Bugs in the bushes

Part of the Countryside Skills course is to be able to identify the different plants and animals living in our local habitats. We found beetles, spiders, slugs, centipedes, millipedes, butterflies, caterpillars and more while bug hunting in the garden - all very exciting!

There are many beautiful wildflowers out at the moment.  We identified cowslips, red campion, white dead nettle, buttercups and cow parsley among others.

We pressed the flowers and then tested our memories (and got the ID guides out again) a few weeks later when they had dried out.

The results have been preserved by laminating and will feature in the students’ portfolios.

Chickens and beans!

This week we have been learning how to keep the Earth Trust chickens happy and healthy. We topped up their water and fed them – our hens are friendly and like to eat from our hands. They even like a cuddle now and then!

They lay us lots of tasty eggs which we collect and carry carefully to the kitchen for the Earth Trust staff to eat. Sometimes we get to make them into cakes too!

We've also had a check on the peas and beans we sowed back in February. The broad beans were ready for planting out in the vegetable patch. 

Each student dug a hole with a trowel, carefully removed the plant from the pot and placed it in its new home.

 

It is especially important to water our beans with the dry weather we’ve had recently. We will water them every week at the beginning of our session.

We are looking forward to eating our broad beans later in the year!

Preparing the ewes for tupping

Although most people might not be thinking about the spring Lambing Weekends just yet, we are already getting prepared. For there to be any lambs at all, the ewes have to spend a month with Billy No Mates the ram.

Our students from Langtree School have been helping Emma the shepherd get the ewes ready!

First we had to gently encourage the ewes into a long pen, so that they could all be treated.

We then wormed them all, gave each ewe a multivitamin, dagged them (removed dirty wool from around their bottoms to prevent flystrike), took down the numbers from their ear tags, and drew on them with a huge crayon so that we knew if we’d missed one!

Last but not least, it was Billy No Mates’ turn. Emma showed us how to trim his feet so that he can run about and do his job properly.

Then it was Oscar’s turn to rub some bright orange paint onto Billy’s chest. This is called a ‘raddle’ and rubs off onto the ewe’s backs when they are ‘tupped’ (mated with). It shows Emma which ewes are likely to be pregnant, and which ewes need to stay with the ram for another cycle.

We all learnt a lot and had a very memorable afternoon! Now we are looking forward to spring and helping Emma with those lambs...

Thank you Emma for letting us come and help you!