Easter Egg Trail

This Saturday from 11 till 3 there is an Easter Holiday treat for Haslemere kids at Swan Barn Farm. We will be running an easter egg trail. Follow the trail clues with your family around the beautiful woods and meadows and solve the clues to win your prize of a Cadbury Easter Egg. The trail will stay open till 4, but last chance to set off will be at 3pm. Car parking is in the Town centre car parks, make your way either down Collards Lane, or through the car park behind Collingwood Bachelor to find us. The trail costs £3 and there will be refreshments available as well.

There are lots of fantastic things to see at the Farm at the moment. Easter is a time of new life in the countryside and it is bursting out all around us. Just behind the High Street the blossom on the Pear trees is at its absolute perfect peak right now.

The apple blossom is a couple of weeks away, but right now the pear trees are alive and buzzing with the sounds of the local bees making the most of this spring bounty.

The sheep are enjoying the fresh flush of grass in the orchards and the new lambs are enjoying running round like maniacs and causing mischief in the spring sunshine.

One of them has earnt the nickname “bandit”, partly from the patches over her eyes (see below), but also from her seeming ability to find trouble and get into scrapes wherever possible.

Sarah has been saving up some of the eggs from our chickens so that we could rear a really special easter treat for our visitors, as well as providing some replacement birds for the flock that provide eggs for the table of our volunteers.

They were watched and looked after, turned regularly and kept snug in the incubator for three weeks with everyone wondering how they were doing.

A couple of days before they were due to hatch you could hear the muffled sounds of tiny “cheap’s” coming from inside the eggs, and two days later…

Success! Pretty cute aren’t they. They are Speckled and Buff Sussex chicks, traditional local breeds.

The animals will all be out and about at the farm on the day of the Easter Egg trail, it should be fantastic fun, hope to see you there.

 

 

No lambs yet, but…

The sheep that graze the orchards at Swan Barn Farm were due this week. No sign of lambs yet, but new life is obviously in the air, as… there’s a thrush nesting in my toolbox!

The toolbox is in the shed where I keep all of my shepherding gear. I went in there the other evening to get some feed for the sheep and nearly jumped out of my skin when a mass of flapping, feathers and crossness took off right by my side.

What a place to choose to lay her eggs! I left the toolbox near the shed window a few weeks ago and I guess the thrushes have been quietly nest building behind my back ever since. It is actually pretty quiet, nobody really goes in there apart from me, and because it’s near the window it is a nice warm spot.

I think the poor thrush was just as startled as me, but she came back to her nest as I regained my composure and quietly backed out of the shed.

We seem to be getting used to each other now. For the first day she took off when I went in to fetch bits and bobs, but came back pretty quickly to her beautiful eggs, now she just stays on the eggs and gives me a bit of a look.

I hope she manages to raise her chicks, its rather nice seeing her there whenever I go to fetch stuff. Funny the things you find in your toolbox sometimes.