Trevorrick Farm Stay Holiday Cottages, Padstow, Cornwall

02/02/2025

Day 63 of 365 days in the life of Trevorrick Farm and its inhabitants - Saturday 1 February

Well January was certainly a busy month on the animal front, though it always seems a long month - until it's over. And February also started busy!

In the afternoon, after feeding the lambs (I am feeding them twice a day to supplement mum), I went down to the bottom field as a couple of the sheep needed trimming at the back end. Nothing wrong with them, but when I moved the "flock" onto the most grassy paddock, a couple of the 2024 lambs ended up with grassy rear ends. And I've been meaning to catch and trim for awhile. I'd have done it earlier if it was spring/summer/autumn, as dirty rear ends attract flies.

But I only got half way down the middle field when I found number 36 in the middle with the water bag hanging out of her. Now in 2024, number 36 had her first lamb and what a palaver! We had guests in Serendipity and the grown up son had been to agricultural college and he and his dad wanted a look around the farm. First thing we saw was number 36 with a whole lamb's head out or her rear end, tongue out, it wasn't a good look!

I had no idea how long it had been like that so as she was showing no signs of trying to expel it, we had to catch her. Our guest did a rugby tackle on her, I washed his clothes after! And he helped pull the lamb out. I think we were both surprised it was alive! They can stay like that for a while, and I suppose as head out, it wasn't suffocating in birthing fluid.

And then the Mum decided she hated the lamb and it really was nothing to do with her, so we had to confine mum and lamb in a pen, and I tied mum up so lamb could feed. - She was just attacking it otherwise. About an hour or so after, mum passed the placenta and then she became a lovely licking and looking after mother. I can only imagine maybe she had been in pain until the placenta passed. Never had a first time mum act like that before though.

But we do like to give our guests some unforgettable memories!!

So as you can imagine, I was somewhat worried about number 36! I decided I'd leave her be and get on with my trimming task! Which turned out a nighmare. I finally managed to separate the sheep required, which given the ram may butt me, does take a bit of care and opening and closing afew gates in the crush area.

The sheep that needed a trim most was one of my "60th birthday present to myself" young Hampshire x Romsey ewes which are bit "wild". I finally managed to catch it and it's friend in the cattle crush and get a halter on it. Then struggled to trim it standing up and tied, without stabbing myself with the hand shears.

In the middle of that I saw number 36 had given birth and went to check her, phew she and lamb were fine. Another strong ram lamb.

God knows how long it took to trim the poor sheep, in the end I turned her over, but I'm not great at that, usually I get Mike involved to do that whilst I trim. Finally I tied her up again to finish off. I was determined to finish the job and I did. Her sister only needed a few dirty bits off, and one of the 2024 ram lambs trapped itself in the crush next to the Romsey (it was certainly a crush!), and I managed to deal with it standing up.

I didn't get back to the house till 5.30pm, then had feed cows, and make a space in barn for the new mum, which I did by putting Ladybird and the Hebridean together, which worked out ok.

I then went back and got the new lamb and luckly mum followed fine. I was quite surprised she only had one. She is now 3.

Unfortunately no photos of the new lamb as my phone ran out of battery before she gave birth.

I was pretty tired and I actually fell asleep inbetween the two unmaskings on The Masked Singer, which we were watching late. Mike had given up and gone to bed by this time. I still had my bottlefed lambs to feed after waking myself up from the sofa!

Melanie x

01/02/2025

Day 62 of 365 days in the life of Trevorrick Farm and its inhabitants - Friday 31 January

To start with here is a picture of our little Hebridean ewe and her ram lamb. It's a good size given the size of her! Love black lambs, but they don't photo well.

We walked into Padstow - but ended up with a very late picnic lunch there!

I fed the cows - I am trying the "unwind the bale and throw it over the fence into the feeder" method, as I feel the cows pull a lot of hay out outside the feeder and it's trodden on and wasted. So if I unwind the big bale twice a day, I think less is wasted, it doesn't take long and twice a day keeps them fed all day long.

