... and getting ready for the growing season

Egg rolling celebrations complete, the next day of our Easter weekend was about getting down to some real work ... preparing for the growing season. We have a greenhouse at the farm, half full of grapevines and half full of plant pots, and this year we want it to be full of veg. Well, the grapevines, a vestige of past wine making plans, are staying too but the pots had to go. First things first we had to clear out an old shed of broken tools to make the new potting shed, and only then could we move the pots. With Daddy busy doing the hard graft, Grandma and Seren got down to some seed planting. We have some pretty heavy frosts here at Ty'n Y Llidiart, up in the Welsh hills of Llandegla so the greenhouse will be a real boon to extending the growing season.

A busy Easter weekend, egg rolling ...

We had a lovely Easter weekend at the farm, with time for fun and lots of jobs done too. An essential part of the day was the annual egg rolling with all ages of the family taking part, from Seren aged 3, to Grandma aged (well that would be telling!). First we all did our egg decorating, and then enjoyed matching egg design to artist, before rolling them down a bank in the top field. We chose to decorate small white eggs from the Gold Campines, Gold and Silver Appenzellers and Black Leghorns in our Feistyfowl flock.  Goodness knows what the sheep and hens thought as they watched our antics. It seemed somehow right that they were able to watch our family's interpretation on the celebration of new life.

Spring has sprung

New blog, new life. With Easter here it seemed the right time to talk about new life on the farm. We do have both spring lambs and spring chicks at Ty'n Y Llidiart now. The lambs are from our pedigree Lleyn flock and we have started to hatch from our rare breed chickens too. There have always been chickens at the farm but the full scale chicken project began when I fancied adding some Plymouth Barred Rocks to the farmyard flock. Before they had even hatched I was tempted to buy some Buff Orpingtons and Cream Legbars, and then some Gold Campines and Partridge Feathered Wyandottes to appease my husband who had been doing the shed building, then some Marans for deep brown eggs and it grew from there. Now we have a whole range of chickens, our Feisty Fowl flock ... and this year's hatching has commenced. Our first chicks to hatch this year have been Shetlands, Plymouth Barred Rocks, Silver Spangled Appenzellers and Welsummers.