Woodlands Manor Farm

Fox attack again

2012-01-30T09:16:00.003Z

Well, we have been under fox attack again. I let my chickens out whilst we were having lunch last Wednesday. We heard a commotion, ran outside and there was a fox with my light sussex chicken in it's mouth. I ran screaming out it and it dropped it and scarpered. It had actually attacked 2 of my chickens, both had puncture wounds in their backs but a trip to the vets and some medicine seems to have set them on the road to recovery- poor things.

Belated Happy New Year

2012-01-09T09:52:00.006Z

Thankfully Christmas and New Year went by without a hitch. We had a lovely time when my family came down prior to Christmas for a few days they stayed in the Manor House and my niece and nephew had a lovely time running up and down the 2 staircases and finding great places to hide! Nige and I were by ourselves for Christmas day and we popped down to our local; The Old Smithy at Welcombe to have a couple of drinks with friends before coming home to a lovely roast goose! New Year came and went - the first year we didn't make it 'til midnight - must be getting old!
We have had so much rain here over the past 6 weeks, I think I can count on one hand how many 'rain-free' days we have had. Everywhere is saturated and the chickens aren't happy scratching around in mud! I am wary about letting them out of their pen since the fox attack in November and so I only let them out when I am working in the garden and make sure they don't stray far.
Half the cottages were let over Christmas and New Year and we have people in at the moment. January and February bookings aren't looking too bad at all considering it is winter and we are already up on last years bookings, so this year look likes it will be a good one.

Fox attack

2011-12-05T10:22:00.003Z

It was a sad week last week as we lost one of our chickens to a fox. It was 11am in the morning, broad daylight and the chickens were out in the garden and he just came in and grabbed one and then tried to come back for another one. Nigel scared him off with his air rifle but I am sure he will be back now he knows they are there. Sorry girls but you won't be able to have free reign of the veggie patch for a while now.
Well, I suppose it is December so I will have to get organised and start putting up the Christmas trees and decorations in the cottages ready for the arrivals on the 21st. We are half full for Christmas and New year so not too bad. I think people are saving their pennies this year and are going to see what next year will bring.
My family are coming down the weekend before Christmas for a few days so that is something we are both looking forward to. Hopefully it won't snow again like last year and they all can make the journey down.
Just off to clean out the polytunnel and start digging in the manure ready for next year.

Hasn't it gone dark?!

2011-10-31T08:11:00.003Z

Well, that's it now, heads down 'til spring! Clocks have gone back, all our lambs have gone, piggies go tomorrow, apples are all picked and stored for the winter and I have picked my body weight in blackberries!

A couple of weeks ago my parents came down and helped plant 5 horsechestnut trees along our driveway. It was really hard going as the ground underneath the grass was just rubble and hardcore. After 2 days in the rain we finally got them in and they look great - see pic!

There's a heatwave coming

2011-09-26T09:52:00.004+01:00

Apparently it we are going to have a heatwave this week?!....Hmm will wait and see about that one!
We have been doing lots of autumnal chores last week, raking leaves, dead heading flowers, picking blackberries and making more chutney. We have had a couple of dinners sampling our new lamb of the season and the verdict is..... fantastic very tasty and tender. We have so far taken half of the lambs to the abattoir and take a further 6 this week leaving only a couple that were born the latest and are still fattening up. Nige is going back to Poole in Dorset in a couple of weeks time and will be taking back lots of fresh lamb that has been ordered by our friends.
We are still nice and busy with the cottages and have a couple of children staying that have helped with the animal feeding.

Bye bye summer!

2011-09-05T17:09:00.003+01:00

Well, is that summer over then?! Children have gone back to school, the weather has turned decidedly autumnal and the leaves are already losing their leaves. We have had a good summer (non-weather wise) and the cottages have been fully booked since the beginning of July and continue to be so until the end of September. We have had a few friends down to stay thoroughout the past few months which was great. We even managed time out to go and support our local country show. My parents came down last week to help tackle some of the garden with me. We had a good day cutting back, clearing up and chopping off anything that got in our way and by the end of the day we were very pleased with our efforts! After our strenuous day in the garden we thought we deserved a day off the following day and so headed off to Bodmin Jail, of all places! We found it to be exetremly interesting, suitable for all age groups and nothing to0 gruesome for the young ones.
We look the first 4 of our 17 lambs to the abattoir last Thursday and they will be ready to pick up this friday. Perfect timing as our freezer has run out of last years lamb!