I then grabbed a large pile of hay and took it round to the goat and Ladybird the Jacob. Ladybird is 8 so I have been giving her extra rations. Thinking, "I wonder when Ladybird will give birth" as I went up the steps past the Wash House. And there she was, with two very strong healthy lambs. Well that delayed going into Padstow, as I had to spray their navels, but I decided to leave them in the paddock as it was a lovely day.

So by the time I had talked to afew people en-route to Padstow it was around 2.30pm. I met a land surveyor at the bottom of the Tregonce track who was looking at a couple of small parcels of land where it was unclear about the boundaries of the title deeds and who actually owned them. He had a big GPS pole like plotting/measuring instrument, so it's all very high tech these days. Not the manual measurement and pens and rulers as in the old days.

Padstow is still lovely and quiet and a few cafes and shops are on the winter break before half term. There must have been some work going on in the harbour as the water had been emptied - it has a gate to keep water in at low tide, so unusual to see it empty.

Back on the farm, I was glad to see Ladybird's new lambs were doing well, and I put them in the barn, next to the Hebridean.

Just another day at Trevorrick Farm.

Melanie x

31/01/2025

Day 61 of 365 days in the life of Trevorrick Farm and its inhabitants - Thursday 30 January

A gorgeous sunny day. So I put last Friday's twins out into the fields also. Mum had got a bit of a dirty tail area, as she had sort of sat down when giving birth - all my other sheep have been very clean! So I tied her up and did a quick trim.

Gosh I can't believe a whole week ago, when we were watching her give birth. Time goes so quickly!

It's lovely to see lots of lambs running around in the fields, really makes me think spring is on the way!

I went down the field just as getting to dusk, lovely the evenings are getting noticeably lighter now, to check the remaining sheep and take the pony some hay. However the pony didn't get it's hay!

When I looked at the remaining sheep, the little Hebridean, who was at back of field, looked a bit "long", so I went closer and found she had had a lamb. She had been acting as though about to give birth - on her own a little more - but pretty sure the lamb was not there when I checked in the morning.

So I then had to move her and the lamb. Usually carrying the lambs makes the ewes follow - but this didn't work. Maybe as it was getting dark, mum couldn't see her lamb. It was a frisky strong thing and I did have to grab it, but not a noisy lamb.

I finally managed to tempt mum, me carrying the lamb, into the cattle crush pen. I then had to walk right back up the field to the farm, I hadn't my phone with me, and ask son for help. I put a halter on the ewe, and son led her - vaguely, as she is not halter trained, so we managed to push her up the field, whilst I carried the lamb.

We then tucked her up on fresh straw in the barn. Dad is our Texel ram and as I was a bit worried after he got in with her, but I had read that Hebrideans can take much larger rams and give birth ok. The lamb does look quite large for the size of her though.

It was too dark for a photo, so that will wait until Friday's post - and yes, I am still a day late!!!!

Melanie

30/01/2025

Day 60 of 365 days in the life of Trevorrick Farm Wednesday 29 January 2025

Yeah, despite earlier forecasts it turned out pretty good. So first thing I decided to let the two quad lambs, and mum of course, into the fields. I'll see if I can add the video to the comments, as I can't add photos and a video at the same time. Mum decided she didn't want to walk on a halter when we got into the play field, so I had to let her off and carry a lamb into the field and I managed to get her and the other lamb through the gate in the end.

I had an escape from the farm. I think this is the first time I have left the farm, literally, since the visit to Lucy's lambing shed over two weeks ago. With the triplets, and then quads, plus the two sets of twins, and the weather and having admin to do, it's been a busy time on the farm.

So I walked into Padstow, beautiful as always. Quite afew shops/restaurants seemed to be having a pre half term break.

I didn't stay in Padstow too long but it was a lovely walk there and back.

Melanie x

29/01/2025

Day 58 of 365 in the life of Trevorrick Farm - Tuesday 28 January

I keep getting a day behind - and by the next day can hardly remember what happened!

Today I spent the morning finishing accounts and tax return and pinged it all off. Phew. Just got VAT return to do by 7th February, mostly done.

