The baking hot temperatures we saw at the beginning of this month proved the swimming pool to be an even bigger hit with our guests as they were able to use our new sun loungers.  Despite the fact that we seem to have reverted back to the traditional wet English weather, we are optimistic that August will see the loungers being used a great deal more.

With our holiday cottages now just about to enter the peak season we have a couple of new additions to entertain our younger guests.  Apple and Crumble have established their home in one of our top barns adjacent to the seven pigs.  Far more gentle than the pigs at feeding time these big fluffy things should prove a hit with young holiday visitors.

Toby, our gamekeeper is busily preparing for the arrival of the rest of our pheasants for this year, the first of which have just hatched in our incubator and are coming along nicely.  Our ducklings are due to hatch next week and the first of the pheasant poult deliveries is due the last week in June.  Any holiday guests that will be here in August will undoubtedly meet our pheasant population on our country lanes!

We had some new arrivals this afternoon fresh from the market at Sedgmoor. Seven new pigs (Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy and Dopey) moved into new quarters that had been prepared for them over the last few weeks. Absolutely exhausted from their stressful day at the market they quickly settled in and after a troughfull of grub they were soon snoring peacefully in the thick bed of straw that had been prepared for them. Their new home is easily accessed from the holiday cottages and away from the more machinery focused areas of the farming operation providing a safe environment for our younger guests to learn about animal husbandry.     

With the calving season now well underway, with 20 successful births to date, yesterday saw the arrival of our first new-born lambs with a pair and a singleton born to two proud mothers. Thankfully the weather over the next few days is forecast to be pretty kind as we're expecting a pretty busy period over the next few days with multiple new births of lambs and calves. 

Upon our Spring inspection of the lake, we were alarmed to see that a large amount of bank erosion had occurred to the island. We believe this has been caused by the high water levels and strong winds this winter. To prevent any further erosion and to protect the bank we have created a woven willow barrier more commonly seen on chalk streams in Hampshire. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this will do the trick. Within hours of completing the barriers we noticed the carp are taking great interest in them and we think they may use them to spawn against. Our future plans are to back fill them with soil and start to plant up these areas with aquatic plants to attract even more wildlife.