The Kerry Hills

2nd December
On a beautiful winter afternoon we collected six Kerry Hill ewes, all hopefully in lamb, who are now settling in to life in the ridge and furrow grassfield opposite the house. Kerry Hills are a striking looking sheep who have until very recently been on the rare breeds list. They originate from the hills around the small town of Kerry on the English/Welsh borders and are a bold and strong sheep. They have a reputation for being excellent mothers - we keep our fingers crossed for the beginning of March!

Mists & mellow fruitfulness

7 October 2012

A lovely autumnal morning in Woodhurst

Autumn 2012

30 September 2012
Harvest 2012 will go down for most as one that they would rather forget. After a very promising start to the year with the crops showing heaps of potential the weather over the spring put pay to the bumper yields that we had hoped for. We had rain when we needed sun and drought when we needed rain and the wheat grains never really filled out. That said harvest in Cambridgeshire was better than many parts of the country with some farmers barely having any crop to collect in.

It was not without its problems ...

... such as when the combine sunk and got stuck in a wet spot and had to be pulled out backwards by a tractor. At least it wasn't as bad as one incident that we heard of where the farmer had to ask the army for some help to winch his combine out.

The nights are well and truly drawing in, there is a chill in the air and the big toys have come out for autumn cultivations at Fullards Farm. Once he had mastered the technology Neil was very happy in the John Deere with its computerised steering - hence no hands on the steering wheel in these pictures taken in Corner Field.

 

The orchard and hedgerow harvest has been disappointing so far with low yields of apples, pears and quince but the first batch of Woodhurst chutney has been made and is maturing in readiness for the Woodhurst Advent Fayre on the 24th November; it doesn't look as if we will have enough fruit to match last year's output of 48 jars! The crab apple jelly is boiling away and the Christmas chutney and spiced plum chutney production has also started. Next on the list is the bottling of some of the liqueurs that have been steeping, including some new recipes for 2012 such as apple and blackberry gin and spiced apple vodka; there are some upsides to autumn!

Bluebell & Pigs

21 July 2012
Every now and again Bluebell chugs through Woodhurst.  Luckily for us she stops outside the house to hitch up to the fire hydrant and get topped up with water.  Bluebell is based at Alconbury and was on her way to steam rally at Swavesey.

 

The pigs have enjoyed today's warmer weather with all four of them having a good wallow post breakfast; mud the natural sun cream and skin conditioner...

Owl Week at Fullards Farm

27 June 2012
A Barn Owl has become a regular 7pm visitor to the grassfield, obligingly sitting on the post and rail for a while whilst deciding what to have for supper.

To carry on the owly theme to the week the local "Owl Man", David, came today to check the Little Owl box, we are pleased to report two fine and healthy chicks which David checked over, weighed (125g and 105g), recorded and leg ringed.  There was a third egg but it didn't make it to hatching.

Little Owls & Feast Week

David, the Owl Man, put a Little Owl box up in winter/spring 2010/2011 on our field known as Courtaulds. Last year the box was used by squirrels but a visit a few weeks ago found that Little Owls were using it. This week David checked the box and confirmed that there were three Little Owl chicks. He will be back next week to leg ring and health check the chicks. 

David had a request for us to consider - a friend of his rehabilitates injured raptors and was looking for a good release site for a pair of injured Barn Owls, one found very locally and one from the Fens. We have an empty Barn Owl box and happily agreed to this being used for the Owls, hopefully they will thrive in their new surroundings. We will try and take some photos of both events next week.

The crops on the farm are looking very good at the moment, the spring drought was a great concern but it started raining just in time (and doesn't seem to have stopped!) and looks like it might be a barn busting year - so long as the rain stops in good time to allow the crops to ripen and be harvested at their peak.

The rain has led us to postpone the Feast Week Cream Teas which we usually host in the garden and which was due this Sunday, 17th June. The forecast rain and winds have led us to call it off until people will be better able to enjoy a relaxed Sunday afternoon tea on a lovely summer's day - any bets as to when that might be?

Spike

After the joys of a wonderful wedding on the 19th May we were brought down to earth with a bump on 31st May when our lovely labrador, Spike, was put down - four days short of his fourteenth birthday. He was a fabulous companion, a huge character and is very greatly missed by us and his many friends. Our thanks for the many messages of sympathy.

Woodhurst Wedding

After much anxiety with a partial collapse of the church in March followed by endless rain in April and early May the day of our wedding dawned on the 19th May ... and it was dry. The planning paid off and it seemed that everyone had the most tremendous day celebrating our long awaited nuptials. It was so lovely to be able to walk from the farmhouse to the church and after a quite wonderful service, including a low level flypast from Spitfires - who had been on show for the Queen - during the final hymn,  the congregation processed down church path, past the house and across the ridge and furrow grassfield (after a short welly stop) to the marquee. Tom Dolby was our caterer and made the most of our home grazed lamb and rhubarb from the veg garden (and some friendly neighbours). The church and marquee looked stunning with flowers arranged by our friend Andrea Marr and her mother. We left at 11.30pm and dancing and partying carried on for some hours (fuelled by locally produced Cromwell Cider and two barrels of local real ale).  By all accounts there were a lot of sore heads the next morning, what a lovely day!