The day didn't start well. As it was windy yesterday, I decided to put the rubbish bin out this morning, but as I was about to do so, I saw a lorry coming along the lane and paniced and managed to trip over, rushing to the bin. No major damage luckily as I was well protected with waterproof trouser and wrapped up like a Michelin man. Silly me!

The annoying thing was it was the food waste lorry, not the rubbish lorry.

Did the usual checking and feeding the animals. My two part bottle fed lambs are so enormous. Decided not nice enough to put the two quads and Friday's twin lambs in the field. More difficult doing so with the bottle feds as I may not be able to catch them again, and I want them to be tame. So have been making up an outside pen with sheep hurdles for them. Bit of mobile grass mowing!

In the cow field, especially, we get a lot of white egrets over the winter. I think I once counted around 15. This year I have noticed a flock of brownish birds in my neighbours field, and speaking to my neighbour, they appear to be curlews. Of course we have Curlew Cottage, but I have really never noticed the birds before. - Even after 24 years of living here.

Anyway here are afew photos of our Curlew Cottage, and I must try to get a better one of real curlews!!! I do like the views from the upstairs bedroom of Curlew Cottage.

We also need to take some new downstairs photos, as we had a new kitchen with dishwasher over the winter of 2022/23 and we have had new Stressless leather sofas also.

Melanie x

28/01/2025

Day 58, Monday 27 January 2025 of 365 Days at Trevorrick Farm - The Cornish "round house".

Another accounts/tax return day, with looking after the animals inbetween. Lambs all well, but really need let them out into the fields.

Sadly Dairyland, the farm attraction with an amazing countryside museum closed at the end of October. The contents are being auctioned off on Wednesday.

One of the things I loved seeing at Dairyland was the horse wheel. This was removed from a farm near Newquay, I presume on demolition of a barn for building development, and donated by the directors of ECLP. ECLP being the old name of what is now the china clay company, Imerys. In the past they had a large house building division also.

I used to work for Imerys, as I had joined English China Clays plc as tax manager in the Reading office in 1994. The company was taken over in 1999 by a French company Imetal, and the name of the group changed to Imerys, which many in Cornwall pointed out was an anagram of "Misery". - Given the huge redundancies and closure of many Cornish pits that followed. - Clay was cheaper to mine in Brazil. I think the takeover was announced around the day I found I was pregnant with my eldest.

That is how I ended up in Cornwall, as I was offered redundancy or relocation. I came down to Cornwall on a trial basis, but as our house in Reading was bought by a developer, along with others next to ours, we decided on a change of life and I took redundancy, Mike gave up his job and we bought Trevorrick Farm.

So that's a digression, but in the past most Cornish farms would have had a "round house" with a donkey or horse operated wheel to grind corn. I like to imagine our cottage "The Old Round House" with a wheel, like the one I loved seeing at Dairyland in it. I hope it goes to a good home.

Melanie x

27/01/2025

Day 57 of 365 Days in the Life of Trevorrick Farm and it's inhabitants.

I timed animal duties inbetween heavy rain showers and avoided getting too wet. But there was even a bit of sun inbetween today. Just glad no more lambs are appearing at present.

I've nearly finished the accounts and tax returns, I'm always a "to meet the deadline" sort of person with everything.

Half term is coming up soon, and when our children were young we always used to find it a great time to visit some of the wonderful things to do in Cornwall - that we never had the time to do during the "season". Eden always has great events in school holiday periods. This looks fun......... Paddington at Eden. Paddington is so timeless.

Eden is great value if you Gift Aid, so you can get in again within a year for free. Sometimes we have guests visit it twice even during a week, and of course if you time your next visit to Cornwall within the year you can visit Eden again.

Melanie x

https://www.facebook.com/theedenproject/posts/pfbid02z9vDe7xz89MJJQNyHstN3MN9kZkrFFqzwsGbp8FFWTVfaoAVRXTE5fzz44gpzApal?

