APPLE AND PUMPKIN WEEKEND
This was a very busy weekend. Over 250 people visited
the farm for pumpkin carving, open fire cooking, tractor rides, pig
feeding, stories, fantastic food and more.
See what happened by viewing these slideshows
created by
some of our roving reporters!
in
the orchard
at the apple press
in
the barn
on the pumpkin trail
Thank you to all the photographers! You will need a the Flash Player to view these.
OPEN FARM SUNDAY
This event was a national open day organised by LEAF to
encourage farms to be open to the public for the day. We
enthusiastically agree with this idea and this year extended our
activities to offer tractor & trailer rides, which were very
popular with all ages & a straw bale den for younger visitors.
We
also had mini workshops with Jane working with wool; Lucy and another
Jane with clay from the farm, Jenny with Food Miles, Emma printing, Jo
making tree puppets and Kevin telling stories in the magnificent yurt.
Henry, Keith and Matt played some wonderful music in the orchard which
they recorded and links to this recording can be found on our website.
FRIENDS’ DAYS
These continue to the benefit of visitors, farm and
organicARTS with surprisingly only one washed out due to rain. Despite
encouragement not many ‘Friends’ attend these days
so we
are extending them to include volunteers and much of the activity this
year will be centred on the community garden.. They are as usual
accompanied by home made refreshments and convivial company. If
you’d like to join us on one or more of these days
– just
turn up, but make sure you’ve become a Friend first or come
clutching your £5 joining fee if you want a relaxing time or
be
prepared to get involved in some hard work!
PLAY DAYS
We had another successful summer in the city parks and
had
just about dried out and were able to enjoy the sunshine for the last
ones! Clearing away wet soggy equipment so often did test us but we
were made happy by the enthusiastic families who came to create and
play despite the torrents! Our woodland set up worked well on many
levels and received many positive comments. Children made willow leaf
weavings, dragonflies and butterflies, owls, woodland crowns and
shields, dormice finger puppets, woodland animal masks, tree puppets,
leaf string prints, a giant tree with leaf rubbings and paintings,
wiggly worms, butterfly masks and one of the most popular activities,
minibeasts from west town clay with sticks, seeds and leaves for legs,
antennae and wings. Families were enthralled by Kevin’s tree
stories and people of all ages searched to find their birth trees and
find out more about them on the tripods. Young children played with the
wooden farm and really enjoyed the added tactile element of grain
whilst adults watched and took a breather and or read some of the tree
or farm books and information. The work that farmers do to protect
woodlands, hedgerows and wildlife as part of the countryside
stewardship is vital and being able to bring some of this knowledge to
families in urban areas in a fun way is a joy.
BAT WALK
Our bat walk was held on a warm June evening. Our bat
man was
injured from a branch in his eye the previous evening whilst out doing
a bat survey so Jo intrepidly became a bat woman for the evening! With
the knowledge bat man, Dave Fee, had imparted to her, and with some bat
book research and Dave’s bat detector ready for action the
group
of about 10 set out into the realms of the unknown. The bat detector
passed around the group and we looked and listened avidly as we walked
into the dusk. At 9.45 , as predicted by the batman we excitedly heard
the noise we had all been intently listening for. Above our heads
swooped the most beautiful of creatures delicately winging there way
from the shelter of trees into the open to catch insects for their
breakfast. They looked a little like small swallows and we all said
that without the bat detector we may have mistaken them for birds. The
batman is now fully recovered and will be running a bat walk and a
badger walk in the new year..
FAMILY BUSHCRAFT DAY
Patrick and Owen, our grand-sons, went along with their
parents to the Bushcraft Day at West Town Farm. They really enjoyed
themselves and several weeks later, home in Cambridge, they are still
talking about it.
Granny: What did you like best?
Owen: Making the fire
Patrick: Making the fire and cooking
G: Why did you like the fire best?
O: It was really hard and good making the spark light the dried
mushrooms.
P: I liked cooking the egg in the foil with Mum and Dad in our group.
O: I liked eating the egg, but it had ash on it.
G: What else did you like?
