Week Ending 22nd June 2014

The sun is shining, the beach is packed and it's time for another blog!

The weather here has been nothing short of fantastic lately, but from the point of view of our running training I've wished that it could be just a little cooler at times! We are regularly running the route around Cockington now but the extreme hills in this heat have been punishing to say the least. Hopefully when race day rolls round it will be a little cooler and things will be just fine!

The good weather has seen many positives as well though. When I went out for a walk yesterday afternoon I was blown away by all of the wildlife that was out taking advantage of the weather; butterflies, moths, dragonflies, damselflies, birds, bees...the list goes on.

Common Blue Damselfly

Even a heron came down into the park while I was there

My ice cream maker has already had a couple of outings and Vicky's freshly recovered deck chairs have now also made several appearances on the beach after work.

Sunshine and cider!

Work has been busy as per normal up at Occombe with the Beer Festival having taken place since my last blog. The event was a huge success, and over the course of the 2 nights we had over 6,500 people come through the doors! The clean up operation after the event has taken a lot longer than the event itself, with most things at the farm only just starting to get back to normal.
School groups have been coming in thick and fast, especially for activities like rock pooling which are excellent in the good weather.

Our new bee hive on the farm is now fully occupied with the UK native Black Bee. This particular species is the target of a conservation effort after the species nearly became extinct around 100 years ago. 

New arrivals being added to the bee hive

As well as our new bees we have also welcomed some new pigs to the farm! Bubble and Squeak, as they have affectionately been named, arrived on the farm last Monday and are just over 2 months old. At the rate that they eat I don't think they will stay small pigs for very long to come though!

I was also very happy to find this active Swallow nest in the animal shelter belonging to the goats. Hopefully before long there will be a couple of little ones ready to make the long journey back to Africa.

These 2 eggs have been very recently laid

We have now booked our flights to Iceland for September, and so I am looking forward to my first ever visit to the country. By my count it will be the 28th different country that I will have visited :)

This weeks amusing news story comes from Austria. I would love to see these motorists trying to explain to their insurance companies why the crashed!

http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/18/naked-sunbather-hanging-out-of-window-causes-crash-in-vienna-austria-4766142/

See you next time!

Week Ending 1st June 2014

Where does time go? I can't believe that it's June already! 

Things have been pretty busy at Occombe Farm for the last few weeks now with school groups visiting most days of the week, and weekend work is also becoming more common hence the lack of blogs!

Training for our 10km run is going reasonably well. With 5 weeks left until the race I managed to pass the 10km mark for the first time in training this morning, and that includes some pretty big hills along the way! The terrain around the Cockington route is even more extreme though so more training is definitely required. Vicky reached 8.4km around the same route this morning as well which is her personal best so far, and she is still improving every time too.

I have spent some of my spare time recently in the wildfowl conservation area behind our house where I have been keeping my eye on a group of young cygnets that were born a couple of weeks ago. You can see them growing each day, and in comparison to some ducks I have seen the swans are actually quite good parents. So far all 6 cygnets have survived.

You can see 2 tiny little heads poking out from underneath the mother's wing

For the last few weeks walking around the area has been especially colourful with wild flowers sprouting up here there and everywhere. There are also loads of nesting birds around, and for those of you watching Springwatch you'll know that many of the chicks have hatched and are on the way to fledging the nest.

There's a carpet of bluebells in the woodland at Occombe

We are very close to booking tickets to go to Iceland later on in the year, and this week's news article shows us the perfect way to get us and our luggage to the airport...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27636476

See you next time!