Paddington has had his greatest adventure ever in Peru. Now he’s ready to explore our rainforest! 🐻🌴🐾 edenproject.com/paddington

STUDIOCANAL

25/01/2025

Day 56 of 365 days at Trevorrick Farm

Another dry day, just concerned about the heavy rain forecast tomorrow. I still have the two quad lambs and mum in the barn, wow, they will be a week old tomorrow. I'd like to put them out in the fields now, but I think I may be best to wait afew more days.

Another day that just sort of disappeared, quite a lot of time is spent sorting out the ewes and lambs at the moment, let alone the other animals, and making sure their bedding is clean and the mums are well fed and watered.

Yesterday was such a rush, with time taken watching Dimple give birth, inbetween everything else. I did manage to get to village bingo with my neighbour though, that has restarted (every two weeks) after the festive break. Neither of us were very lucky. I ended up watching Traitors after, as didn't want to see any spoilers so it was quite a late night.

Today the goat was naughty again, and ended up in Badgers Way garden. Mike has "fixed" the goat pen, but obviously not enough!

I didn't actually take any photos of anything today, so here are some more photos of lambs from yesterday. The first three are the two quads lambs which are looking really good now. So pleased they have done well. And the last two are the new lambs, again they are doing well. I am just hoping we have another spell of dry decent weather so they can all go out soon.

Melanie ###

25/01/2025

Just wanted to share this video Mike took of Dimple's second lamb being born yesterday.....a whole 2.5 hours after her first!

I told him to keep an eye whilst I was doing other things around the farm....He gave this one a pull to help as seemed stuck.

I think he went a bit enthusiastic with rubbing it with straw....something else for mum to clean off!

Amused me how the first lamb seems totally unaware....

Melanie x

24/01/2025

Day 55 of 365 days at Trevorrick Farm

"Dimple".....pushhhh.....1.30pm....

Off I go doing stuff...then around 4pm....find she was pushing again.....

Voila......2.5 hours later !!!!! Gosh that was a BIG gap.

A second very strong girl!!! Up and looking for the milk bar very quickly.

Melanie x

23/01/2025

Day 54 of 365 days in the life of Trevorrick Farm

It was an admin sort of day. There was some heavy rain shower to start with, it came down in sheets when I was in the barn with the sheep. I sort of managed to sort out the animals around it and didn't get totally soaked!

I am going to call number 21 sheep Dimple, as she was the ewe that managed to get a bit of wire right through her cheek last week. I looked up if there was a word for a cheek piercing and Google says "Dimple". Dimple hasn't given birth yet, but looks very comfortable at the back of the barn. I have the two quads also in the barn full time, and the two triplets are now out in the day and I am bottle feeding them twice a day to supplement mums only half working udder. The twins are out full time now, but they will stay in the sheep playing field in bad weather and overnight so that they can shelter under the shepherds's hut, in traditional way, or under some of the play equipment.

Ladybird, my pure Jacob, also looks also close, but not so close to giving birth so I am checking her frequently too.

A video of the "tornado" in part of Cornwall popped up on Facebook. Awfully, Trevornick caravan park at Holywell Bay was badly affected with caravans being blow over. That's a very similar name to us. I once had an email to us complaining about the standard of fish and chips in the cafe. - She had mispelling Trevornick. I emailed her with the mistake - but she still managed to send me another email about the fish and chips! And equally distressing, some houses in Cornwall lost their roof. Gosh we were lucky today as it didn't seem particularly windy - or maybe I was inside doing my accounts and missed the worst of the wind.

Anyway todays picture is a video Mike took when he and David when to Golitha Falls along the Fowey valley, which looked beautiful. I have been too preoccupied with sheep to go anywhere for what seems like forever!

I have been to Golitha Falls in the past, but it must have been a very long time ago.

Enjoy.

Melanie x

23/01/2025

Day 53 in the Life of Trevorrick Farm

Another dry day. I finally managed to send off the chargeback dispute claim. This has taken so, so many hours to deal with, and all because the customer put both a wrong phone number and a wrong email address on a booking via an online travel agent. The customer never received a confirmation via the online travel agent and also failed to check whether card payment had been taken, which it had on the day of booking, so the customer assumed the booking for New Year had not been made.

It's gutting the time and effort it has taken me to deal with this. It's just not fair that we should bear the cost of the customer's multiple errors. I now have to "wait and see". But even if the chargeback is decided in my favour this will definitely be the hardest £400 I have ever earned. And if the decision goes against me, it will be the pits...... It even took a while to ensure that the chargeback claim had been received by Worldpay, as for some reason it took two hours for the email to reach them!!! In the meantime I had called them twice! Maybe the attachment I sent with screenshots of evidence took some time to be validated.

Anyway, on the brighter side, it was a lovely day, actually started off "almost" frosty on the grass, we don't get many frosts, and I spent the afternoon doing "useful" outside things.

On checking the remaining sheep at bottom of field, I decided only two, neither halter trained, looked likely to give birth. Small quad seems to have no udder, so she's not due yet, nor the Hebridean.

I somehow managed to get them into the middle field, and then had to get Mike to help me get them into the goat area. I had to let Big Quad and Ladybird into the middle field to do so, as easy to herd a number all together.

I thought I would leave the two in the goat area and went to feed the two triplets. Mike reported the goat was being a bully to Number 21, and I had to get her out, as goat had taken a dislike to her and was chasing her around.

Goat was probably doing this to annoy me further, as I had got Mike to make her pen more secure after she decided to go into Badgers Way garden to torment me, so now she can no longer get out of her paddock. Such a naughty, but lovely, goat.

As the forecast isn't looking great, after 11pm I decided I could not risk Number 21 giving birth in the rain, so managed to catch her in a pen with some other, get a halter on her, and somehow managed to make her walk to the barn area, she did not want to move for ages, and I was literally trying to move her legs one by one.

She is now safely in barn next to the ewe with two quads.

The only photos I took today were of the lovely view over to Rock from out middle field. So lucky to be able to live here and share our lovely location with our lovely guests.

Melanie x

22/01/2025

Day 52 in the life of Trevorrick Farm

I felt so much better to get some sleep. I went out to feed the two remaining quads maybe around 9.30am - so they'd not had a bottle for 11 hours. Which was maybe a bit of a risk, but they did look well fed last night. I decided to feed the two triplets first, whilst I watched to see if tied up Number 16 would feed her lambs. - They had shown signs of looking for the milk, and as said didn't look as though they hadn't eaten for a long time.

They did show interest in suckling and when I held one to the teat, always a struggle, it did seem to suckle. So I decided not to bottle feed them, as I did not want them to only take the bottle from me.

Around lunchtime, just after I had replied to a friend, who had asked the sensible question of why breed from the sheep if she causes me so much trouble (my answer - she's a nice sheep and normally only has one), I went to check on them and found them both suckling. Oh the relief!!!

I had a panic about triplet mum first thing, she was sitting down and breathing heavily, and her heart seemed to be going fast. The black lamb was trying to feed from her sitting down.

I thought I would put her in the field, when I got her out I found the problem! Some long bits of haylage had caught round her hoof and made a tourniquet on bottom of her leg just above the hoof, and she had a long trail of haylage attached from it. - Note to self: break it up more before supplying it to sheep!

I had to get Mike to help me hold her whilst I cut the tight band of haylage strands off with a pair of scissors. And she was fine after that - phew. You can guarantee if there is a pickle to be found, a sheep will get themselves in it!!!!

Melanie x

21/01/2025

Day 51 of 365 of life at Trevorrick Farm

Wow, yesterday was a daze, it was pretty horrific in terms of I struggled to fit in feeding the quads and triplets, and doing anything else was a total no-no.

Rewatching the video I posted of first thing, when I found the lambs still alive, I do sound a bit "out of it".

But what joy, especially looking back, to find they were all still alive and standing. I'll always remember that as a proud moment!

I did my best to feed them well and get some colostrum down them in the early hours, especially one that must have been the last - as still a bit wet, and ears still a bit flattened. But by 3am plus, I had to get some sleep. And just hope the ewe did not sit on any. - At least she did not kick them away like some sheep will. She was in as much shock as me I think.

