Hope everyone had the same great weather as we did in Laverton over the Easter break and, more importantly, had a chance to relax and enjoy it! The birds are in full swing with their morning chorus to wake us up nice and early! They’ve certainly been busy – collecting moss, straw, wool and other stray animal hairs to build their nests. Don’t forget to support the RSPB with their campaign to help our songbirds and Let Nature Sing (https://www.rspb.org.uk/), and put out some bird seed and water if its dry.
Since the last update the farm has been busy with plenty of new arrivals-lots of lambs springing around the fields now they are drying up a little. And lots of goat kids too! You can certainly see that Chocolate (our Billy) was busy-many of the kids have a lovely chocolate colour stripe or patch to their coat.
We joined the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Societies Urban Beach Clean (https://notwhalefood.com/urban-beach-clean/) throughout April and collected ….. bags of rubbish-we will go through to sort out what can be recycled, but the rest will have to go to the tip. Steve was most surprised at the amount of balloons we found-these are particularly dangerous for wildlife as they can choke on the rubber or get caught up in the strings. Lets hope people try more environmentally friendly alternatives (https://balloonsblow.org/environmentally-friendly-alternatives/) or at the least dispose of them safely.
Thanks to everyone involved-we even ended up clearing the front of a car which had decided to take a very close up look at the hedge and left much of the bumper behind…….
We have also been busy collecting and sorting various other rubbish that isn’t easily recycled. We are still collecting old pens and biscuit wrappers but are now collecting crisp packets. We have had hundreds so far so its sorting them has kept us busy, especially on a wet day, first thing as we wait for people to arrive or if we have a spare 10 minutes at the end of the day! Please collect them up and drop them off for us-we have a collection point at the top of the drive, in the grit bin! Keep them as flat as possible and don’t fold them up into triangles! Don’t forget to drop off any old pens and biscuit wrappers to. They are turned into pellets and used to make all kinds of things-recycled plant pots, watering cans, park benches…..the possibilities are endless! Hopefully though we will be able to use something biodegradable to pack snacks in and stop the use of plastic packets for good! What will we do with those spare 10 minutes then??
We have had an unwelcome visit from the fox recently and sadly when shutting the chickens in for the night Jess noticed Mrs T2 was not with them. All that was left was a lot of feathers – a very clear sign that the fox had found her. She was a feisty thing but gentle and so friendly at the same time. We will all miss her.
The next day Jess and Steve had a fun hour or so catching the rabbits after they escaped from their run – and were at risk of the fox getting them as well. They hadn’t gone far, but it took a while to catch the last one who was clearly enjoying his time in the big wide world. After abit of handy work, the run is fixed for now, but wont last much longer!
We must say a big thankyou to James for donating an old table to us – it will be very handy for lots of things as we can as can wind it up and down depending on who is using it and what we are doing. We have made use of it recently to plant seeds and pot up plants ready for planting out when the danger of frost is well and truly gone! Thankyou James!
Farmer Emma is busy planning and organising school visits (please get in touch if you would like to arrange a visit to the farm), making sure there is plenty to do whatever the weather and that the animals are happy to meet everyone, with all they need in their temporary housing whilst the visits happen. Some of them move into areas under cover, just on case it is wet, or very windy!
Well, its certainly been abit windy here over the last couple of days! Best get on and make sure everything is in one piece……and we have a rabbit run to finish building!
Enjoy Spring-and remember to visit again soon for another update-find out what the rabbits think of their new house…….when we get it built!!!
Welcome 