We had a typical day on the farm today: lots of faces, old and new; some hard work; some cake; and a truly stupid idea that somehow worked.

The main mission for the day was to get the geese moved out from the small run in the orchard and into a much bigger field. Trevor and I had finished the post thumping for the fence on Wednesday but we still needed to get the netting up. We started with some chicken netting that we had been given by a friendly local thatcher who strips it off old roofs and has no further use for it. As more folk arrived, we also ran a length of stock net down the final side of the field – thankfully for once we got that tensioned up nicely with no mishaps. Whilst all this was going on the teenagers started work on digging a shallow pond for geese to wash and paddle in.

The fence took a good while to get up so we all stopped for tea and cake a little later than usual and I unveiled my next plan. We had to get the geese from their existing pen, across the garden, through the vegetable plot, over the bridge, down past the pigs and into their new field and my plan was to herd them there. There was a pretty sceptical reception to this idea but at least everyone wanted to watch even if they didn’t think it would work. So, we formed a human barrier around the geese and slowly everyone started shuffling off towards their new home. Amazingly, the geese followed along fairly meekly and it was no time before they were tucking in to their new field full of oilseed rape.

Once we’d moved the geese it became essential that we shift their house too – a heavy and smelly job that the boys got stuck in to. Whilst we were doing this, the girls finished off digging the pond, which we just managed to line but will have to fill up another day…

We had an exceptionally busy week last week, with emergency evening sessions on Tuesday and Thursday to fence off another corner of the pig field and build a new ark in it. This was in addition to the regular Wednesday and Saturday workdays. Our most dedicated member, Trevor deserves some kind of prize for having come up to the farm four times this week to help us in our time of need!

On Tuesday evening, Alan, Trevor and myself spent a happy couple of hours bashing in fence posts and tensioning up a run of stock wire. Em provided some inspiration by designing a sliding gate made from an old pallet and a few fence posts which we also made. The Thursday evening session started off badly when I soon realised that I had ordered half as much board for the ark walls as would be required. Fortunately, whilst we were standing around hunting for some more boards, Karen arrived with a crate in the boot of her car that could be broken down quickly to fill the gaps in the walls left by my error, phew! Following the plan used in our last home-made ark, we managed to get this one bashed together in the few hours we had left before sunset. Along the way, Trevor managed to bash in some more fence posts and we discovered Matt’s talent with a chisel.

On Saturday, we managed to finish clearing the old orchard area, including taking out some of the worst of the dead wood in the fruit trees. We now just need a wind-free day to be able to have a bonfire. We also had another delivery of crates – this time from Dan who had spotted a couple of large crates sitting outside the Cavendish Lab which he wasted no time in hauling back to the farm. They were massive – and so just the job for building a goose house with. Matt and Dan pulled together the basic structure just leaving me the small the matter of attaching a door and running a cable out for the heat lamp. So I finally managed to get the goslings into their new run, complete with big shed, on Sunday.

After a week off from the workdays over Easter, we got back to work last week with a big attack on the old orchard area. We spent Wednesday and Saturday clearing out the undergrowth around the old fruit trees to make room for some new duck runs. The brambles were quite incredible in size – as was the number and size of hawthorn and elder trees that had grown up since the orchard was last properly cared for.

The other job on Saturday was to build a stock fence in the pig field to separate the boys from the girls as the Old Spots are over three months old now and we don’t want any unplanned piglets! William did some great work bashing in the fence posts, whilst Matt had better timing, showing up just in time to knock a couple in and then break for tea. After tea and cake we strained and pegged in the stock netting – an operation that was complicated by the need to keep shoving the pigs back to the correct side of the fence.

Everyone also had a chance to inspect our new colony of bees which seem to have settled in very nicely and are building new honeycomb at quite a rate. We also handed out more of the ‘Russian Giant’ sunflowers for the children’s growing competition – I’m hoping for a winning height of over 10ft.

Today (Tuesday), I’ve just been out to visit the very helpful people at Gulliver’s Geese who have provided 30 day old goslings for us. These should grow up in to Christmas dinner – hard to picture at the moment as they are so cute and fluffy but I know it won’t last…