A re-introduction to life at Westyard...and the discovery of the egg thief.

Team Westyard

So, to begin the year I thought I'd reintroduce ourselves and the animals that make up our smallholding farm.  We live in mid Devon, between Dartmoor and Exmoor, on a 22 acre farm which we are slowly and lovingly restoring.  We are in the middle of an enormous building and renovation project that involves building two holiday homes and renovating our Victorian four-square farmhouse.  We are hoping to open our holiday home business later this year and invite people to come and stay on the farm and enjoy the rural Devon countryside and all that it has offer, as much as we do.

First; the humans.  Me, the Small Girl and the 'Ologist.  We have been living on our farm for three and a bit years and have made quite an impact in our short time here.

Our first few months involved cutting back hedges and trees that were 40 years overgrown and making piles and piles of wood.  Ever since we have been collecting and processing that wood.

layed hedge

After some hedge laying, we hired a contractor to fence our fields and eventually we had new or repaired stock fences running round all our land sufficient for us to then buy our own stock.  In the meantime we hired an architect and started making plans for our holiday business.  That process was fun, hard work and very trying at times.

It involves knocking down two old barns and building two new dwellings on their footprints.  Eventually we settled on a huge dropbox file of drawings that would create what we wanted....and what we could afford to build.

winter hedge

In between all of that we bought a digger and started clearing all the ditches that had been grown over for 40 years...that involved removing huge willow tree stumps that in most cases had just blocked the ditches altogether.  Alongside all of this we've slowly connected with our local community and enjoy the wonderful resources and friends we've started to make.

Its been a trying period in the building department with delays on the farmhouse and as a result we are few months late in moving back in.  'It could be worse,' I'm being reminded regularly as we could be in a leaky portacabin in a paddock beside the building site.  Instead we have been living in the farmhouse cottage.  It was formally a cob barn that was renovated prior to us being here.  We made it habitable for my father in law when we arrived, who enjoyed it for over two years and sadly passed away mid last year.  The building work started a few months after that so if there's ever a good time to go, he got it right to enable us to take up residence.  We were expecting a five month stay, from June last year.  However, these things always run on.  And we're doing ok, we eat well and have clean clothes to wear - beyond that not much else matters really, does it?

And so to the rest of the residents on the farm:  we have two flocks of sheep, an old English vintage breed, Wiltshire Horns, and a mixed flock we call 'The Commercials'.  We have two rams, a very handsome pedigree Wiltshire Horn who we will sell this year, and Monsieur Berichon, the ram who takes care the commercial ewes.  This April will be our second year of lambing.  We sold all of our commercial lambs at market auction this year. The Wiltshire Horn ewe lambs have joined the flock while the ram lambs were sold as meat.

Ed our Wiltshire Horn ram enjoying a head scratch

The 'Ologist and I both indulged towards the end of the year.  I bought four ducks, while he bought two cows. We have restored and finally fixed an old victorian pond at the top of our driveway entrance to the farm.  The clay has been reestablished and scraped back up the sides to form a natural seal, the banks stabilised and the flow in and drainage out have all been dealt with.  Hopefully our ducks will have a year round pond to live around now.

The small girl spent the Christmas holidays taming our Muscovy ladies and they will now eat out of her hand.  They don't quack, which I am most surprised and disappointed about.  It turns out some ducks don't quack.  I didn't even think to ask the question when we bought them if they quack, or not.  My next ducks to join the Muscovy ladies will be sure to quack...and hopefully the geese that follow will honk!

