Week Ending 2nd February 2014

It's February already, and I've spent most of the week wondering where the last 5 months have gone since we arrived here at Occombe! We have only 2 weeks remaining on our contracts here and the future is still not really any clearer.

The rain has continued to fall most days, washing away the paths around the farm yet again. At least the ducks seem to be enjoying themselves! Needless to say that the drainage ditch project from the Anderson shelter is still not finished, and with preparations for the farm's next children's event in full swing it seems to  be sliding even further down the priority list!

Vicky and I went to Berry Head (a local nature reserve run by the Trust) for our biggest project of the week. Our diploma requires us to complete a practical habitat improvement task which we then have to report on, and so we chose to go and lend the Berry Head team a hand in clearing some of their heathland which has become overgrown.

Before: Very overgrown and inaccessible

Lowland heathland of this nature is now a scarce habitat in the UK, although what we do have makes up 20% of the entire world's lowland heathland area. By using brushcutters and a variety of other tools, we systematically removed all of the scrub that had grown across the area to allow the heather (which is currently lying dormant under the soil) the light and space that it will require to regrow. 

After: Back to bare earth so that the heather can regrow

All of the removed scrub was burnt in a controlled fire, to avoid it rotting down and adding unwanted nutrients to the area. 

This morning saw the first real patch of sun that we had seen all week, and being our day off we decided to take a slow walk through the meadows and the forest around the farm to see what bird life we could find. 

This Pheasant was trying his luck for any food dropping from the feeders above

At the bottom of the orchard we were privileged to see a male Cirl Bunting (a very rare bird in the UK whose distribution is limited to the south coastal region of Devon). 2 Goldcrests (the UK's smallest bird), a Heron, a Green Woodpecker and a male Pheasant were all on the mornings sightings list along with many of the common birds that are seen in their hundreds around here.

This Green Woodpecker's loud call gave his hiding place away!

This weeks amusing news story comes from America, and goes to show how far a man's love for his motorcycle can take him...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25987743

See you all next time :)

Week Ending 26th January 2014

It's the end of what has been a mentally rather than physically tiring week for us down in Devon.

Most of our spare time has been dominated by the question of what happens once our last 3 weeks here at Occombe are finished. For several weeks now we've been trawling through the job adverts weighing up pros against cons, and trying to judge whether swings or roundabouts are better for you. The answer after all of this soul searching is still not clear.

It's especially difficult when your head and your heart constantly pull you in opposing directions, and you are never quite sure which one to listen to. We've now sent in applications for a couple of different jobs (including one to stay here at Occombe), and I guess we'll just have to see how they get on. Sod's law is the one that we want the most is the one that's last to recruit, and so we may take another job only to find that we could have got the one we wanted. Equally if we turn down another offer first there's no guarantee that we'll even get an interview for it!

Whatever happens I'm sure we will have fun whichever direction we go in, and the only truly bad situation would be that we end up with none of them! 

Going for a walk through the woods

Our drainage trench at the back of the Anderson Shelter is still not completed as the flooding did not subside until the middle of the week, and pressures on out time meant that other things had to take priority when the weather actually did play ball! When it is finished (and the rain stops for long enough to get the camera out) I will take a couple of photos of the shelter and pop them on here as I know a few of you are keen to see it.

This week has seen us down at the seaside for a couple of days, with a coastal geography lesson on the cards for a few groups of school children. We have been helping them to discover the problems of coastal erosion by making them build a mini Torbay coastline out of sand, which is then subjected to some imitation waves (courtesy of a bucket of sea water). The challenge for the children is then to rebuild their model, but this time with coastal defences (such as sea walls built of rocks and stones) and we compare what differences their defences make to the erosion that their model suffers.

On another day we were filmed taking a small group of children rock pooling as part of a new promotional video for the Trust. So before too long there will be such a video out there on the internet with both of us being interviewed!

The great office reshuffle of 2014 is still in full swing, and much of our time has been taken by helping to pack up various offices and all their resources and move them to a new location (normally to find that the builders haven't quite finished yet!). 

