Gwen becomes a foster Mum

The old Exmoor Horn sheep Gwen has kindly become a foster Mum to a lost lamb. Two weeks ago a friend stopped by to say she had picked up a lamb in the road and although she had contacted all the farmers around the area no one said they had lost any sheep. I agreed to take the lamb off her hands who was baaing a lot for his mum, so I put him in a small paddock with Gwen who I knew would be kind. He took to her straight away and follows her everywhere.

I contacted the dreaded DEFRA to find out what the legal position was if I ended up keeping the lamb and after being passed from pillar to post I found a very helpful lady who told me the procedure. So if no one claims the lamb (who we have named Gareth) we will keep him.

Main House Lounge

We've finally started renovating the lounge in the main house. We have to replace the wooden floorboards, joists and skirting boards which were all rotten the same as the cottage lounge.
The joists had completely disintergrated and very wet. They had originally been laid straight onto the mud and earth, so that probably explains why I kept getting slugs appearing on the carpet, which incidently is also rotten! Walking from the hall to the kitchen is rather precarious at the moment as you have to walk a plank across the lounge and however I try I always seem to wobble. Hopefully this will not taken months and months and perhaps if I am lucky it may be finished for Christmas... have I spoken too soon!

Baby Ducklings

Over the last few months we have lost three of our Indian Runner ducks. This left us with two drakes and two ducks, so we decided to buy some ducklings. We visited Moonridge Farm near Crediton in Devon and bought five female ducks. One was eight days old and the others three days old. The colours are fawn, apricot and trout. Moonridge has an amazing array of poultry and waterfowl and is definitely worth a visit. The ducklings are currently being kept in part of the dog kennel at night and during the day they are in a rabbit hutch. In a couple of weeks when they have more feathers we will give them a bigger run and introduce a water bowl for them to splash around.

Two Happy Cats!

A couple of months ago our neighbours moved to Wiltshire, but they were unable to take their two cats as they were staying in rented accommodation. They knew that the ginger cat often came over to our farm and many of our guests will have seen him around the yard, indeed one family told us he had been into the cottage and their little girl had been playing with him. We now warn all guests without dogs to make sure he doesn't try and move in! Our neighbours asked us if we would consider taking both cats, we were a bit worried at first because we had never seen their black cat, but of course we said yes. It took a while for the black cat to settle in, but he is now very a happy and he has been enjoying investigating the farm along with the ginger cat. Their names are Gordon and Rommy.

Work on the Lawn

After digging up one the flowerbeds last autumn and finding homes for most of the plants, some I gave away and some I threw away, we are now in the middle of laying the turf. I have enlarged two flowerbeds to may room for all the plants that I wanted to keep. I think the house garden will be a lot easier to manage, as I just don't have the time for all the weeding!

New Video on Exmoor

Exmoor National Park has commissioned an amazing 11 minute video and also on You Tube show casing Exmoor. The new Pavilion National Park Centre at Lynmouth is showing the video in the AV theatre to hopefully inspire vistors to discover Exmoor for themselves. It has some aerial footage which looks stunning on a big screen. If you can't visit Lynmouth then take a look at You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDhxiYqj-1o

Delay to opening cottage this season

We have had to delay opening the cottage by one week as work on the new bathroom was behind schedule due to various hiccups! Yesterday Parks Furnishing of Minehead came to lay the new stairs and landing carpet which we bought a year ago. It now matches the carpet in the lounge. It took two chaps all morning due to the winding stairs and several levels of steps, but it looks amazing and I hope my returning guests notice the difference. Cottage now on target to open for our first guests on 4th April.