Rain, Rain and more rain

2011-08-15T08:47:00.003+01:00

Life is as busy as ever, with all this rain we have been having everything is growing like mad, although not the plants I want to grow but lots of brambles and stinging nettles everywhere! Looks like the flowers on the brambles are just changing and soon they will be abundant with lots of lovely blackberries ready to pick and make lots of delicious cakes and pies. All animals are doing well although a couple of hens are a bit broody at the moment but they will soon snap out of it I am sure. The lambs are getting really big now and will soon be ready to send off to market and the abbatoir. We will be visiting our friends back in Dorset again in September with a batch of fresh lamb for them. We did this a month ago with our pork and it went down really well. We already have orders for the next lot!

Back to reality

2011-07-11T09:15:00.004+01:00

Well, all the excitement is now over. We are back from Honeymoon, having spent a lovely week on a Turkish gulet cruising the Amalfi Coast. Weather was fantastic (38 degrees most days!), food lovely and stunning scenery. Back to reality now, although it is quite nice to get back to a bit of routine. The weather this week looks set to be good at least until Thursday so our time will be spent out in the grounds cutting back the jungle that seems to have taken hold whilst we have been away!
We picked up our new set of piglets on Thursday last week and they are great, very friendly and fiesty. We are busy with the cottages and are fully booked from next week for all the summer.

Finally hitched

2011-06-22T09:16:00.004+01:00

We had a great day back in Dorset on Sunday for our wedding. Pictures attached. It was lovely to spend some much needed time with our friends and family.

We have also finally finished The Stables - our new 2 bedroom 2 bathroom cottage - it looks beautiful and bookings are now being taken!

Off on honeymoon on Friday so frantically trying to get everything organised.

Conversion nearing completion

2011-06-08T12:21:00.002+01:00

It's been a busy month, hence no blogging for a while!
We are nearing completion of our lovely new 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom cottage, The Stables. Just finishing off the painting, carpets are being laid today and I will be in there all day tomorrow cleaning ready for the first guests arriving on Friday! Pictures will be posted soon.
Our 4 pigs have come to the end of their stay with us and off to the abbatoir next week. We will then be buying 4 more at the beginning of July to see us through the summer season.
Nige and I are now getting excited as on Sunday 19th June we are getting married at last! Hoorah! - 17 years together and we are finally getting married...... well you've got to be sure about these things! We are heading back to Poole in Dorset for a couple of days to get married and then we come back down here for a couple of days and then off on honeymoon at the end of June to Italy - can't wait! Jenny, a good friend of ours will be moving in to look after everything for us which is a great weight of our minds.

We have ducklings!

2011-05-03T10:01:00.004+01:00

We are all very excited as we have had our first 2 batches of ducklings hatch over the weekend! Their mothers have been diligently sitting on their nests for the past 4 weeks and now we have 13 little fluffy ducklings. I don't know how long they are going to survive as the crows and magpies are circling the pond. Nige is out there with his air pistol scaring them off but he can't be there all the time.
Major storms down here over the weekend - we had quite a few powercuts but no damage - even the bean canes just about survived!

More Lambs

2011-04-18T10:40:00.004+01:00

Well, I spoke too soon - another 2 lambs arrived early on Sunday morning!! a further set of twin rams, very healthy and bounding around the barn already! One more ewe to go and then I think that will be our lot for this year. The Coach House conversion now has had the kitchen fitted and we are just waiting for the final bits and bobs. We are now excepting bookings for this lovely 1 bedroom cottage - pictures and details to follow. Our other conversion - The Stables is still behind schedule but is it coming along and is going to be a fantastic 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom cottage over looking the fields and duck pond - infact so nice we are tempted to move in there ourselves! Hopefully this cottage will be finished mid-may- fingers crossed!

Spring has Sprung!