This last weekend we got a chance to catch up with our friend Stuart with whom we worked on Flat Holm. Stu is now a trainee with the Devon Wildlife Trust living just up the road from us outside of Exeter. A few drinks were enjoyed by all as we caught up on our latest escapades!

Wildlife sightings have been few and far between this week with most of the animals doing the sensible thing for once and staying out of the rain! There were still a few birds down at the hide though where I was trying to keep myself dry during one of the showers!

A Bull Finch and a Blue Tit enjoying some sunflower seeds

This weeks news story is all about birds and comes from the Vatican. The white doves that the Pope releases are of course a well known sign of peace. However a Herring Gull and a Crow show what they think of this display of peace. They always say never work with animals....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25905108

See you next time! 

Week Ending 19th January 2014

It's been a quiet (and rainy) week here at Occombe Farm, with very few people tempted to come out in the bad weather. The weather continues to be remarkably mild for this time of year, although one day this week did bring quite a crisp frost with it.

The frosted details on the leaves looked amazing!

The main task of the week has actually been prompted by the bad weather, as the Anderson shelter in our wartime garden has been continuously flooding in the heavy rain. With anywhere up to 2 feet of water inside it has remained off limits to the public for quite some time, and so the decision was made to install a drainage system.

With the shelter already being buried half way into the ground there was a lot of digging involved to simply reach the base of the shelter where the pipe would be installed, followed by an even deeper trench that the pipe would then run off into. Finally even more digging would then create a soak away at the end of the pipe to take away all the water. The largest issue came in the form of the ground already being saturated, making the heavy clay soil here even heavier.

The start of the great dig, before the monsoon that followed around an hour later!

With the rain continually falling while we were digging the trench began to fill up around us, with our bailing out efforts not keeping pace with the water coming in! After 4 days of battling the elements we had to accept that the weather would have to improve and the water subside before we can finish the job. At the time of writing the water level is still an inch or so above the top of the trench, so finishing the job tomorrow is not looking likely!

Despite the bad weather, the birds have still been out in force with flocks of redwings, several herons and woodpeckers all being spotted on the farm.

Great Spotted Woodpecker hiding in the tree

Green Woodpecker down on the ground searching for ants

While the squirrels may be a nuisance eating all of the bird food they are still pretty cute!

Our application to work on the Calf of Man has unfortunately been unsuccessful. After making the shortlist we were not selected for an interview, but it is good to know that we are not falling at the first hurdle for these types of  job now. We still have a couple more irons in the fire so to speak, and we will wait and see what comes of them. 

This weeks odd news story comes from Japan, and highlights an old tradition for bridegrooms that I am glad we do not have in this country!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25777727

See you next time!

Week Ending 5th January 2014

So here we are in 2014! I hope that you all had a good Christmas and hopefully 2014 will be a good year for you all.

It's been a few weeks since I blogged last, so apologies to those of you that have been waiting patiently. If there were two words I could use to sum up the last few weeks they would be wet and windy. Certainly while we have been down in Devon I have never known an area to get so much rain, and the ground here has gone well beyond saturation point. I guess that it's a blessing that we are not any nearer the sea or a river on the farm down here otherwise flooding would become a serious consideration. The wet weather isn't bad for everybody though as these visiting ducks proved after the copious rain filled a ditch, forming a nice lake for them to swim on!

Nice weather for ducks!

The wind has been equally as strong, and on some nights we sit watching a film feeling the caravan rocking in the wind around us. It is a step up from a tent however, and it makes me think back to some of the terrible storms we camped through in various parts of the world!

It was great to get home and see friends and family for a short while at Christmas, and as you would expect there was certainly the feeling of eating too much good food afterwards! It was also nice to be a little lazy for a while as we put the studying on the back burner for quite a few of our "home days".

Merry Christmas everybody!

The course seems to be going well on the whole, and we are now approaching the point where we are about two thirds of the way through. It would be nice to see if we can finish it by the time our contract finishes in Devon, but as that is only 6 weeks away it might be cutting it a little fine!

