Feeling overwhelmed by the forthcoming festivities? Why not visit The Community Farm for a healthy dose of the great outdoors. Enjoy the lake views, take in a lungful of loveliness and soothe away the stress with a stroll. You’ll soon be ready to tackle anything. Even Christmas.>
A winter wonderland
Binoculars are a must-have piece of kit at The Farm, especially if you’re a nature nut like me. Eyes to the skies, I’m drawn to a kestrel, patient and perfectly poised, its fan-tail tucked in and wings out wide. It hovers over a patch of dripping grassland close to our polytunnels. The morning frost is fast retreating and some four-legged-furry is clearly chancing its luck in the thaw. Bad mistake for said creature. A pair of precision claws descends, and plucks it from the pasture.Watching nonchalantly in the nearby Festival Field, a fox sits and scratches. Through my lenses I catch the flash of vermillion. He’s raising his head upwards to absorb the last of the sun’s weak warmth. His nose twitches and my scent sends him scuttling sideways towards a tangled hedgerow. I’m a fox fan, and that spot made my day.
When you start to look at the landscape around you, it opens a door of delights that makes the soul sing. A whole world you were previously ignorant about, is suddenly revealed. Sir Tim Smit (co-founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall), put it beautifully in a radio interview recently. He said: “It’s like throwing flour on the invisible man.”
Hark the glad sound
If it’s joyful singing you’re after this season, our songbirds provide a playlist to rival any carol service. Earlier this year we held a community event where we built dozens of bird boxes to encourage robins, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits and nuthatch to nest. We’ve big, bold Mistle thrush and Song thrush too. Occasionally we catch sight of a pheasant, all beautifully turned-out and strutting its stuff. I just love their comical call of over-the-top alarm, like some panto dame who’s had her bottom unexpectedly pinched.Our swallow and swift colonies left in September, but the rookery behind our warehouse, more than makes up for the noise. Those bad-tempered crows just love a bust-up, especially if a buzzard bothers their roost.
At night, owls echo across the valley. Chris Sperring MBE, from the Hawk and Owl Trust, is helping us encourage them to The Farm. We’ve a large barn owl, and two tawny owl boxes in our trees. We were delighted to discover just last month, a pair of tawny’s occupying one of the nest boxes. Our policies are paying-off.
Wildlife flourishes at The Farm because we give birds and mammals a place to breed and feed. We plant wildflowers to encourage pollinators, we leave large field margins, and avoid cutting hedgerow habitats before they bear fruit. We’re 100% organic, so there’s no harmful herbicides or pesticides poisoning the earth either.
Come and join the celebration
We’re open to all and we welcome visitors to the land. So come all ye faithful friends of The Farm; finish-up your feasts, abandon those armchairs, and turn off the telly. Indulge in some peace and joy in this favoured spot, and witness nature-friendly farming first-hand, in all its magnificent glory.It’s time to throw some flour.
Ally Laing
Marketing Manager
