Tredarrup - catching up

So with a busy summer season blog entries have escaped us.....so time for a quick catch up.
A summer with both our cottages full and visitors enjoying the space of both Mill Barn and Stable Cottage, and plenty of homemade cake, during a summer of mixed weather.
In the chicken world, plenty of eggs and a patient that resulted in a trip to the vets - yes we took a chicken to the vet - as she pushed out far too big an egg and ended up in chicken hospital....but the damage has been repaired and she's back laying eggs! Many broody hens and much more news soon...
Our cattle - all 4 girls are in calf so we're looking forward to new arrivals in Oct/Nov this year and will keep up with updates.
The vegetable patch - yet another bad year after being full of promise, blight on potatoes, tomatoes destroyed, courgettes so full of water turned to mush and little growing with so much rain and not much chance of planting more out....
More news coming soon from our new look blog so watch this space....

Celebrating Food and Farming

With Cornwall being a county full of so much local and seasonal produce, buying great food that's at the right time of year and not had many air or other miles is not that hard to do. september 07 to July 08 has been the Year of Food and Farming, a nationwide effort to reconnect to the countryside and raise awareness of the origins and impact of our food on our health and the environment, so to celebrate Cornwall's food and drink the Eden Project are celebrating this weekend with a Midsummer's weekend in Eden's Garden, a great reason to visit for the first time or once more!

Know your onions - strawberries galore

Anyone that grows their own will know that last year was not the best of years, blight on the potatoes & tomatoes, early sun, rain at the wrong time - so not a very productive year. But for 2008 so far so good, great sunshine with an odd sprinkle of night time rain .......the onions are looking good, potatoes have reached flowering so about to be harvested, tomatoes, salad, courgettes all coming on - but in top place is our strawberries!!! Every year we yield a good harvest and eat punnet after punnet throughout June and into July, can't get fresher and can't get more local - just plain as you pick, with a bit sugar or in true Cornish tradition with a dollop of clotted cream or Kelly's vanilla ice-cream or possibly with homemade elderflower sorbet, delicious! There's always some for our guests, especially Stable Cottage as their planters are bursting with them - then when we just can't eat them as quick as they ripen it's into the freezer, turned into sorbet or ice-cream or cheesecake topping...yum yum!

Waste Neutral - reduce reuse, recycle

The inspirational Eden Project remains one of the most popular visitor attractions in Cornwall, our Tredarrup visitors included. And with reading so very much at the moment about recycling, waste and climate change the Eden project are champions of many such things including the Waste Neutral scheme. And so some towns in Cornwall are following the example of others and are now plastic bag free - some of the small steps to make a difference.
Apparently we create a staggering 500,000 tonnes of waste every year in Cornwall - a population of aprx 500,000 but with aprx 5.5million visitors a year. And with everyone feeling the pinch as food prices, along with a lot else, continue to rise, frightening that in the UK the amount of food thrown away is at a cost to our pocket of £8billion a year !!!

Sunshine and loads and loads of foxgloves

Blazing hot sunshine and a blaze of hot pink, in all our walls and in all the hedgerows -loads and loads of foxgloves more than I've ever seen before....

All green and lush

With the sun and rain, all the countryside has come alive. The mixture of weather has meant that our Cornish hedgerows are full of flowers and the grass is lush and green (our cows can't keep up with it!) and the farmers have already started their first cut of silage and wheat with the fields now turning into a patchwork of colours. Our strawberries are coming on with the first ripe one today and vegetable patch is both growing and gone wild where I have yet to clear back all of the winter's growth - behind as always.... potatoes in full flow so all crossed for no blight this year.
The birds are busy around the place, getting through 2 feeders a day, they have so many young and all the new chickens are now laying so 6-8 eggs a day, until they start moulting that is!

Tredarrup Magical Moments

The 1st of May brought with it some beautiful weather - warm sunny days, sunburst night time skies and magical clear mornings. We wake early at Tredarrup and it is a time that was once described to me as 'the birds' time of day' and it really is. Much of Tredarrup is about the animals and birds and over the past 5 years we have nurtured our bird population, and it shows. The morning stillness and silence is a time to watch and listen - the tens of house sparrows flitting about and feeding, our many swallows swooping through the air feeding on the wing and looking where to build this years nest. The pied wagtails pottering about and cleaning their feathers with the early morning dew, the blue tits feeding their young - any many more.
And our chickens of course (you've yet to meet the newest ones) , that come 7am are already queued by the chicken shed door waiting to come outside. PURE MAGIC...........

Visiting Cornwall in May

Cornwall loves festivals and May is a month of many.....here are just some:
1st - Obby Oss Day, Padstow. A wonderful spectacle, a Spring festival reputed to be the oldest dance festival in the country.
3rd& 4th - Bolster day, St Agnes. Puppets, crowd involvement, crafts, music, dancing.
5th - St Ives May Day. The town celebrates the coming of Spring.
8th - Helstone Flora Day. Whole town decorated with greenery and dancing starts at 7am!
8th-17th - Daphne du Maurier Festival, Fowey. Arts and literature in and around.
26-31st - Fal River festival. Celebrating the culture of the Fal Estuary.
View our May availability.

May Day - Obby Oss

May day will soon be here and so too will Obby Oss day in Padstow. This old tradition celebrates the arrival of Spring and may even be an ancient fertility festival. Those born in Padstow traditionally dress in white, with family loyalties dictating whether they follow the 'Red'/original Oss, or the 'Blue'/peace Oss. Both Oss' are similar in appearance and perform a dancing ritual accompanied by an hypnotic folk song around the town. Each Oss is lead by a group of followers as they make their way through the narrow streets and around the harbour. The festivities start at 10am with the 'Blue' Oss making its first appearance from its stable, followed at 11am by the appearance of the 'Red' Oss from its home. Celebrations go on all day until the Oss' finally go to bed after 10pm.

Meet the Birds - The Chickens - Egg laying

Spot the difference. 3 eggs (on right) laid today, 2 brown from our Cornish ambers and the little white is from Squark, a brown bantam. And just to compare the difference on the left is an egg from the black bantam and a neighbour's duck egg (great for cakes), not hard to guess which one !?

Meet the birds - The new chickens are on the move!

So the sunny weather has sent the new chickens out up the lane, wandering around new territories and......laying eggs !!! But couldn't say which ones are laying eggs as they both produce brown eggs and that's what they are but not enough for all four to be laying, alongside the bantams.
Both the ambers and the speckleds have been joining the bantams on their daily adventures in and around Tredarrup. And we'll be adding to the flock as we're buying 2 or 3 more black or brown to add to the team ! Here's hoping we'll be able to supply you with our own eggs sometime soon during your stay at Tredarrup.

A great meal out....

Custard in Padstow, well worth a meal out...delicious !!!

Meet The Birds - our swallows are back

Yesterday, 16th April our first swallow arrived back at Tredarrup. Whilst walking the dogs I was treated to my own air display in the evening light, with the familiar chattering of our first male (they arrive first) back for the summer with others soon to follow. Last year's first arrival was 13th April (see April archive). They are a magical site and loved by many that stay at Tredarrup.

Some previous visitors in what is now Mill Barn's main bedroom

& hanging out on the telephone line

AGA baked chocolate cake

In our kitchen we have an AGA classic with 4 ovens. It was installed in the 40s when electric was put into the house and we love it....It's great for jams (made rhubarb and blackberry at the weekend), chutneys, drying tomatoes/mushrooms, the top keeps my teapot warm, the 4 ovens means juggling Sunday roast is easy and best of all it makes the best cakes ...as our visitors often tell me. It runs on solid fuel and provides our main source of heating in the house. There is a debate over how environmentally friendly AGAs are but they have always been made from recycled materials and now they offer many types of fuel - but for us the fact is it has been in for 60+ years, 1 AGA vs how many cookers that could have been, I don't use a tumble drier my AGA drys for me (if the washing line can't) and even helps with the ironing (a tip that I've been told my many including AGA expert Mary Berry).