2011-04-11T16:53:00.006+01:00

Well we finally have lambs! 7 sets of twins, or doubles if you want to sound like a proper farmer! 6 girls and 8 boys - all doing fantastically well and very cute! There still might be a possibility of another 2 ewes giving birth, but has been a few weeks now since the last 2 lambs were born so we don't hold out much hope. We picked up the piglets a couple of weeks ago and they have settled well into the new home. The weather has been lovely over the past few weeks so we have been busy outside mowing lawns and planting up the veggie garden with numerous seeds, much to my chickens delight! May have to re-think about having the chicken house near the veggie patch - the way things are going they are scratching up more seeds than I can plant - arghhh! We are fully booked with the first group of guests for the Easter holidays all seem to be making good use of our indoor heated swimming pool and games room.

All going on

2011-03-14T08:03:00.005Z

Well, what a busy week last week was. We have frantically been finishingoff converting one of the barns into a new cottage - The Coach House and finally Saturday morning at the eleventh hour it was finished. We had a big group arriving and so needed it to be completed. They are a fitness boot camp and have taken over the whole place for the week. The fitness instructors get the ladies up at 6am every morning for a hard day of physical activities. Just as I type this I can here the dolcette tones of the army instructors shouting at them to run faster..... think I will just stay in the office having my coffee and danish!! Don't want to be mistaken for a new recruit!

We collect our new set of piglets on Wendesday last week; Eliza, Frank, Harry and George - they are digging up their field already and seem to be settling in well. The lambs still haven't made an appearance as yet - but will keep you posted.

2011-02-21T09:50:00.007Z

Unfortunately we woke today with bad news, 2 more of our lovely little call ducks have been attacked by a mink. We now only have 5 out of 13 left. Very sad sight to see such a large pond and so few duckies. The ducks don't want to come in at night as they prefer to stay out on the pond, but I think now we will have to try and get them into their house a night as we can't keep feeding Mr Mink!

Onto some happier news -we went to see our new piggies yesterday - such cuties -think they were a bit camera shy as they all turned away when I tried to take this photo. We collect them in 2 weeks time!

All our guests arrived on Saturday for the half term break and seem to have settled in well and the sun even stayed out all day yesterday - can't be bad!

2011-02-07T10:59:00.005Z

We are having such a busy old time at the moment. Building work is progressing well and the Stables Cottage is starting to take shape. Walls are going up inside and it now giving us some idea of how it is going to look. We have been choosing flooring, kitchens and bathrooms and we also have hit the Laura Ashley sale for some of the furniture and soft furnishings. We even have taken our first booking for the Stables so things are looking good.
We have reserved our next group of piglets and they will be insconced in their new home at the beginning of March. Our ewes are doing well and are getting bigger by the day. They are also due from the beginning of March.
Our swimming pool is having a face lift as the floor surrounding it needed some attention. By the end of the week it is going to look fantastic.

2011-01-10T15:03:00.003Z

Well that's Christmas and New Year over for another year - how quickly did that go? Myself and Nigel have been ill over the past couple of weeks with colds and throat infections so we have been feeling quite sorry for ourselves! We had a good festive season despite illness and all the guests seem to have a great time. We were fairly lucky with the weather and had some snow over Christmas, but after heavy rain it disappeared over night, just before New Year.

The 3 bathrooms in the Manor have now been completely refurbished and look great, really fresh, but keeping their rustic charm!

It is now full steam ahead on our barn we are converting. We hope to have it completed by March, but work has been slow due to bad weather and various unexpected problems.

We are having a massive problem with starlings at the moment they are helping themselves to the chicken food and they are costing us a fortune! Will have to look at alternative feeder, one that chicken stand on to release the food.

2010-12-06T09:43:00.003Z

Luckily we have escaped the snow that everyone seems to be having around the country, but unfortunately we haven't missed out on the freezing conditions. We have had frozen pipes, boilers breaking down and no water but nothing we can't handle!
I am the fun task of decorating all the cottages this week with trees and lights ready for our Christmas guests arriving on 22nd. I think [putting up and decorating 4 trees will be a record for me
The 3 bathrooms in the manor house are still being refurbished and hopefully will be ready by the end of the week.
Piggies are off to piggy heaven tomorrow. We will not be getting anymore until March next year. As we keep them outside it is not nice for them in the winter so it gives us a bit of a break and also their field to hopefully rebuild.
The chickens are still laying well and don't seem to phased by the cold - good girls!

2010-11-08T10:30:00.003Z

Brrr, temperature has suddenly dropped and with it has come rain...again!

Never mind, lots to do in side. Will be making my first batch of spicy tomato chutney and had better get my mincement started ready for that annual ritual of mince pie making!