The Duck Whisperer

So, to the cows.  We have two Dexters heifers.  They are mother and daughter, and are both in calf due this year - after lambing I'm told.  Dexters are a small breed of cattle, no higher than the top rail of our stock fence.  Diddy by comparison to neighbouring cattle.  They are the 'Ologist's department, and neither of us have any prior experience of keeping cattle, so I'm hoping he's read the book cover to cover and will tell me what do when I'm needed to help.  They were bio-dynamically raised, which I'm told is even more organic than organic.  They weren't polled at birth as their horns are apparently cosmic receptors...and help to gather the earth's energy.  While I dig a certain level of cosmic calm, we are neither bio-dynamic nor organic, but try to use the most natural farming methods with minimal chemical intervention.   They are both very curious and calm, and are now allowing the 'Ologist close enough for a head scratch.  The plan is to keep them as a breeding pair and their offspring will be our beef.

Cosmic Cows

Other members of the family include our two rascals, oh sorry, our working dogs.  We have the vermin control and the sheepdog.  During the building work we've had multiple escape moments where they've both taken off for the high hills and disappeared.  It has mostly happened when we've had heavy machinery on site, the earth movers, the concrete breakers, and the dumper trucks.  While we have done our best to contain them, they've done the proverbial runner at the drop of a hard hat.  It is better now the groundwork team have taken a break until we are ready for them once again.  Come the spring they will be busy again moving earth and shaping the ground around the two holiday homes so we will be vigilant to contain our rascals once again.

The Egg thief and his sidekick

Our holiday homes will each sleep six, with two master bedrooms and one twin.  The ground floor offers an open plan living space that incorporates the kitchen and dining room.  The ceilings open right up to the cathedral style roof with roof-lights that will allow you to watch the stars.  The exterior is larch clad and the roof is steel.  Together with aluminium windows and lots of thermal engineering they will be warm and toasty while giving lots of opportunity to see the wildlife and countryside outside.  The design offers a contemporary building that sits well in the agricultural landscape.   We are looking forward to the spring when we can throw lots of grass seed about and return our lovely space to a green site and get away from the mud swamp.

Holiday Homes under construction

Over the course of our three years here another project we have undertaken is the restoration of an old pond into a swimming pond.  It is clay lined and naturally fed by springs and has taken a while to fill after we scraped it to within an inch of its life.  We cleared a few decades of willow tangle, together with brambles like hose pipes and meters of silt until we reached the anaerobic layer where we found countless eels (I'm not supposed to mention them!)  After some sculpting of the banks we built a deck and sat back and watched it fill over a year or so.  We kept our old trailer there last summer as a useful shed to keep fun swimming gear in, and the small girl didn't need much encouragement to get in.  In fact, it was getting out that became the problem.  Very soon our Main Man is coming to build The Pond House...watch this space!  We are wondering whether he'll wire it for a solar beer fridge...

Other animals on our farm include two ponies.  One for me, and one for her!  My pony has retired here from my niece who has gone off to uni and rather outgrown her.  The little one is a companion that has come from a neighbouring farm.  They are good company and although they provide much work for me...poo picking and stable management being my main occupation...mine has been helpful when rounding up the sheep on horseback is preferable to being knocked flat in the field by an overly amorous ram.  My pony has been sadly lame over the winter and now she is sound again my mission is to get out there and work her regularly to get her back into shape.  The small girl is now confident to ride off lead rein on her own so hopefully once the weather perks up a bit we can head out together - without risk of dislocating my shoulder.

Our Swimming Pond

Some new hens arrived in the autumn.  They have settled well and are enjoying free ranging round the farm in the day time and finding dusty hollows in the barn to nestle in.  We shut them in at night, and have just discovered the reason the terrier is getting a bit thick round the middle.  He has discovered their eggs and has been stealing them regularly.  We were wondering why they weren't laying....now we know.  In the day we open their run so they can free range and enjoy roaming.  They return randomly to lay an egg and the small dog has been watching this and in stealth mode sneaking in to steal eggs.

Our challenge now is to keep a small dog out of a chicken run without reducing our hen's roaming freedom....all suggestions welcome.  My next post may be from my new office in the farmhouse, here's hoping!  Happy New Year to all.

Faithful friends

Oh, and here's our new logo. We LOVE it and will be splashing it around a lot.