I had the first visit of the year and the first visit in the new classroom. It works! I arrived at the farm early to turn on the heating in the visitor room, as I had a group of Year 1 children visiting and thought they may feel the cold. As I arrived at the farm I realised it was -3. Turned on the heating and then went to check both the den building wood and play wood were safe for the children to play in. Once I had put the finishing touches to the visitor room, I had a few minutes spare for a coffee and a click of the camera . The beauty of the ice was made more apparent by the camera rather than the naked eye…

 

Ice on a farm can be both a curse and blessing. Frozen water troughs and pipes add to the work load, but the frozen ground often means we can go onto tracks or fields without damaging the plants and soil. Most of our cows are in the shed at the moment, but a few of the ‘dry’ cows are out on fodderbeet. Dry cows are non milking cows, they have ‘dry’ udders as they are heavily pregnant and need a chance to grow the calf and build up reserves before milking starts after calving. Sandfield Farm as the name suggests has very sandy soils which drain well in the winter months. The cows are able to be out on the sandy soil and not cause any lasting damage to the soil structure. The cows love it and come in for calving in a great physical state.

The wonderful Year 1 children from Cropthorne-with-Charlton school had a great time getting up close to the heifers in the shed. Cows are very nosey and so as the children stood looking at the heifers, the heifers stood looking at them, until naughty Fly dog chased the heifers away. The children learnt that calves and cows have yellow ear tags in their ears with numbers on. The tags are large and bright, so that the farmer can easily see if any tags are missing. The numbers on the tags are large, so the farmer can identify which animal it is without having to go too close to the animal. The Year 1’s went on a wintery walk. They hung up their bird feeders in the den building wood before having a run in pylon field and listening to the sound of the electric wires running overheard.

A lovely winters day, hopefully the children will make a return trip to see what the farm is like in the summertime.