Archived News

12th April 2012

Easter was quiet here with just the surprise arrival of six chicks!  One of the hens has sat on a clutch of eggs for three weeks at a secret location somewhere in the garden; I still haven’t discovered where!

I prepared a hen house for the new family which provides a much safer place to sleep and will hopefully keep them safe from Mr Fox.

I’m glad we brought Christopher’s sheep into their lambing shed before the blustery weekend weather; although the April showers are very welcome for the crops and grass.

The lambs are due any time now but we had expected the ewe with triplets to have lambed earlier.  I’ve spent 5 days and nights checking the sheep whilst Christopher was away and now I’m glad he’s back to do the night checks and I can return to being his assistant!

For over four thousand years rapeseed crops have been grown across the World although it wasn’t until the 13^th Century that these crops were grown commercially in Europe for lamp oil and in soap! Oil seed rape is now grown for cooking oil, food processing and as biofuels.  

For a few weeks in April the bright yellow flowers highlight the oil seed rape fields and many people stop to take photographs.   The area of oilseed rape In the UK is about one eighth of the area cropped by wheat or barley.