Where we will be come 6 weeks time however still remains a mystery. We are going to apply to stay at the farm for a further 9  months in a similar capacity, which would also bring some extra qualifications along with it. We have also applied for a paid position  as wardens on the Calf of Man, and so we will wait and see how that application goes. If all else fails we do have some work lined up from June onward with the Kent Wildlife Trust, but at only 3 days a week and with no accommodation it falls behind the other two in terms of our current preferences.

So the real work begins again next week as the rest of the team come back to the farm following the Christmas break. It's going to be a busy time as there is a departmental shake up underway and we are all having to move offices as well as making space for a few new staff. Fingers crossed it will all run smoothly.

As a last resort should we not get a new job straight away, I could always try and use this blog to sell my skills to potential employers; much like this man from the Netherlands did....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25574651

Have a good week everybody!

Week Ending 8th December 2013

As per usual it’s been a busy couple of weeks here at the farm. Our Christmas elf trail is now fully up and running, and we have already had nearly 400 children through the door in the opening week!

Last weekend brought a visit from our friend Beth and her little boy Jack. We had a great time taking Jack around the farm and to the seaside, and spent endless hours playing with his toys. Once he was tired in the evenings we actually got to spend some time talking to Beth!

Beth kindly bought down some DIY Christmas decorations, and we sat on one afternoon making paper chains and designing cut out snowflakes. It was great fun and felt like we were back at school again.

DIY Christmas Tree!

This week saw a couple of school visits, and I finally got the chance to lead a school group for a full day’s activities. We spent the morning meeting the animals and doing activities along the nature trail, and the afternoon session was spent in the kitchen learning how to make pizzas! Thankfully the children seemed to be well behaved and interested in what was going on, so I think I will chalk that up as a success!

As part of our diploma we have this week been designing and conducting ecological surveys. Thanks to the summer on Flat Holm we have some excellent experience of conducting surveys, and the planning phase went quite smoothly. During the course of the week we have surveyed the hedgerows in the orchard and the rocky shoreline down at Goodrington Sands, and although neither survey turned up anything too exciting hopefully we recorded all the data we will need. Let’s hope the results and analysis sections go just as well!

Checking out the upper shore at Goodrington

With Christmas creeping closer and closer, the Trust organised a volunteer party with mince pies and mulled wine for all of the unpaid members of staff as well as casual volunteers. It was a very kind gesture by the trust and a good way for us all to meet some similar minded people who work at some of our other sites. It’s amazing how many volunteers we have in one capacity or another, and it’s fair to say that the amount of work that gets done wouldn’t be nearly possible without them.

This weeks amusing news story comes from right here in Devon. Is it just me or could this be the coolest bathroom door ever?!...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25283872

Week ending 24th November 2013

It's been a quiet couple of weeks down here on the farm in Devon, with far more going on off of the farm than on it.

Plenty of time has gone into studying in the evenings and on days off (which have actually been quite plentiful lately!). Some of what we are learning even seems to be sinking in which is good, and the general feedback from the work that we have submitted so far has been very positive.

On the farm most of the time has been spent in meetings or preparing for the onslaught of visitors that our children's Christmas Trail will bring, which scarily is due to start at the end of this coming week!

The weekend just gone was a very enjoyable one as Mum and Dad were able to come down for a long weekend and have a good look at where we are working and what we are up to. 

It's fair to say that we were right royally spoiled for the 4 days that they were here, eating out every day which is something we are definitely not used to. Makes a change from beans on toast with Asda value bread and value beans!

We had a great few days exploring some of the local areas including Totnes, Cockington and Plymouth, and remarkably we had the best four days of weather that we have sampled since arriving in Devon so far!

The highlight of the 5 days since our guests returned to Kent has been the cider tasting day that work took us to on Friday. Heading just a few miles away to the Hunt's cider workshop, we were able to try a number of different ciders as well as getting the full behind the scenes tour of how it's all made. 

The cider press

The pulping machine and press were quite incredible, and at 200 years old they were installed by the current owner's Grandfather. It's a real family business that has been passed through the generations, and although in the near future they are having to move operations to a new factory hopefully that family and community spirit will be maintained.