Meet the animals - chicken update

So today's update on the chicken front...
Our 4 new chickens are now out and about, although they don't go too far preferring to stay around Mill Barn and my vegetable patch (not good news when it comes to planting out!). Organic corn in the morning is a big hit and they follow me whenever I go in the direction of the shed as could mean more food. The 3 remaining bantams are still venturing further going on their daily adventure (and at least egg laying in the shed for now) but they too are keen on the vegetable patch at the end of the day so what hope my young seedlings will have ? And none are sharp to go back in the shed especially if Jet fancies a bit of a play and gives chase !!!!

The weather - we're confused and so are the swallows!!!

April and no it's not April showers but just a bit of everything including snow and frost. No snowmen here but yesterday morning on the moor I almost became a snowman.. then the afternoon was t-shirt weather (well almost a bit of a cold wind) but not what you might expect this time of year but then last April did bring on a bit of a heatwave... And yes not only are us humans confused but our loyal swallows must have followed last weeks warm thermals as on Sunday we spotted our first - well first three - but they are yet to make a summer whilst the frost remains!!

For those that have asked for more pictures...we will aim to capture the cattle for their up to date portrait some time soon !! And the chickens if they ever go much further than their hen house !

Reduce your food waste......

Something we try very hard to do at Tredarrup is to encourage our visitors to reduce, reuse and recycle, which includes composting. The fact that a third of the food we buy in the UK ends up being thrown away (and that's without the packing and carrier bags -more on that another time), when it could still be eaten or put to another use. With our attempts to encourage others the amount of rubbish we generate from the complex has reduced year on year and now I see that there is a new website to help us all even more www.lovefoodhatewaste.com . So have a look and see if there is anything more that you can do to help make a difference....

Meet the Animals - our cattle and chickens..

Our animals have changed since we last introduced them all to you.... Our Dexter herd has become smaller and we now have Nina, Nancy (both cows), Alice and Arabella (both heifers) and young bully. We have had a visit from the local bull so we hope all our ladies will have new calves in October - the first time for Alice & Arabella and we'll then be back up to nine...

On the chicken front we have four of our original bantams, which have recently been joined by two Cornish Ambers (white) and two Cornish speckleds. We kept them locked in when they first arrived so they got used to their new home for a day but they have been slow to get used to life outdoors roaming free...the ambers ventured out the first day then went back inside for a couple of days and the speckleds, after reluctance to leave the hen house, have started to potter about but they all stay close to home and have not yet gone on the daily adventure as our bantams do. But they are slowly getting used to a life of being outdoors...

Meet The Animals.....update... JET

There have been many additions and changes to our animals here at Tredarrup over the last 6 months - the main being our new dog, Jet (on left). Our October visitors saw him when he was a tiny puppy, could be picked up and slept in a cardboard box, but no longer as he gets bigger by the week and is now as tall as Molly our other Labrador. But he is very friendly and always welcoming to our visitors !
Next animal news... changes with our cattle and the new chickens that are taking some persuading to leave the shed !!!!

Spring weather and a new moon

Off to a slow start this year with our blog, our apologies and our posts will now become more regular with all our news.....
No damage from last weeks strong winds, just a bit tree battered with twigs down and the salt from the sea washed up the valley and onto the windows !!!!
Whatever the say about the weather, and this month has been a bit like that, today was a glorious day. Out walking on Trebarwith beach this morning the sea was bright turquoise and the sun was shinning and the air crisp. Here's hoping for the Easter weekend following Friday's full moon. Happy egg hunting!!
More posts soon....and pictures.