February 2019 Farm Round Up

snowy osbs

Snowy February – that’s a sentence I can understand and we kicked off the month with a really heavy fall – a real blanket came down and covered the farm. It looked beautiful, was not too cold and didn’t last long, thank goodness – no repeat of last year’s Beast of the East. As always, plenty of lovely photo opportunities , a quick video and  it even made the local news 🙂
Heatwave February – that’s not something that trips off the tongue quite so easily but, this year, very true. A really confusing month for nature – there are trees starting to burst out in blossom, the birds are definitely singing as if it were Spring and we found our first Guinea Fowl egg – about 6 weeks before we would expect to! Not complaining though – it has been dry and the sunny spells have been very welcome.

Even though the pigs are very happy in the mud, even they seem to be enjoying the break in the weather – took a lovely video of Frosty.  She didn’t hear me coming til I called and rattled the bucket!    But I don’t only take pictures of pigs – had something of an ‘arty’ moment one chilly morning and here’s the result!

A quiet month on the livestock front.  Jacko the boar went home, hopefully having done his job well with Eyelashes, our Berkshire sow.  We have several young gilts (what you call a female pig before she has a litter) growing on at the farm at the moment who will be breeding sows for us later in the year.  A couple of Oxford Sandy & Blacks – Gertie and Goldie, plus one of Frosty’s daughters from her litter last summer and two Berkshires – currently without names!  I’ll take some photos and post them on Facebook and ask for suggestions of names!!  If you don’t already follow us, please do – here’s the link  to our page.

A real change in pace this month – a very exciting evening for a couple of pig farmers saw us head to Bristol to the wonderful new Aerospace Museum to receive an award!  We were thrilled to be awarded Silver in the South West Tourism Awards, in the self-catering category.  Given how many properties are involved in tourism in the South West, to have been short-listed was great and to walk away clutching our Silver award was very exciting.