By Andrew Martin, Head of Outdoor Work

Growing up on a dairy farm in Ireland, I never really went on holidays; there were always too many jobs to do. Our modest little farm here at Bedales is no different, and we had so much work planned for the Spring term. Jobs included laying the hedge along Emma’s Walk, coppicing another section of the sand quarry and pollarding the willow in Ruth’s Meadow. We had also planned blacksmithing, vegetable bed preparation, bee keeping, jam and marmalade making, spinning and weaving, not to mention all the jobs around the farm too. I should never have let the students go home for the holiday at the end of last term!

We are working hard on the theory aspects of all this necessary work, and trying to do as much online as we can. But getting cold, dirty and wet – and developing the resilience to work through it all – is one of the key parts of Outdoor Work, and not something we can easily replicate online.

The animals on the farm are doing well. They are a bit fed up of the wet weather, but last weekend’s snow was a welcome break from the drizzle which saw a very entertaining snowball fight between the Southdown, Herdwick and Jacob sheep! They are all due to start lambing just after half term, and we will have a second round of lambing at the start of the Summer term with our main Jacob flock. Little Pig and Bessie are due to farrow towards the end of February, after we hired a big saddleback boar in October. We can’t wait to see the results of this crossbreeding.

Some very special and long awaited arrivals should also be joining us around February. They are the three Fs: Favour, Freya and Fingers, our ready-made Dexter herd. Favour is pregnant and due in April, Freya is the 10-month-old daughter of Favour, and Fingers is her cousin… Confused?! We are too, but we can’t wait to get these little cows settled in and ready for when you all return.

As always you can keep an eye on what we are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter.