The Two Seater Toilet (Ty Bach)

Hendre Ifan Goch Farm at Glynogwr had a toilet at the bottom of the garden that was flushed from a little stream running underneath, not unusual for farms but this one had 2 seats.

The toilet was in need of some TLC and not having time to do this we asked the National Museum at St Fagans in 2008 if they would like it.

Having received a farmhouse as one of the original pieces in the 1952 from Llangennith in Gower which was rebuilt at St Fagans by 1955, they were donated the cowshed and calf cots in 2007. The outside toilet at the farmstead was a ruin so our toilet fills the place in the corner of the garden of Kenixton Farm.

Kenixton Farm at St Fagans

We were invited to the opening of these new buildings on the 20th of June 2012 and were delighted to see how it had been restored.

Hendre Ifan Goch Farm was also the home to Lewis Hopkin (1708-1771)the Bard and preacher, his son Hopcyn Bach was a dwarf and his suit also is at St Fagans Museum.

Lewis Hopkin exerted the greatest influence on the literary life of Glamorgan in that period. He was also the bardic teacher of Edward Evan and Iolo Morganwg admits that Hopkin taught him. He was a well-read and cultured man; it is claimed that he was well-acquainted with English literature of the 18th cent.; he had Latin and French books in his library. He was buried at Llandyfodwg Church; Iolo Morganwg published an elegy to him in 1772 under the title of Dagrau yr Awen.

Hopcyn Bach (Hopkin the dwarf), son of Lewis Hopkin, the bard, died aged 17 of senile decay in 1754. He visited London in 1751, staying for the winter season, and visiting the nobility and gentry. He was introduced to Princess Dowager of Wales and the Prince of Wales. According to a letter written by John Browning in 1751, he was also shown publicly for money in Bristol.

odd socks and pet lambs

Here we are surfacing from lambing live although we have 22 pet lambs we get uninterrupted sleep!

We now have over 900 lambs and the shed is almost empty (still 3 to go!!)

We have had a good crop of lambs and the only challenge was the wet bank holiday Monday when we had to bring our new lambs and ewes back into the shed to dry off and warm up.

We have some characters in the pet lambs my 2 favourite are Woolly and Balaclava boy:

Woolly wasn't strong enough to follow his mother and sister out to the field so we gave him some TLC and his mother came back to visit each day to check we were looking after him, after a week she decided he was better off with his friends in the shed.

Balaclava boy born April 1st was one of Quads, 2 stayed with their mother and we lost no 4 :-( but he was lucky although his head was bald, we kept him in the porch for a week until he grew too big for his box and started following me around. We took him out to join the others but he got very cold overnight so had to be rescued again.

Lambing Tip 1: what to do with your odd socks?





I cut off the toe end and cut 2 holes for his years and folded the sock around his neck solved the odd sock problem and is keeping him warm until the wool grows :-)

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, lots of news and happpenings on the Farm.

We have planted approx 150 native trees this year hoping they will all catch.

This is Farmhouse breakfast week and we are involved in breakfast with a local school on Wednesday preparing home made granola bars with British rolled oats and Glamorganshire Honey a great recipe for those pumpkin seeds you kept from your Halloween pumpkins. Recipe and pictures to follow :-)

We also are having a free breakfast community event with workshops on homemade bread,poached egg prepared in the microwave and armchair exercises to keep you moving the "keep it shaking" butter making experiment will be at both events if you want more details visit here

National Farmhouse Breakfast detail at Shake up your Wake up

Sheep are now all in the shed and scanned we changed our scanning system this year and the sheep are scanned upright and is finished in a few hours.

Will be updating the website with the new video shortly

Results 33 sets of triplets, 323 sets of twins , 179 singles expected seems we will have a busy time!

Also another visit from our friends the students from Maison Familiale Rurale in March.

Sausage and Mash Club on tour

It is British sausage week and we are celebrating  with our bangers before bonfire night.

Check out the recipes on the Love Pork Website

Last years activities led to an extra 572 ton of sausage eaten during sausage week!

Let us know what your favourite recipe is or where your favourite Sausage & Mash is served in Bridgend we would like to know what is happening.

Leave comments at The Real Food Box or Feastival

The Bridgend  Sausage and Mash club are on tour this week to sample some local sausage by Maddocks Kembrey Butchers in Maesteg being served with mustard mash and red onion gravy at Creation Cafe Blaengarw.

Creation Cafe is a great place to source local and delicious food at reasonable prices, but booking needed for Thursday's sausage & mash extravaganza. Please ring Ruth or Nicola to book your place 01656 353919. the Cafe is situated in Katie Street Blaengarw.

Happy British Sausage Week make sure they are British!

Launch of the song Bee Power

I was invited to the launch of the Bee Power song, the winning song about the plight of the Bumble Bee by Dolau primary school and Bridgend College students in the SMILE competition.

They have launched it to be downloaded to try and get this into the charts it is being well received and featuring in the media if you wish to see the making of the song visit their Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150422976423410

Please download the single

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/bee-power-single/id463774409


and get these Welsh students into the Charts the profits will go to the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust and the Size of Wales project!


http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/

http://www.sizeofwales.org.uk/

SMILE 2011 & Open Farm Sunday

SMILE (Students Motivate Innovative Learning through Enterprise.) 2011

2011 celebration day was upon us .Clare George  is an IT Lecturer at Bridgend College and has received the ‘Most Enterprising Teacher Award 2009' approached me to help with a planting workshop for the day.

The theme this year was "the plight of the Bumble Bee" and details of the winning song by Dolau Primary will be published shortly it will be available to download from i tunes and we are hoping for a no 1 it is brilliant :-)

We watched the Video Logs and songs which were produced with the students of Bridgend college a great time was had by all by the looks of things.

There were 7 workshops and we were all kept busy in the sunshine at Kenfig Nature reserve. We made recycled newspaper pots in which we put some salad leaf seeds to grow, the pupils were very knowledgable about bees and their importance in life.This was a great opportunity to tell the pupils and teachers about Open Farm Sunday and I gave them the details of the farms in their areas this weekend.

For more details of Farms in your area contact Open Farm Sunday

 Congratulations to Litchard Primary who made the winning Bumble Bee design that was built by the apprentices in the engineering Department of Bridgend college.

This now has a permanent place at Kenfig Nature Reserve and we hope it attracts more bees to the reserve ;-)

Also congratulations to Llanilltyd Fawr Primary that won the video log it was buzzing with entertainment

The Planting workshop was well attended and the schools recieved goodie bags to return to school with seeds for their gardens and learned how to make bee habitats from the other workshops.

 

Also the day would not have been complete without Clare on the Hooter

Don't forget the big day with LEAF on Sunday

 Open Farm Sunday

Discover Life on a British Farm June 12th 2011