Merry Christmas

 25 December 2011
December has been quite quiet on the B&B front but we have been busy putting together the produce orders; we hope everyone is enjoying the jams, chutneys, puddings, etc today!

There has been a lot going on within the village with the Christmas quiz followed by the Woodhurst Pensioners Christmas lunch. Our poor kitchen was a full tilt producing bangers and mash for 75 on quiz night and roasting turkeys and steaming puddings and vegetables the following morning. Luckily others took care of roasting potatoes, parsnips, soup and mulled wine. There was a great turnout of helpers and pensioners and everyone seemed to enjoy the afternoon. 

Spike and I wandered past the church last night at dusk and paused to hear the organist having a quick practice of the carols to be sung at midnight mass. It was a very festive moment. There was a great turnout for the service later on and a good singsong had by all.



Spike in the mean time doesn't look too impressed that his Christmas outfit has come out again! At thirteen and a half years old I suspect he thinks dressing up is for young pups rather than senior canines.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Green Tourism Award

1 December 2011
Following our assessment in October we have just received notification from the Green Tourism Business Scheme that we have been awarded a Gold rating. The scheme is the national sustainable tourism certification scheme for the UK, validated by Visit Britain. Businesses opting to join the scheme are assessed by a qualified grading advisor against a rigorous set of 150 criteria covering a range of areas such as energy, water efficiency, waste management, biodiversity and more. Due to the limitations of an old house such as ours we were aiming for a Silver award but are absolutely delighted to have been given Gold. Our thanks go to Andy Notman for setting up and his ongoing help with our website, through which we are able to communicate so much of what guests can expect when staying, let people know what is happening on the farm and how we make the most of local produce, communication is a key part of the assessment process.

The shooting season has also got into full swing, these cock birds seem to have worked out that breakfasting in the garden or the grassfield keeps them out of harms way!

Autumn Mornings

16 October
The evenings are drawing in and the temperature has been dropping noticably at night which has led to some lovely autumn morning mists. The oil seed rape on the farm looks fabulous, if anything it might be doing a bit too well but the firsts frosts should slow it up. The wheat too has established well.

Our small orchard has cropped really well this year, as have other apple trees in the village which has led to consideration of aquisition of a village apple press and cider club. Now to find ourselves a press...

Our thoughts are turning to Christmas with an upscaling of homemade produce production in time for the village Advent Fair (19 November). This week has seen the making of Quince Marmalade, Three Fruit Marmalade, Quince Jelly, Fullards Fiery Relish, Quince Vodka and the decanting of Redcurrant Gin after its three months steeping.  Next week attention will turn to Medlar Jelly and Christmas Chutney.

Pigs

12 September 2011
Our pig mentor confirmed that our lovely pigs are "ready". Characters that they have been we always knew that they were not pets and would ultimately be destined for the freezer. We therefore had a fun filled weekend teaching them how to load into the trailer, all the easier when bribed with crab apples.

We think that Elspeth, Lily and Lola have had a summer that any self respecting pig would be delighted with; rootling amongst the trees and grass to unearth hidden treasures (buried gloves, bolts, brick ends and logs) to take back to their arc, sunbathing, mud wallowing, a diet of pig porridge supplemented by windfalls from the orchard and their crab apple tree not to mention a fleet of interested village observers, young, old and canine.

Lily and Elspeth investigate the straw sack

Lily has bathed.

So on September 12th, after 18 weeks with us, the pigs went off to the abattoir. There is a huge amount of meat that has come back from the butcher, the largest pig was 115kg, then 103kg and 95kg. The first joint of pork that we had was quite simply fabulous, superb crackling and lovely lean, moist meat. This is just as well as the freezers are groaning with joints, sausages, chops and more. A very successful return to raising pork at Fullards Farm after a 30 year break. Thank you pigs.

Sheep, Swallows & Yellow Wagtails

29 August 2011
Our bird expert neighbour popped over this morning to report his sighting of a small flock of yellow wagtails companion feeding amongst the sheep.  The sheep stir up insects from the grass which the yellow wagtails snaffle to feed themselves up for their onward journey to Africa.  There is one immediately to the left of this ewes head.

The swallows are also feeding up and down the ridge and furrow grass field, flying at about knee height most of the time. The pair that nest in the garage have had a remarkable year, they are now on their third brood having raised six from their first and four from their second sittings.  They are very fast and thus quite tricky to photograph but there is one centre picture amongst the sheep below...

and a slightly clearer one here...

The numbers hunting the insects coming off the field edge trees were incredible, there are nine in this picture and there must have been another 40 plus over my head at the time, a mix of swallows and house martins. 

Harvest Update

9 August 2011

Harvest has progressed well and is all but in.  Neil took some lovely photos of the straw bales, which were baled yesterday, on the 70 acre.

The hay too has been baled, 27 large round bales this year which is half the amount of the best hay crop from the same field achieved a number of years ago. The ewes and ewe lambs were moved on to the hayfield on the 31st July and relished their new surroundings by making straight for the apple tree boughs overhanging the fenceline.