The building work has now started on our new conversion and everything seems to be going to plan at the moment....touch wood!

Piggies are getting bigger by the day, especially the 2 greedy boys. Only a month to go until they are off to piggy heaven and then we can restock the freezer!

2010-10-25T16:49:00.005+01:00

I love this time of the year, leaves changing colour and the mornings beautiful and crisp and sunny. It was so warm yesterday we even had sunday lunch outside! - not bad for the end of October. We went for a walk along the river at Sheepwash and then had a great meal at the local pub called the Half Moon - can highly recommend it - great food.
Half term has arrived and with it more guests - all seem to be very happy in their chosen cottages, wood burners a light at night and helping with the animal feeding during the day - what a lovely way to spend your hols!
Building work has now commenced on our new project of converting one of our old barns into another self catering cottage. It should be finished by February 2011 and will have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and amazing views out over the fields to our local village of Kilkhampton.

2010-10-08T09:04:00.005+01:00

We are one today! Can't believe we have got through our first year and survived!
Looking back we certainly have achieved a lot although at times it didn't seem like it!
Parents are down this week to help with the gardening - lots to do to tidy up ready for Autumn.
2 of the chickens are snapping out of their broody phase, but not laying again as yet.
We are off out tonight to celebrate our 1 year so getting hungry already!
Short and sweet today as the weather is fantastic for October and lots of gardening to do.

2010-09-27T16:54:00.004+01:00

Brrrr it's time for the heating to be on in the mornings now. It's a little fresh to say the least!
It is a lovely time of the year down here at Woodlands Manor Farm, the trees are changing colour and the birds are now demanding to be fed.
We are still fairly busy with our lovely self catering cottages. We even have 3 of the 4 cottages sold for Christmas so that will be a lovely experience to have lots of people to stay. We only had one cottage sold for our first christmas last year - so we must be doing something right!
Unfortunately 3 of our chickens have become broody. I am trying all sorts to snap them out of it but no luck at the moment. Will have to keep persevering with the cold baths and the broody box!
We went green laning last weekend for the first time - it was great fun - although a little hairy at times! Will definitely be doing that again soon!

2010-09-13T15:09:00.004+01:00

Woodlands is now back online - hoorah! We have been without Broadband for over a week - didn't realise that our life is centred around the bloomin' computer - it's been a nightmare!
We had some bad news last week. We had a visit from a mink last Saturday and he ate 5 of our beautiful call ducks. Nige was distrort. They were his favourites. We now realise that the mink is what took the duck and her 13 eggs that went missing back in May. Apparently there used to be a mink farm a couple of miles away from us and a couple of years ago animal activists, in their wisdom, released them and it looks like they have ventured over to us. We think they are getting up to the pond via a stream that runs through our woods. We have re-inforced the area and hope this will deter him. The 3 remaining ducks looked very sorry for themselves so we have now bought them 6 other friends to play with and they are settling in nicely. Just have to hope they stay out of the way of the mink or he doesn't come back for a while.
We have also bought 5 more chickens as we were running out of eggs each day as guests were buying them from us. Now 17 chickens in total. Pigs are happy, but making a total mess of their field... a real mud bath, but I suppose there is nothing happier than a pig wallowing in mud.

My minibus driving for the Bude Jazz festival week went well. I actually really enjoyed it and had good fun with the passengers. We had no near misses so that was a bonus!

Where has the summer gone?

2010-08-26T17:17:00.001+01:00

Where has our summer gone?! Weather has been pretty bad down here on the North Coast of Cornwall. I feel sorry for our guests as they are on their holidays, but at least we have a lovely heated indoor pool and games room to occupy them during the rain showers!
I can't believe the school holidays are whizzing past so quickly and it is September next week!
All our chickens are laying eggs now and they are all of a very respectable size. We have even had a few double yokers, so that can't be bad!
Our new piglets now have names; Alfie, Bertie, Delia and Clarissa. They have settled into their new home and are proving a great attraction for our younger guests.
This week there is another agriculutaral show taking place; Holsworthy and Stratton, so if we have time on Thursday and the weather clears up we might head down there for the afternoon as they are normally quite fun.The Bude Jazz festival starts this weekend and I have landed myself a little part time job during the festival as a mini bus driver! Really looking forward to it and hope I won't get lost. I don't know the area that well as we have only been here since October, but I have got the route and it is just a circular one so once I have done if for the first time it should be a doddle! You never know this may be the start of something

