much destruction and non stop cutting and hacking over the last 18 months I can see all our work is beginning to pay off. We are close to having as blank a canvas as we'd want given the mature trees and shrubs that we've retained, but to see the light beneath, behind and beside them is wonderful. Roll on spring and let it all grow!
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