Harvest Afternoon in Woodhurst

31 July 2011
What a beautiful harvest afternoon in Woodhurst.

Hay and Harvest

24 July 2011
A busy week and weekend.

We are now one week in with the 2011 harvest, the oilseed rape is now mostly combined but the dry spring has meant that there is quite a spread between the first field that was ready and the last. The results are better than we could have hoped for after such a prolonged dry spring.  Time will tell what the wheat does this year, it looks reasonable - our fingers are crossed!

The hay was cut by our livestock farming neighbours yesterday in the Grassfield, this is about 11 acres of historic ridge and furrow.  The hay cut is very late this year and even with the recent rain encouraging some late growth, there wont be many bales.  What there is smells lovely and sweet; we managed to get on top of the proliferation of creeping thistle last year and noticed a greater than normal variety of meadow herbs and flowers, perhaps the drought meant that the grasses didn't crowd them out for once.

We have also wormed and attended to Tony and Vals' sheep's feet in preparation for the ewes and lambs being separated.  The ewes will come up to our Grassfield once the hay has been baled, Bruno the ram and the ram lambs will stay down in their current paddock.

The veg garden has also been affected by the dry spring with potatoes in particular suffering. We were too slow in netting fruit but in spite of the attentions of the resident blackbirds we have a good quantity of gooseberry gin, redcurrant gin and raspberry gin on the go with a bit of pick your own at a local farm shop boosting stocks. There is also plenty of fruit in the freezer for jamming with gooseberry jam being a successful experiment this year.

The young fruit trees in the orchard are positively groaning with fruit, particularly the apples, pears and medlars.

Woodhurst Feast Week - Cream Teas

19 June
Torrential rain on Saturday made setting up for the cream teas event that we were hosting in the garden on Sunday a stop start exercise. We were however blessed for the fourth year in a row with dry and, at times, sunny weather. A great team of volunteers baked, waitressed, plated up, sold raffle tickets, set out and cleared away such that we had another successful and well supported fundraising event.

Woodhurst Feast Week has been celebrated in the village for over 200 years. It takes place in the week around the 24th June which is the Feast Day for St John the Baptist, patron saint of Woodhurst church.  Feast Week provides an opportunity for the village to get together and also to raise vital funds to help with the running costs of the Church and Village Hall.  Each year our resident local historian, Shirley Firth, organises a church service centred around a village theme.  The service was well attended this year to hear more about the pubs of the village, unfortunately all now closed!

Bees

12 June
We had a swarm of bees settle in a tree next to the grassfield footpath yesterday afternoon.

Luckily Dennis (supplier of honey and apple juice for the B&B) was at home this weekend and responded to our call for help. Armed with ladder, a swarm box, a white sheet and some bee veils, Dennis and I set off to see if the bees would behave.

All went to plan and the bees are off to join Dennis' other hives.

Swallows

5th June
The first weekend in June has been a busy one for the pair of swallows nesting in the garage.  This year they have raised six chicks where they would normally only have four of five. All six fledged this weekend which has resulted in chaos in the garage and all and sundry, including Spike the dog, being dive bombed on the driveway and garden by the protective parents.

The back of the Landrover proved a popular perch point for the young.

It is sheep shearing time tomorrow, weather permitting. How typical that we have had pretty much three months without rain in this part of Cambridgeshire, everywhere is parched and we need only one more period of dry weather - yet it forecasts heavy rain tonight.  The crops and garden will appreciate it but the sheep shearer will not!

Pig Competition

The result of the Woodhurst church fundraiser - guess the weight of the three little pigs - was a winning guess from Graham Pinder of 88kg. The actual weight of Lily, Lola and Elspeth on their arrival with us aged 9 weeks and 2 days, was 91.4kg. Many thanks to all who took part.

Pigs

We took delivery on the 7th May of three weaners - Elspeth, Lily and Lola (a nod to Flashman for those fans of George Macdonald Fraser) who are now happily ensconsed in the pig paddock. They will be grown on until sometime in August and will then supply ours and a few other freezers in the vicinity.

They provided some entertainment at the church fundraiser where we ran a guess the weight of the three little pigs (prize a joint of pork in due course). Guesses span across 55 kilos so far - entries close at 5pm on Friday 20th.

2011 Spring Lambs

April
Our neighbours have a lovely small flock of Ryeland and Shetland sheep, headed by Bruno the ram. Having helped out a couple of years ago when there were a couple of slightly traumatic lambings we now have a "sheep share" arrangement whereby the girls come onto our pasture in the autumn and winter and move back to their home paddocks at Tony and Val's for lambing.

My previous lambing experience through the holidays from agricultural college has served me well and the 2011 lambing went really well. The only assists required were Ole' Girl who started the proceedings off on the 10th April with a whopping single lamb and Cappuccino who had her first lamb without problem, number 2 however was in a superman position, one leg and head forward and one leg all the way back, stuck fast. After a series of calls from Neil, who had tried everything he could think of, there was nothing to it but for me to zip back from the office and see if I could get the lamb out. Suit jacket left on the fence and sleeves rolled up followed by quite a lot of groaning (from the ewe and me) Clark Kent made his arrival safe and sound.

The first arrival

The ewe lamb was last to drop on the 22nd April and there are now 16 strong healthy and inquisitive lambs charging round and growing fast.