Now that's what I call a bottle of cider!

This entry's amusing news story comes from France, and goes to show why making "bets" over an unlikely event could just come back to haunt you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-25038456

See you next time :)

Week Ending 10th November 2013

This edition of the blog is dedicated to the memory of our friend Dub Shaba, who sadly passed away early this week. He will be dearly missed by many of us.

Dub at Vicky and myself's wedding (second from right)

I will never forget the first day that I met Dub. He was a colleague of Vicky's, and had offered to give us a lift up to London (where he went home at the weekends) to save us the cost of a bus ticket each. 

In typical fashion Vicky fell asleep in the back of the car within 15 minutes of us leaving Dover, leaving me the whole 2 hour journey to talk to a person I had never met before! Fortunately one of Dub's biggest passions was football, and was a season ticket holder at his beloved Arsenal (even the best people have their flaws!). Needless to say there wasn't a single quiet or awkward moment during the course of that journey, and by the time we got out of the car at the other end it felt like we were with somebody that I had known for years. Not because he had told me his life story several times over, but simply because he was one of the most open and friendly people I had ever met. To this day I don't think I have met another person who is able to smile so much, seemingly regardless of what kind of a day he was having. 

So now I've got the sentimental start out of the way, it's once again been a busy couple of weeks since I was able to blog last.

During the half term week the farm hosted it's 3 day Halloween trail, and provided all of us staff with an excuse to dress up and scare small children! A series of challenges were set out around the nature trail, and once those challenges were completed the children could come back to the farmyard to claim a packet of sweets and do some free craft activities.

Dressed as a wizard (I think!) helping children to make spooky masks

During the course of the 3 days we had over 1100 children (and all of their families) come and complete the trail, plus quite a few more that had just come to soak up the atmosphere. Considering we were only expecting 600-800 children it's fair to say that we were pretty tired come the end of each day!

The majority of this week just passed was taken up by hosting over 200 children from a local school over 4 days. Most of the time was spent working in the woods down the road, and the activities were focused on team building and fire-craft.

The children seemed to have a great time, with the competitive edge between groups only spilling over on a few occasions! For the best part their excitement was channeled into trying to complete the challenges that we had set them. These included "Cross the Bog" (using milk crates and planks of wood), "Rope Bridges" (build between trees), "Blindfold Trail" (following a rope through the woods blindfolded with a team mate offering advice) and "Marshmallow Fires" (building and sustaining a fire long enough to toast a marshmallow on).

I finished the week by working on a "Migratory Bird Watch" at Berry Head, one of the Trust's other local sites.

While there were not a huge number of species on the move (in comparison to last years event which saw far greater numbers) there were still quite a lot of birds for us to enjoy.

A break in the recent rain made for a great day of bird watching

15-20 Harbour Porpoises had congregated just off of the headland, and flying above hoards of Gannets, Kittiwakes and Gulls were doing their level best to pick up any fish that the porpoises were directing toward the surface.

There were around 150 Guillemots all stationed along the edge of one of the cliffs, and it was quite a sight when suddenly all of them headed out to sea to go in search of food.

Not my best picture by a long way, even with the zoom lens maxed out you can only just make out the Guillemots on the cliff ledges. Locally they are known as "Brixham Penguins"

Cormorants and Shags were frequently spotted as well, while some of the smaller birds including Stonechats, Yellowhammers, Meadow Pipits, Linnets and Robins were all in the spotlight at one time or another.

A Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk added a bird of prey element, while Crows, Jackdaws and Ravens also made an appearance. 

Now in that last sentence I noticed "Jack" and "Sparrow" both feature, and that leads me on to this weeks news stories. I bet there have been a few Birthday cakes over the years to feature the lovable Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, but I bet that none of them have been quite like this one...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-24852681

Finally this week I have a second story that highlights a breakthrough for women in football, and it comes courtesy of my beloved Dover Athletic's FA Cup match that took place yesterday...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24885560

See you all next time :)