Friday 20 February 2009

First One's Out

At last spring must be nearly here. we started lambing on the 9th on February, in the middle of the snow period and had to keep the lambs and ewes inside for 10 days before they could be turned

out into much sunnier weather. These lambs are down in Conderton and will soon be moved up into the plum orchard, when the grass starts to grow a little. If you want a closer first hand experience of lambing sheep our Farm Lambing Day is on the 11th April this year. Tractors and trailers will be departing from Overbury Village Hall from 10 am until 3pm to take you to the sheep pens.

Monday 2 February 2009

All Weather Wallers

The annual purge on farm maintenance begins again, this year, with Andrew off sick (who usually maintains the stone walls), Matthew and Steve have been employed to continue all the good work. This scene was this morning, when half of the country couldn't get to work because of the snow fall, Matthew and Steve were already hard at work, with Jed, Matthew's dog. Here they are at Lalu, straightening up a collapsed wall before starting the re-building process. Most of the stone can be re-used but we will have to get some extra supplies to finish the job. We think there is about 3 weeks work this winter for the two of them. The walls fall down when animals try to jump over them, or because of frosty or wet weather degrading the wall. Other winter maintenance jobs include willow coppicing or pollarding depending on where you were brought up. This is Derek and Gordon pollarding the willow on Manor Farm on the main road from Conderton to Beckford. The tree limbs that were cut down were used to make 'Scotch' Fencing further down the road where a car went off the road straight through a hedge! This year we have had 4 cars drive through various hedges causing lots of damage. Most of the time the car drivers manage to get out and escape but with the fields being so wet we have managed to catch the last one before they could escape!