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daycare, farming, new business, website

Now 28 weeks pregnant, I have to say I am starting to feel the weight gain.  I am definitely bigger now than I was at the same stage with Solomon! Still ….with so much to do there is no rest for the wicked! The list of jobs is growing rather than shrinking, Daycare is a high priority to get advertised. 

Currently sitting at my desk, sadly it faces a wall, but to my right I can gaze out of the window down towards our pond, a far more pleasant view than city buildings from my old offices.  Farm life is a welcome change from the air conditioning and office politics I once knew.

However, today is just one of those days, loads to do but just no energy for it.  In an effort to give myself a kick start I allowed myself to be mildly distracted from the churning of numbers and pushing of paper and found a quote that has given me a bit of a kick!

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” —Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO

Luke and I are very fortunate that our ‘day job’ allows us to be at home together and with our family. That is not to say it is easy, Lukes ‘day’ lately has started at 5am and ended at 1am. Our sheep have been popping out lambs almost too quickly for our limited barn space. Thankfully we have had a change in the weather for a few days and yesterday allowed us to turn out the older of our lambs in to one of the high paddocks; such a lovely site to see them bouncing around. Rixham Farm is really beginning to feel alive!! 

I have been concentrating on our website more recently…. finally got the main part of it built, but still accumulating photos and changing around bits. Hopefully it will be up soon and I will direct you to it.  We are now listed on a number of other websites so you can find us, including …..

http://www.autism.org.uk/directory/resources/19588

we are also listed as a Care Farm Showcase on

http://www.carefarminguk.org/home

 

Please do share this blog to spread the Word. We would like to increase our Daycare and due to it being slightly unconventional we need help to raise profile. The lads we have as clients already absolutely love it here and we would love for others to get the same enjoyment. With spring coming it is a great time to join the Farm team and watch how ‘Knight Farm’ will develop….

4 seasons in one day

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carefarming, daycare, devon, farming, lambing, Weather, younger farmer

Today was a very confusing day to say the least. We woke up to beautiful blue sky, the day certainly looked like a breath of fresh air in comparison to recent times. Within an hour we had hail which was quickly followed by a snow blizzard, a dusting of the white stuff everywhere was pretty and the child in me was somewhat excited…. The mother in me wished I had done a recent food shop!!!
Every part of me was hoping to be snowed in, I am sure in reality it may not be so great for a start up business but I was not in that frame of mind so did not care at that moment in time 🙂

Luckily other than ‘April shower’ style pour downs the day was pretty reasonable. Even had moments of lovely sunshine in between.

I took our little boy out to see the lambs, daddy and he were able to ‘play farm’ together for a few minutes. The lambs were very inquisitive with Solomon but as soon as they got close enough to touch, Sol would get so excited and move quickly thus scaring them away.

Our Daycare lads are certainly enjoying being outside with the better weather, they helped to put out some of the sheep in to a fresh paddock, so I snapped a pic… Such a lovely sight.

Still having lambs pop out regularly, 15 ewes so far so still a long way to go. Had our first assisted birth yesterday, one of our Suffolk mules had a head show first, both legs back. Luckily Luke was able to act quickly and she is now the proud mother of two fairly large Ram lambs. Luke is really enjoying the responsibility of his own flock.

Babies of Rixham

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care farming, daycare, devon, farming, lambing, rixham, special needs, Weather

Here is a picture of proud Luke with a set of our newborn twins!! Two lovely little ram lambs born in the stormy night of the 4th!

As there was a break in the weather today I ventured out to go and see our Rixham babies! I have maintained a fair distance so far due to all the warnings of viruses and risks to pregnant women. I couldn’t resist anymore and as the barn was open, so plenty of fresh air, I carefully had a sneaky peek!!

These little bruisers seem to be doing well, they had a bit of a weak start but Luke gave them a shot of collostrum and before he knew it they were up and bouncing around! So far so good. The Ewe has been a fantastic mother!

We had 3 of our ‘careFarming’ Daycare clients here today. They were very happy to see the new lambs, these lads have been with us right from our Start here at Rixham! Today they helped move our ‘later lambing’ stock to fresh grass, along with other farm tasks. The part they enjoyed most was moving the ewes and lambs to a larger fresh pen out of the lambing bays.

The current weather conditions are a test to us and we count our blessings we are on high ground. We wish good fortune to all farmers battling these extreme conditions and hope the next 48 hrs of storms do not cause too much havoc.

Storming positives!!

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devon, farming, lambing, Rixham Farm, Sheep, Storm

These crazy storms must have induced labour in our sheep….
Last night lambing began and we had two sets of twins and a single within 1 hour of each other.
No assistance needed great start!!

Welcome to Rixham you lovely cottonwool balls!!!

More.. New residents arrived today

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devon, farming, Grazing, Rixham Farm, Shetland ponies

We had some more new arrivals today. Five miniature Shetland ponies. Chicca, Poka, Daisy Mai, jasmin & Tia.

They have come to live with us temporarily as they are for sale and the land they were on was no longer available, some was flooded. I responded to a friends plea on Facebook for grazing.

After what sounded like a rather stressful day they arrived this afternoon and are now stretching their legs running around one of our top paddocks.

Welcome little ponies…. 🙂