Week Ending 11th May 2014

So here we are into May! A mixture of working at weekends and other projects means that it's been a few weeks since the last blog and so apologies for that.

Things have started to get a little busier on the farm in the past few weeks, with more school groups coming for educational sessions as well as the ever increasing number of animals that we look after. Since I last blogged we have had some little chicks arrive that will go on to become Blue Maran chickens. We are hoping to have one cockerel and all the rest as hens, so there might not be a happy ending for some if we end up with too many cockerels! 

We have had a real mixture of weather in the past few weeks, some scorching sunny days and others that really aren't worth the mention. As I sit and write this in the bay window of our flat the sun is streaming through the window (albeit making it a little hard for me to see my screen) and it looks like it's going to be a wonderful day.

This Peacock butterfly has been out enjoying the sunshine

We welcomed our parents (both mine and Vic's) down for a few days a week or so ago (IT'S JUST STARTED THROWING IT DOWN WITH RAIN OUTSIDE...WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!) and we had a great few days exploring some of the local areas. Probably the highlight was a trip on the "Round Robin", a train, boat and bus trip that runs in a triangle between Paignton, Dartmouth and Totnes.

The train on it's way between Paington and Dartmouth

There was plenty of good food eaten over the course of the few days, and numerous stops for cakes and ice creams in most of the places that we went to visit.

Enjoying a sunny afternoon on the boat between Dartmouth and Totnes

We have this week officially entered ourselves for the Cockington Caper, a 10km run which will take place in July. We have started following a training schedule which should help us to build up our performance ahead of the big race, and so far things are going well. The training becomes slightly more demanding next week and so we'll see how I feel after that!

This weeks slightly odd news story comes from Turkey, where it seems one broadcasting station failed to do their homework on this game show contestant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27349394 

See you all again soon!

Week Ending 13/04/2014

Wow! Here we are in April already, and again it's a couple of weeks since I have been able to get round to blogging.

We have now officially moved into our new accommodation, and I have the pleasure of looking out across the beach and the bay each morning as I sip my coffee and eat my breakfast. While I do in some ways miss our little quirky caravan, I am rather enjoying having a little more space and a solid building with plumbed in heating.

The upstairs flat of this building is our new home!

Work as normal has been pretty busy, and this last week we have been running one of our ever popular children's trails as it is currently their Easter holidays. Over the 4 days that the trail ran we had nearly 1,000 paying customers, and so I think that we can again class this one as a success.

The theme on this occasion was Wonderland at Occombe (essentially Alice in Wonderland avoiding copyright issues) and as per normal a series of challenges that our team built lined the way ending with a chocolate prize for the kids.

As per usual dressing up was on the cards, and I spent most of my time dressed as the Mad Hatter. The character is nearly a perfect match for my personality, and so I spent many an hour spouting nonsense at a load of children and running around like an idiot.

Dressed as the mad hatter with a girl who has just finished the trail

Vicky and the other girls also filled the role of the Queen of Hearts, and although I was spared this role a dare on the final day to wear the dress around the farm did see me don the outfit for a few hilarious minutes. You can't say that we don't have a good team spirit in our little group!

We have had some new additions to the farm since I last blogged. 10 young quails have been introduced as an extra element for the children to see, and in about a fortnights time we will also be getting a new batch of little piglets too!

Cute little quails!

I have now completed all of the work required for my level 2 diploma, and I will now just have to wait to have it marked. Vicky is not far behind, and so hopefully by the end of April we will know how we have done (fingers crossed).

This week's news story comes from New Zealand where miraculously an engagement ring that was lost in the sea has made it's way home...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26920809

See you next time :)

Week Ending 23rd March 2014. Catch up time!

Apologies that it has been a couple of weeks since my last post, but things have been just a little bit hectic lately!

So, since my last blog we have started our new trainee placement at the farm and so far it has been a busy but enjoyable few weeks. Vicky and I have teamed up with 2 girls called Emily and Jenny, and together we will make up the voluntary education team here at the farm. There is a good team spirit around the office and so hopefully we will all have a great summer together. 

Hopefully all being well we will be moving into our new accommodation tomorrow, so we will be living right by the beach for the next 8 months which will make a very welcome change!

The first few weeks of the new placement have been mainly getting the farm ready for the upcoming season. I have finally had the chance to fill in the drainage ditch that I made behind the Anderson Shelter quite some time ago, and directly next to this we have now leveled the ground as we are going to be introducing a couple of bee hives to the farm too!

A few photos of the Anderson Shelter for those who wanted to see more previously

Don't think we can fit 150 people into ours!

The inside is also getting some TLC after a tough winter. I love the old fashioned wireless at the top at the far end.

We have also made a lot of effort to get the "wartime garden" ready for the coming season. All of the growing beds have been re-edged and dug ready for planting, and we have even added a few new beds for extra space. All of the crops that will be planted in the garden will have been grown during the war, and we have developed a crop rotation plan for future years according to a dig for victory poster that we have at the farm. All of the children that come with their school to do WW2 cookery will be able to pick some of this veg and use it in their cooking project.

Part of the "wartime garden" before work started

Our level 2 diploma is very nearly at it's end now, and indeed I am half way through the final assignment. While I have enjoyed the course incredibly, I will be ready to have a little bit more time where I don't have to feel guilty about not working all the time! We have also started several units of a level 3 diploma with the trust, and it will be interesting to see how those develop as we go.

This weeks news story comes from right here in the UK, and is all about a pair of guide dogs who found their owners love... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-26705194

See you next time :)

Week Ending 2nd March 2014

And so we find ourselves in March already, and most of this week has been spent gearing up to start our new placement at Occombe Farm tomorrow. The week has flown by, and we have once again spent large chunks of it studying away!

