And One Becomes Three

Our orphan 'Nemo' has two friends with him now.

Nemo is the largest one closest to us, his mum, Lisa, went down after calving him, never got up and despite homeopathic treatment and conventional treatment by the vet she died just five days after having him.

The middle calf is one of twin calves. Her mum had twins last year, but didn't seem to do the two of them as well as she should have, so we have taken one of them off her this year and hopefully this one will do much better having calf milk and calf pellets than she would if we had left her on her mum with her butty. This calf will not go for breeding but will be raised for meat. Twin calves do not breed, there is something that alters in their genetic make up, which will be sad as we will get to know her very well as we are feeding her three times a day and the children get in and play with her etc.

'Oscar' is the calf lying the furthest away against the corner of the wall, his mum was quite old and several weeks after having him she got down and was finding it really difficult to get up, and was staying down for longer and longer. the vet decided she was very arthritic and rheumatic and so we had to have her put down, otherwise when she went out into the fields she may well have got stuck somewhere and died in a tragic way because she was too old to cope with normal cow life.

They will now feed from an automatic feeder which is like a long bucket with three boobs on it, this is where the calves can all suck at the same time. previously we were feeding them out of a bottle with a teat on. Well you could feed two at a time, but the third one kept trying to suck at anything ti could, ears, clothes, feet etc and then when you fed the third one the other two would be sucking away at you.........

It won't be long until they can go outside for the first time into the fresh air. I bet they'll run and jump around together.

Bayer / FACE Farm to Classroom Awards 2008

I am so excited because we have got through to the next round the farm to Classroom awards for our work educating children on the farm and in the classroom.

The Bayer Crop Science & Farming and Countryside Education Awards were started in 2007, to coincide with the launch of the Year of Food and Farming. These awards were set up to reward those that have been pro-active in the field of education. Our categories are; Access, Biodiversity, Promotion of Countryside Careers, Farm to Classroom and Innovative Learning.The Bayer/FACE awards have already become known in the industry as a celebration of the very best in farming education.
The awards this year, are again open to CEVAS accredited farmers, nominated by the FACE Regional Co-ordinators but new to this year, we have also invited our Four Seasons Farmers to take part and given farms and Centres the opportunity to self-nominate, so this year we can look forward to even more entries!

Farm to the Classroom Award
Criteria:- For a farm making a valuable contribution to school life away from the farmyard,
whether it be covering curriculum activities, setting up a school farmers' market or helping with
growing activities, as not all farms are conducive to hosting educational visits, the emphasis is
on bringing expertise to the school.

Fingers crossed! ( I keep my fingers crossed that often its a wonder they do any work at all!!!)

We Are Hosting a LEAF Open Farm Sunday Workshop

We are getting ready to host our open farm Sunday Workshop tomorrow, so the most important thing is getting the cakes and teas ready!

One large spongecake and two bara briths down just Welsh Cakes, and chocolate brownies to go.

My husband will be helping me put together a health & safety crime scene this evening, similar tot he one in the picture which we visited on our Speak Out course recently. (The farmers amongst you will indeed grimace - is it very similar to your own farmyard?)

We will be expecting between 10 -15 people who hope to get involved in open farm Sunday on the 1st of June this year, LEAF, the organisation who co-ordinate the event will be helping us get to know how to deal with the general public, how to avoid jargon,(we farmers do so like all of our farming terms) and how most people will just love to have the chance to look around a working farm.

I hope it goes well because I really badgered Roly to have a workshop in mid Wales, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well. it really is an opportunity for us to sing out our achievements and show everyone why farming really matters.......................