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.