O: Collecting the plants to eat and making the shelter. The hawthorn
tasted like basil and you can eat white clover.
P: I liked making the string from nettles. You can pick nettles so they
don’t sting you by holding the stalks tight. Then you squish
the
stems and cut them into long strips, then you twist them and it makes
very, very strong string.
G: What else did you like?
O: I liked making the shelter, and when I come back to Devon
I’d like to stay in a shelter all night.
P: I liked cooking the dough on the stick with the blackberry and
apple.
Interview conducted by Cory Lyons
BEEF BBQ
The wonderful flavour of West Town beef is spreading in
reputation and everyone felt replete after eating their beef and
drinking some local beer. This was the second of what we hope will be
frequent events where you can eat & buy West Town beef. In the
same
week the beef could be sampled at a Shillingford Organics Open Day and
at Up The Park a festival run by Crediton Arts Centre in Shobrooke Park
the organiser described the food as 'the best yet'.
BARN DANCE
Our annual barn dance with Red Shed was enjoyed as
enthusiastically as ever despite a lower turn out than usual, probably
due to bad weather (this phrase is inevitably going to crop up in many
organisations reports of many events this year) not everyone seems to
have got the message that our barn is now more weatherproof and we have
lights that stay on all evening!
YURT MAKING:
My little girl and I attended two fantastic weekends
hosted by Organic Arts and Viv
Goodings in some woodland on the farm
during early May. Viv demonstrated, taught and mentored the group in
the green wood skills necessary for the construction of what is called
a bentwood yurt. These amazing structures are incredibly robust
dwellings, round in shape with a lovely domed roof.
So, we learned to
fell trees, strip the bark off, cleave the wood (proper old school
woodlore!), and then to shape the cleaved wood into trellis poles which
make the walls of the yurt. Other poles were steam bent to make the
roof ribs and the crowning achievement was the central roof wheel which
thanks to Viv’s skill is functional and finished. But
everyone involved soon showed their talents, we all chipped in with
chat fuelled work, having a go at every job involved and it was in a
word, brilliant. All that remains to do in this creative process is for
me to sew the canvas and for the group to regroup for the grand
assembly and a celebration. Rob
Come and see the yurt and enjoy it with Organic Arts at
upcoming
events. A big thank you to the Elmgrant Trust for a
grant
towards the materials
for this
WILD FLOWER WALK:
In April Organic Arts hosted a spring wild flower walk
with John Voysey,
who's been observing and painting wild flowers for
years. He took a group of about 12 of us on a wonderful trail through
West Town's fields, woods and lanes to help us identify the abundant
spring flowers - wild garlic, bugle, stitchwort, yellow archangel,
campion & meadowsweet - to name just a few. Orchids, hiding in
the woods, left us all puzzled as to the exact species, but a complete
joy to find. There are to be monthly wild flower walks, and as the
summer months unfold there are sure to be even more flowers to see.
Nicola
DAWN CHORUS WALK:
About 10 of us braved a cold, still early start of 4.30
at West Town Farm. The highlight for me was sitting in a circle in the
woodland listening to the buildup of bird song, catching glimpses
through the trees of a full orange moon setting behind the hills. We
needed the ornithological expertise of our leader to help us
distinguish the Blackcap from the Robin and Chiff Chaff from the
Chaffinch. On the road back to the farm we stopped for a few minutes to
marvel at the complexity and clarity of a wren's song in full. I came
home with a new awareness of our feathered friends and feeling very
sleepy! Lucy
HEDGEROW CHAIR DAY:
During April a group of budding green woodworkers
gathered on
a beautiful day for creative a day in the woods. Carrying saws, hammers
and nails up to Chillies Copse, we viewed a pile of cut Hazel with
trepidation. ‘Are those sticks going to turn into a real
chair?’ 6 ladies worked hard all day to almost complete a
beautiful natural sculpture which really did look like a chair! Not
everyone had touched a saw or drill before, but by the end of the day
were confident with the tools to be able to go away and say they would
be watching the Hazel growing around them keeping an eye out for
interesting shapes for arms and legs.
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