Animal Farm

2010-08-26T17:15:00.000+01:00

The chickens are laying! Can't believe we have our own fresh eggs at last! They started laying 6 days after they arrived here. They quite small eggs at the moment but they will get bigger the more they lay. They taste fantastic and we even have enough to sell to our guests. I have been busy in the veggie garden and polytunnel this week trying to win the war against slugs and snails. I think Imay be winning as the chickens love slugs so every time i find one it goes straight in the chicken pen for them to deavour - yuk! rather them than me!
Nige has been busy keep the grounds of our lovely Bude Holiday cottages neat and tidy. He has been whizzing around on his sit-on mower making the grass look like something out of House & Home!
We look 2 more lambs to slaughter last week and our 4 Glos old spot pigs as well. Very sad as they have been real characters, but that aside I can't wait to try our lovely home-reared pork when we get it back tomorrow - Heartless?... me?.... no just pratical! On Tuesday this week we collected 4 more Gloucester Old Spot weaners to start the cycle again. They are very cute and so small compared to the ones that have just gone. We haven't named them yet, but watch this space!

Busy Summer ahead

2010-08-26T17:14:00.000+01:00

What a busy weekend! The first group of guests arrived to stay in our luxury self-catering cottages for the start of the school holidays on Saturday so that was a usual manic changeover day. Everyone in and happy. The children are enjoying the animal feeding we do each morning. I also sold the first produce from our vegetable garden to to some of our guests - that was a great feeling. On Sunday we went to a lovely farm over near Exeter to collect our first chickens! We were only going to buy 5, but in the end we came away with 12 lovely ladies. I choose 2 White Sussex, 1 Columbian black tail, 1 Silver Sussex and 1 Rhode Rock. They are now living in their new home up in our vegetable garden. Nige choose 7 for his area down by the duck pond and he has 4 Rhode Rock, 2 Columbian Black Tail and 1 Blue Maran. They are all settling in well and getting used to their new homes.
Yesterday we had a great day out at the Woolsery Agricultural Show at Clovelly Court. The animals on show were beautiful - some amazing horses and prize winning bulls! The weather was perfect and we saw lots of people we knew and we also knew the president and his wife - we have definitely settled in, even if we have only been here 9 months!

2010-08-26T17:09:00.000+01:00

Well, this is my first time as a blogger! All a bit new to me, but lets see how it goes!!
I suppose I should start with a little background. About 9 months ago my partner Nige and I moved down from Bournemouth to the North Cornwall coast where we have purchased a small-holding together with 4 luxury self-catering holilday cottages. We are located just 6 miles north of the popular surfing town of Bude and very close to the popular beachs of Widemouth Bay and Sandymouth. Our property is set in a sunning location and we have 37 acres of beautiful countryside to wander around in. When we arrived the cottages were pretty much up together but the surrounding areas of garden and fields were very over grown. We didn't even realise we had a pond until about 2 months ago! We have spent a lot of time outside, cutting back hedges, uncovering pathways and digging. When we moved down here we wanted to become as self sufficient as we could so that involved us producing our own vegetables. There was an area for a possible vegetable patch but it was just a large area of grass. So we planned and built a vegetable garden with raised beds, a polytunnel and chicken coop and 4 months down the line we are now picking our own radishes, mange tout and rhubarb to name just a few!
As part of the self sufficiency life-style and also to keep us company on our 37 acres! we are slowly building up a small menargie of animals. So far we have 4 Gloucestershire Old Spot Pigs, (5 months old and very cute!) 8 Call Ducks - great fun to watch them waddling into the shed at feeding time, 3 Shetland ponies - all with a character of their own(see pic) and 10 ewes with 4 lambs. We did have 10 lambs in total but the first 6 have reached the right size to go to slaughter and they are now sitting in our freezer. We have sampled some of them lamb already and although I say so myself it tastes amazing! We are hopefully going to be buying our first batch of chickens next week - watch this space! We are having a good first year business wise and we are fully booked in the cottages for the summer holidays. We always have late availability deals on our holiday cottages so have a look at our website; http://www.woodlandsmanorfarm.co.uk/