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

Shearing time 2010

It's that time of year again.

Am working on putting a kit together to take to schools to make felt.

We have just sheared our Jacob ewe and now know why they are kept for wool the fleece is 4 kg twice as heavy as our normal BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) ewes.

I bet she is feeling cooler now!

We have plenty of fleeces for sale please contact us if you wish to buy.

Dawn the kid and our pet lamb now named FluffyBelle (by Little Fingers after school club in Evanstown) have been around and about visiting local playgroups and they were very well behaved.

Dawn took a likig to the kid in the mirror at Tumble tots and had a good rummage through the Fancy dress section!!

The Snow and adventures

The snow has been with us now since the 20th of Dec lots of problems only able to get out by 4WD did take car out twice failed our hill on both occasions so had to reverse it home!!
Luckily the sheep feed arrived in between christmas and New Year due to the clever lorry driver, the postman has been most days too.
We fetched our load of Barley with tractor and trailer so the sheep are warm and cosy in the shed with lots of food.A lot of farms have had trouble with sheds caving in due to snow and trouble getting feed and water out to the fields.
We have been feeding the birds each day as they are finding it difficult in this weather and our lake is frozen over there doesn't seem to be much wildlife about both our semi tame ducks have disappeared so we fear Mr Fox has found his way over the ice to the island which is usually a safe haven.
We have built the snowmen, sledged the hills,thrown the snowballs and are now ready for things to become normal again - school and shopping without wellies and boots.

YouTube on the Blog

We hope to get webcams running on the site shortly and are uploading videos onto youtube for tasters
Hope you all enjoy all sheep now in shed and Deer not far from their shelter more snow tonight.

Open Farm Sunday

Did you see us in the South Wales Echo and the Farmers Guardian.

Open Farm Sunday 2009 at Lakeside Farm Park
“Care about your food? We Do”

The day before was a washout with floods cutting some local farmers off!! Fortunately the day dawned and the rain stopped with an appearance of the sun which brought in about 350 people during the day.

This year we had “Ask a Young Farmer” and a big thank you to Llantrisant YFC for helping us. They were superb and answered lots of questions and were quite at home with the public. We called it revision for those with their GCSEs this year! Good luck for your exams everyone. Lyn and Rhidian also walked the nature trail with Lyn giving a full explanation of trees and plants on our farm along with their history. Russell is hoping some of the boy’s will be confident to shear next year as some of them have just passed their proficiency with the wool board. The public were very impressed with all of them commenting on their knowledge and manners.

The tractor and trailer rides started and the hourly rate went out of the window we had 7 jam packed trailer rides Russell had people queuing all day.
Everyone saw the display of sheep, watched them being sheared, and lambs weighed and the comparison of birth weight to now. Back at Lakeside they were able to see our wool washed, Michelle gave us a great spinning demonstration and also brought some of her knitted products from our sheep.
We had Cressida from Bridgend RDP and Helen from Glamorgan WFU pan frying our lamb chops and mincing lamb to make burgers we also were giving away cawl this was made from our lamb breast and the Abercerdin School food co op vegetable bag. They used the school’s fruit co op bag to make smoothies and fruit salad.
Thanks to Julie and Geoff Thomas with their interactive Simply the Best Training display and doubling up into other jobs through out the day. Claire from Milestone activities and a member of Glamorgan WFU gave people a Nordic walking taster session through our recently harvested fields, Bridgend Farmers Market had a presence with neighbours Charles and Gill Morgan with Bethesda butter and welsh cheeses many thanks to them

Some of the Comments:
“Very interesting and educational for the whole family”
“Very interesting, Cawl excellent, kids really enjoyed themselves”
“The staff have been brilliant any questions have been no trouble, very friendly & welcome. Very good range of animals and demonstrations from smoothie making to sheep shearing recommend this event!”

A huge thanks to everyone that participated and sponsored the day, we couldn’t have done it without the cooperation of friends, neighbours and family.
Llantrisant YFC
Glamorgan WFU
Simply the Best training: www.simplythebesttc.co.uk
Milestone activities: www.milestoneactivities.co.uk
Michelle: www.woollywumpkins.co.uk
Bridgend Farmers Market
Bridgend RDP

Also thanks to LEAF for the support and resource pack, the seeds seemed the most popular this year. Lots more budding farmers!
Open Farm Sunday 2010 -June 13th

Here we are again 1 year on not knowing what to expect. All of us up at 6.00 a.m. to get all the quizzes printed off and animals into the shed for the display.
New this year “Ask the Farmer” Geoff Thomas (brother in law) from Down to Earth series HTV and Kath Morgan from a neighbouring farm along with Bill Edwards (Grampy) were there to answer any questions in the sheep shed. Russ again did the shearing demo and the quiz had a match the fleece to the breed of Ram which most people got right with a little help from the experts.
We had some stalls from Bridgend farmers market, Glamorgan Women’s Food and farming Union promoting British Cheese with lots of tasters and selling freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice. Our RSPB volunteer John Ramsey was here to give people lots of info and we displayed our map and list of birds from the survey he did last year.
Claire Harris gave some Nordic walking Tasters in the main hall which we were grateful for as the downpour meant the tractor and trailer ride stopped for a few hours and people needed entertaining for.Communities first had a stand showing what regeneration work had been going on in the ward of Blackmill.
The weather held out until 1.30 when the heavens opened and we had a down pour, this made inside very busy and the restaurant was packed with people eating Sunday lunch. The lamb served on the menu was very local!!
The tractor and trailer ride took everyone from Lakeside via the deer pen to the sheep shed where we had a display of sheep & rams, Aberdeen Angus cows our goat kids Millie and Molly with ducks, ducklings, chicks and goslings to be seen. The shearing demo was also there along with our “pen of Farmers.”
Many thanks to everyone who helped and contributed to making this day such a success we couldn’t have done it without you. Please look out for us on the “Down to Earth” programme on ITV Wales between 5.00 & 6.00pm Sundays from 15th June. See you next year!!- June 7th 2009.
Thanks to LEAF and their sponsors for the resources provided and also to our local sponsors FUW, NFU Cymru and Hybu Cig Cymru, Leanne from Garden village post office for the balloon display and John our Chef for the tasters.