Primary School Visits Farm

Yesterday we had a visit from one of our local primary schools arranged by the charitable arm of the the Countryside Alliance, the Countryside Alliance Foundation (http://www.countrysidealliance.org/).
 A photographer/journalist from our local paper, The Carmarthen Journal, also turned up, so we hope there will be good report on the visit in next weeks edition.
 Despite the threat of horrible weather a group of 30 3-4year olds arrived during the morning in a state of high excitement. The visit got off to a wonderful start with one the little girls finding a baby frog (broga bach) in the grass as she got off the bus. Fortunately the Farmer managed to catch it before a hoard of curious small children trampled on it and they were all able to see it at close quarters.

After a demonstration of sheep shearing and a good walk to see some cattle ( to wear them out !) they ate their picnic lunches sitting on bales of straw in one of the sheds. Lunch was followed by the Farmer showing how butter is made. In good Blue Peter style we had prepared some earlier, though a small hand churn was passed around for everyone to have a go and then I spread some of the fresh butter on to crackers for them to taste.

After being shown a very big tractor with engine revving loudly which impressed the little boys no end, we took them to see the laying hens, Two sensible little girls were then allowed to go with the basket to collect the eggs...they were thrilled! The Farmer caught one of the Bluebells who very patiently put up with being stroked & cooed over.

We had a lovely time with then children and although they were so young I hope they got some inkling of what a farm is all about and where their food comes from. However, when I asked one of the little boys what had been the best bit of the day he said after a long pause for thought, ' Going to the toilet!.' I was somewhat taken aback! The facilities are in a rather basic but perfectly clean & functional portable wooden 'tardis' known as the Ty Bach, (Welsh colloquialism meaning 'little house') built by the Farmer that is plumbed in with flushing loo and wash basin, but I would doubt it merits being the high light of the day!

Newport Pembrokeshire, Coetan Arthur, Nevern Castle, Welsh Game Fair with Mud,

The Famer & I have given ourselves two days off, as it is raining (!) and spent the first day pottering around Newport (Pembs). It is a tiny place but with a wealth of excellent galleries (http://www.newportcollective.co.uk/, a lovely jumbled junk/antique/curio/book shop where we picked up some wonderful history & travel books from the early part of the 20th century (they don't write books like that any more!) and several good coffee shops. A perfect  place for pottering in the rain.
Just on the ouskirts of Newport there is Coetan Arthur, a impressive cromlech which is approached rather bizarrely by a footpath through a small cul-de-sac of smart modern bungalows with neatly manicured lawns & perjink (a good descriptive Scottish word) gardens. Indeed, the last bungalow has the chamber just yards away from its kitchen window. Although the stones themselves are impressive, the cap stone balanced on only two points, it does lack the atmosphere of Pentre-Ifan because of its close proximity to 21st century suburbia.
After calling on some friends not seen for long time to admire their very beautiful newly renovated house, we then went to Nevern castle which has had some recent archaeological digs.done. It was always a lovely place, just a large mound in a wood with magnificent beech trees, but no real castle remains visible. Now, after careful tree-felling and excavation of stone work and some clearing of the moat it is still a wonderful place but more clearly the remains of a castle, though the remains are not extensive. It has fascinating history the details of which can be found at http://www.neverncastle.co.uk/.

Yesterday we went to the Welsh Game Fair held near Llandeilo, in the rain and the mud was incroyable!! Nonetheless we had a very enjoyable time though progress around the showground was very slippery and our boots were rapidly caked in thick sticky mud, yuch! which made walking around quite difficult. I think the people with push-chairs & very small children probably suffered the most.
We were very entertained to see on our arrival at the Countryside Alliance stand that a photograph of the Farmer has been used on one of their large display boards. It is superb picture of him introducing a group of school children to our dairy cows. The picture was one of many taken by Charles Sainsbury-Plaice during a visit to Penyrallt by a school from a Carmarthen that was arranged by the Countryside Alliance Foundation,
http://www.countryside-alliance-foundation.org.uk/.

Birch Sap Wine, More Filming; Countryside Alliance Foundation

Last evening I accompanied the Farmer down to one of our bottom fields to collect his harvest of birch sap. The previous day he had tied some bottles over the cut ends of a couple of low branches on the birch trees and by the following evening there was about a litre of sap & from all the bottles together there was sufficient quantity to start off a brew of birch sap wine.
Birch sap is one of the easiest wine making ingredients to gather. It just pours out of the trees at this time of year when the tree is cut. We have also seen the sap dripping from a sycamore tree where a branch had been removed but it is not suitable for wine making.

Birch Sap Wine
1 gallon birch sap
2lbs cane sugar
2 oranges or lemons, sliced
1 pkt. wine yeast
1 Campden tablet

Warm but do not boil the sap to dissolve the naturally occuring sugars in it. Pour the sap over the squeezed halves & juice of the oranges or lemons.
When cooled to 55 degrees F. add the yeast and proced with the normal wine-making process.

This recipe comes from one of the Farmer's favourite books, 'The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible' . The title says a lot about the book & the Farmer, I think!

We have spent the morning filming with Rachel Evans, the director of the Countryside Alliance in Wales. She has a project to make a series of short films about farming and food production.
She came to Penyrallt to shoot scenes around the farm and then to interview the Farmer & me about various issues and topics.
We spoke about food labelling, the importance of getting school children onto farms to learn about the countryside & food, the TB problem, foxes, the crazy amount of paperwork we have to deal with, the closure of small local abattoirs and many other issues that beset the lives of us in the countryside.
We first met Rachel through the Countryside Alliance Foundation when we volunteered to host a school visit arranged by the Foundation. It was one of the best visits we have had...100 children over 2 days from a very deprived school in Carmarthen. None of the children ever been on a farm before and they had such a lovely day...just to seeing them running in a field of grass was wonderful and if they went away with nothing more than that experience it would have been enough to justify bringing them to the farm.