Hedge and Pigs

9th April 2012
Chris has completed this year's hedgelaying (started in the blog below). He was assisted for the last couple of days that he was here by Neil's eldest brother, Paul, who had attended a hedgelaying course last year and was able to practice his top binding skills under Chris' expert tuition. Paul also did some gapping up planting along the hedge length. 


A lovely sight - a laid hedge with chestnut stakes and hazel top binding 



The hedge nearest me is not quite ready for laying but its time will come in a year or two. 

The end of March brought the arrival of our four weaners who have settled in very well.

Annabel meets Bridget, Queenie, Olympia and Barbie

Hedgelaying

24 March 2012
The hedge that we planted in the grassfield alongside a public footpath in 2004 has grown so well that the first section was ready for laying in December 2009. Hedgelaying encourages new growth from the base of the plants, creates a stockproof barrier and improves the wildlife benefits for birds and small mammals. This is the first hedge that the contractor, Chris Nicholls, had planted and then come back to lay - which shows how quickly it has grown. The second length, near the top of the grassfield, has just been laid and we think it looks lovely!

The hedge is laid in the Midland Bullock style; further sections will be laid in the coming years.

Disaster

18 March 2012
Just when we thought everything was in hand for our wedding in mid-May we received the bad news that the lovely 12th Century church in Woodhurst had partially collapsed. The church is grade II* listed and of a flint, rubble fill construction with an unusual timber frame tower. The flint wall on the north east corner of the nave has suffered from the extremes of temperature over the last couple of winters which in combination with cracking as a result of the drought affecting East Anglia, and our clay soils in particular, caused a flint fall of a substantial section of the wall.

We have had an amazing amount of press coverage; the "can we can't we" get married there story certainly helped raise interest. The coverage started with an interview on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire followed by articles in the Mail Online, Express Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Cambridge Evening News, The Hunts Post, The Church Times, an American paper and television short pieces on ITV's Daybreak local report and BBC Look East. The best headline goes to the front page of the Hunts Post with "Rubble and Strife". The Woodhurst website has links to some of these articles (http://www.woodhurst-cambs.com/)

The repairs are estimated at £30-40,000 and temporary weather protective scaffolding comes in at around £5,500 plus VAT so as a small village we have a huge mountain to climb with our fundraising. The damage is not covered by insurance as there was no particular incident (impact, lightning, etc) that caused the damage. If anyone is willing and able to make a donation please either contact Neil for more details or use the charity donations web facility at www.charitygiving.co.uk/woodhurstchurch

Chilly February

10 February 2012
We have now had three reports that the temperature last night got down to -13 in the village. Brrr. Today has therefore involved quite a lot of feeding up - the blackbirds have enjoyed their soaked sultanas and halved apples, there has been lots of activity around the various treats that have been put on the bird table and the sheep welcomed their sheep nuts, hay and a feed block. 

New Trees & Wassailing

21 January 2012

Two traditions have been followed once again at Fullards Farm in recent weeks, both focusing on trees. First there was the post Christmas tree planting session where all family members and their dog who happened to be staying with us togged up and walked or were Land Rovered across to the Pole Field where a further 30 or so trees were planted. This latest planting added to the small woodland that we have been developing for a number of years now.

There were not too many failures from last year, in spite of the extreme cold followed by the incredibly dry summer but those that needed replacing were "beaten up" - replaced with a new bare rooted tree.

Mum, Dominic and Merlin tree planting

Neil makes sure the weed mats stay put round a 2011 planting

Paul "beats up" a casualty

Neil and Annabel wrestle with a weed mat supervised by Merlin

 

A well deserved afternoon snack

A newer tradition at Fullards Farm is wassailing the orchard. This is a tradition of pagan origin which takes place on or around the 17th January. Having planted up a small orchard a few years ago we wassailed it in January 2011, a fantastic crop followed so we have just repeated this in 2012. Some friends joined us last weekend and we gathered around a fire pit, imbibed in some rather nice mulled cider and then wassailed the trees with some old wassailing verse before firing party poppers through the branches of the chief tree - a quince. The party poppers replace the more traditional action of firing a shotgun through the branches, which we decided not to do so as to not upset the sheep (or villagers). A cider soaked piece of toast is left in the branches and we now stand back and see what the trees will do for us at harvest this year.

Fire lit, candles in the trees, all ready to wassail

The quince tree, the morning after the night before