And she had done a cracking job in sorting them out herself in the field, so that they were all, more or less, staning up when I found them. I was so lucky with the weather that they were not chilled or cold, so I could bottle feed them, not tube feed, which I am nervous of doing, though had to do it a couple of times in past.

I tied the ewe up a couple of times, to try to get them to feed, but it didn't really work, so in the end I gave them several more bottle feeds.

I really could not have coped with feeding quads and triplets, with needing to do other things also, so I had to make decision to rehome some.

Luckily there is a good market for early "orphan" lambs for rearing on, and I had lots of interest. So two quads and the triplet ram were collected. I want to keep the two triplet girls for future breeding as Number 3 sheep is quite special. And with two lambs left, even with only one functioning side of udder if I miss a bottle feed she will probably manage to still feed them. But I did have to hope the two remaining quads managed to feed from mum.

Would not be so bad if I was still not trying to finish the chargeback appeal, and the tax return and accounts which I started first week of new year and haven't managed to touch since - oh dear.

I love these photos of the quads and I. Number 16 looks so fed up!

She really is a drama queen of a sheep. I've suspected her of not wanting to feed her lamb before, but she usually just has one, and she does manage. I also think she dislikes me and had four on purpose to annoy me.
Last year I saw her give birth and she was making so much noise before she gave birth that I thought she already had and had lost the lamb somewhere.

Today she basically sat on her t.....ts for most of the day, watching me struggle to bottle feed her babies. She wasn't vocal, but as soon as two lambs went she started bleating every few minutes, even when I moved her next to the triplet ewe for company.

I did a final feed of the two lambs around 10.30pm and miraculously got to bed by midnight. The lambs did look quite well, nice, warm and well fed.

The other photo is my last photo of the three triplets before the ram lamb, the one at the back went to pastures new. I am sure Mum feels better with only the two. If I hadn't had the quads I'd have kept all three with her and supplemented all three from the bottle. I'll still supplement the two for awhile.

Sometimes guests ask if I keep all my young animals/poulty/ducks. No many do have to move on.

Melanie x

20/01/2025

Still Day 51 of 365 days at Trevorrick Farm

Maybe I got to bed after 3am.... I got up before 8am....so did get some sleep.

All still there

Mum still appears in state of disbelief.

Melanie x

20/01/2025

Day 51 of 365 days is going to be long....

It's a fff ..u....c.... k..... at 11pm when you count to four.....

She is the one that doesn't like lambs.....even the one she usually has.

She's been pretending it didn't happen....

I've tied her up and she is now letting them feed....whilst I try stuff one that appears smallest with colostrum.

Gunna be a long night.

19/01/2025

Day 50 of 365 in the life of Trevorrick Farm

The goat! At present we have one Goldern Guernsey goat. He has a sheep or two for a friend.

He doesn't like staying in his paddock, in fact he prefers to torment me. I can see why goats are often associated with the devil - because they are devilishly mischievous.

So yesterday I was introducing the new lambs to the big wide world. The goat saw me, and thought this was an excellent time to jump into The Round House garden from the sheep playing field. I was in the car park area and he can't get over the wooden fence from the playing field.

So we had a back and forth of Mike and I "tying up the fence" so he couldn't get through inbetween top of stock fence and the wire strands. - Which the goat saw this as a challenge, so immediately tried to get through, and did several times. He got bored eventually, phew.

Today I had the lambs out of the barn again. And the goat saw me. Just as the sun came out and I thought I'd take a nice photo - spot the goat trying to get out.

So we had a repeat of yesterday. baler twine is useful. Eventually I "thought" I had won and went for coffee with a neighbour. When I got back the goat was in The Round House garden again.

I think tomorrow Mike needs to work on the goat paddock fencing as I've ran out of bits of baler twine.

Naughtly goat, lovely but naughty.

Bottle fed lambs are feeding quicker which is a relief. All looking good so far, and nothing else has lambed. I'm awaiting five ewes to lamb. Just hoping they take their time so I don't get overwhelmed, but I certainly won't be bottle feeding anything else this year! It's a lovely thing to do, but so time consuming!

Melanie x