Blog

These dexters really get on with it and all calve within a week of each other. We don’t witness a single birth, and the calves behave just like fawns – they hide and go deadly still when you find them – initially disconcerting, but thats fine by me, I trust that they know what they’re…… Continue reading OUR FIRST DEXTER CALF – MARCH 2019

It’s quite a journey with our bees and lots of ups and downs.  I soon realise that warre hives have a place, but not here! I find them really tricky to work with and eventually I replace with National hives and am able to start harvesting honey. Bees are fascinating and I realise they have…… Continue reading UPDATE ON OUR BEES – JULY 2017

We start looking for our Dexter cows and plan for their arrival, so we get out the old baler and grease her up ready to bale the hay for some winter feed. Our three children are now young adults and are well able to swing a bale or two. We are so lucky to find…… Continue reading JULY 2018 – WE BETTER MAKE SOME HAY!

Where to start? Class of 2014 – first day on the Quoit In 2012 we start our Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) on our 4 areas of moorland and wetland. This is great for us – for the first time we are being encouraged and supported to continue managing our moorlands for bio-diversity and wildlife. It also…… Continue reading IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME!

Having called in the advise and help of Greg Humphries on coppicing in our wood,  we start preparing for the first of 6-8 areas that are to be put down to 4 varieties of biomass willow.  We also come up with a design to begin creating more shelter belts within our 2 acre field that…… Continue reading WINTER 2012/13

The arrival of our bee hives;  Apple Blossom,  Tiger,  and Oak and Duff,  this also cheered me up.  Though they had a tough start,  being brought over on a most horrendous evening! 

Well, a bloody awful start to summer with our TB test in June showing one reactor and three inconclusives and all of them our maiden heifers and one cow.  Since then I have heard that there is a thought that pregnant cows are more sensitive to the test.  I am feeling particularly sick because we…… Continue reading SUMMER AND AUTUMN 2012

Well this is a picture of our old barn:(This was taken down last year in preparation which gave us the crushed breeze blocks for the garden) and now our new one!

The horses and cows are doing a great job on Tor Noon,  and we can really begin to see the heather and a mix of grasses rather than a monoculture of gorse with patches of bracken and bramble.  The horses are particularly good as they are not so fussy and are quite happy to eat bristle…… Continue reading SUMMER AND AUTUMN 2011

This is the start of a mega catch up from April 2011;The perennial garden is coming along with the chickens kindly removing slugs from the beds. And the old barn breeze blocks have been crushed up to create pathways – the wood chip was too good a mulch for weeds. And Nancy’s House garden is…… Continue reading SUMMER 2011