We had been hoping to complete the course before taking on the new position, but alas we've not quite been able to do it. As we will be taking on more units of a Level 3 diploma as part of our new placement it looks like we may be working a 37.5 hour week as well as trying to study 2 diplomas simultaneously! Nobody can say that we do things the easy way!

At least there is not far to go with the current diploma, as we are currently mid way through the final unit. Probably around another 4 weeks and we will be there. We will have packed a 12 month course into 6 months, and as such we only have to pay half of the year's tuition fees which is a bonus!

The most exciting moment of the week was had over at Berry Head, where we went to help release a few Guillemots and Razorbills that had been contaminated with oil following the recent storms. They had been rehabilitated by the RSPCA and after several weeks rest were ready to make their way back out into the wild again. Vicky helped release some of the birds from their boxes, while I took up my position alongside the BBC camera crew to get a few snaps of the action.

These 3 weren't in a hurry to go anywhere!

Most of the birds immediately flew away off of the cliffs, while others seemed keen to hang around for a bit of publicity before making their way off out to sea. Hopefully the conditions out there will treat them a bit better this time around!

A Razorbill (near left) and 2 Guillemots freshly released

A short video of one of the releases is available here: Guillemot Release

Amusing stories have seemed a little light on the ground this week, but the idea of this potential new sport made me smile....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26270603

Have a good week everybody!

Week Ending 23rd February 2014

The couple of weeks since I last blogged have been certainly some of the busiest, but equally possibly the least exciting in recent history.

The good news that comes out of all of it is that Vicky and I have both been accepted to stay and complete a full 9 month training post with at Occombe Farm, which puts to bed weeks of speculation over what was going to happen next. We didn't find out until our very last day of work, which meant that had we not been selected to stay we would have had to pack our caravan and move out in the space of one evening! Fortunately though we needn't pack anything just yet, and although we will be moving to new accommodation (this time actually made of bricks and mortar, and with a sea view!) that will be a gradual process over the coming weeks.

Most of our recent days have been pretty boring to the outsider as we have sat in our office studying, writing essays and presentations to try and finish our diploma. Indeed some nights, having arrived in the office at 8.30am, we haven't left until 1.30am the following morning (with suitable breaks to check on the score of the curling though!).

The half term week saw us help out with the children's trail that the farm was hosting. While it was still very busy, with around 470 children taking part, it wasn't half as bad as the 1100 children that attended the Halloween trail in the October half term. The recent weather I don't doubt will have played some part in that, with some parts of the trail now looking more like a pig wallow than a woodland!

As per normal dressing up for the kid's trail was compulsory!

We did manage a short trip home (only back for a day and a half) to celebrate Vicky's Dad's 65th birthday, and 14 other family members also battled their way through the horrid driving conditions to be there on the day as well. The food at the restaurant we chose was great though and a great time was had by all. 

The last 2 days have been a revelation as we have finally achieved 24 hours without rain! We took a break yesterday from the relentless studying to go for a walk down to Cockington Country Park. While snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils have been evident for a few weeks now (such has been the mildness of the winter), we were still not expecting to be seeing bees and butterflies yet which are now already starting to make an appearance! Let's hope we don't get a bad cold spell come along and kill them all off.

The rangers have been busy clearing the paths between Occombe and Cockington

This weeks news story comes from the USA. This has got to be the most over the top way to deal with a vending machine that didn't quite work properly. Enjoy....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26282532

See you next time :)

Week Ending 9th February 2014

So here we are, into our final week at Occombe Farm! 

The last week has once again brought more than it's fair share of rain, and if it carries on at this rate I could be asking for snorkeling equipment for my birthday this year!

Although it has been wet it has in truth been an incredibly busy week, and all said and done I only worked one day actually at the farm.

This little Great Tit made the most of a break in the rain!

Throughout the week Vic and I have been helping to run a teacher training course down at Warren Barn, our local bunkhouse residential site. People have come from across the area to stay for the week and learn all of the information and skills that they will need to teach children about the marine environment, and over the next number of months they will put what they have learnt into a diploma style scheme in order to achieve a qualification.

We've looked at recreational uses for the marine world, looked into the processes and feasability of sustainable fishing, covered rock pooling techniques and identification skills and most importantly how to keep everybody safe while they are by the sea.

On Wednesday Vic and I went to Honiton where we spent the day taking a course in riding All Terrain Vehicles, quad bikes in this case. It's surprising how many jobs require you to be able to use one of these, especially if they cover a large area or have awkward terrain.

In keeping with the rest of the week the weather was terrible on the day, and a 40 minute journey ended up taking us over 2 hours with the number of roads blocked by trees, floods and power cables. Driving slightly further afield from the farm really highlighted how luckily we've got away with the recent bad weather, as we have no rivers to burst their banks and we are a couple of miles from the sea. Some of the fields we were passing were under 4 or 5 feet of water, and in most cases the very tops of fence posts sticking out of the water were the only indication that the water was not supposed to be there.

Despite spending all day riding the bikes around in the rain and hail, we did enjoy ourselves and our waterproofs actually kept us bone dry! Both of us passing the course was obviously the main priority, and our aching bodies were very relieved when he handed us the forms to say that we had passed!

Through the rain spotted lens 2 very wet riders heading back to the dry and warm office

So this week the Winter Olympics in Sochi got under way, and congratulations must go to Jenny Jones who has won Britain's first ever medal in an event held on snow. Well done Jenny! 
Some of the athletes haven't been impressed with their accommodation in the Olympic village though, and among them is Johnny Quinn whose bobsleigh training earns him the honour of making it into my amusing story of the week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-olympics/26096612 

See you all next time!

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 :)