Orchard Harvest Day!

Well what a wonderful day!

Today we headed on down to the Winterbourne Medieval Barn Orchard Harvest Day. Late, as usual, we pulled up, decked out a gazebo and brought down two of our youngest calves, Peggy and Pearl.

The crowds started pouring in to the barn and grounds at 11 o'clock and we soon had lots of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' thanks to these little ones:

We wanted to not only promote our Christmas birds, but also all of the other activities on the farm, such as shearing the sheep and the uses of wool, how we rear our calves and how we look after the hedgerows around the farm. The children and adults enjoyed learning about the different hedgerow species we have in England, and their lovely fruits. The conkers were also quite a hit! Will demonstrated a bit of hedgelaying with our make shift hedge and the children got to touch (and frequently sniff?!) the wool from our sheep.

The calves were, of course, the stars of our stall, and as you can see, were beyond chilled out all day - quite remarkable given that they are only 6 weeks old! They were lapping up the attention and enjoyed lots of lovely stokes and cuddles from everyone! Lucky little beasties!

The day was a fantastic show of rural crafts and traditions. We were opposite a beautiful horse whose job it was to press the apples to make scrummy scrumpy, and there were handmade soaps, beautiful straw craft masterpieces, fantastic felt arts, dry stone walling demonstrations, local bee keepers with honey and lots of delicious homemade cakes! The calves weren't alone either - there were ducks, pigs and even llamas!

It was truly wonderful to see so many skilled and passionate people teaching others about their crafts, and even better that so many people were interested in hearing about them! Thank you to everyone who stopped by at our stall and had a chat - we hope you all had a lovely day
.

We can't wait for next year!

Well Christmas is over for another year, and what a Christmas it has been! We had almost completely sold out by the beginning of December, despite significantly increasing our numbers this year, and hadn’t a bird left on Christmas Day – we even nearly sold our own goose! That would not have gone down well! 

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all our wonderful customers who make all the hard work worthwhile with their support and positivity. We hope you all enjoyed a fantastic Christmas, a delicious bird and lots of happiness.

Now our sights are set on 2014 – onwards and upwards! We are rearing darling and delicious Aylesbury ducks all year round (no rest for the wicked!) and we think they’re rather good...luckily so do some other folk – here are the kind words of Freddy Bird, the head chef at the lovely Clifton Lido;

"I have recently discovered a new farm who now supply us with their ducks (I hope soon they will be able to supply us beef, lamb and pork as well). Farmer Will and his sister rear Aylesbury ducks on a small scale. These free range ducks are reared, slaughtered and dry plucked (all on the farm) by this brother and sister team. I used to keep Aylesbury ducks as a child and have longed for a roast duck that tasted as good as they did – finally I have – in fact these trump any duck I have ever eaten! Just simply roasted these ducks are fantastic!"

Thank you Freddy, we're glad you approve! 

Wishing you all a very happy New Year, 

JGHQ x

The Christmas Countdown Is On!

And so we find ourselves in October .... December is certainly looming and things are hotting up at JGHQ!

The turkeys are growing and exploring their home; they love to roost on bales and their cute chirps have turned in to gobble gobbles ... funny things! They're all getting big and plump now - reminding us that Christmas is on it's way.

The ducks and geese happy neighbours and are loving the rain (unlike the rest of us!) Their honks and quacks ring out throughout the paddocks - what lucky neighbour we have! They're all in full feather and looking very impressive - we can't understand how they can stay so white when they love puddles so much!

The wonderful summer we all enjoyed has left us with heaps and heaps of wonderful hedgerow fruits...so what does that mean? That's right - JAM TIME! We picked a plethora of blackberries, rosehips, sloes and haws so now we're stocked up on jams, rosehip syrup and sloe gin to see us through to next summer!

We've been very busy recently converting an old dairy into a brand spanking new butchery and kitchen. It's a huge step up for us so we're hopeful that this Christmas will be a success to make sure it was all worth it! We're hoping to be finished in the next two weeks so as soon as we are we'll treat you to a little tour of our lovely new HQ!

Wishing you all a jolly October!

JGHQ x

Duck Tales!

Hello everyone!

So as you can see, we have some new, adorable additions to the JG family in the form of 86 fluffy little ducklings! This post is going to be pretty laden with photos, but they're just too cute to not!

These chickas are only one day old and so inquisitive! They are Aylesbury ducks - a traditional, English breed, that will be grow up to be white and chubby! 

We will now be rearing ducks throughout the year to compliment our Christmas sales, a new and exciting venture! 

Look at this guy!

For the first few weeks, the ducklings will live indoors under heat lamps, until they are big and strong enough to head on out into the paddock. 

With a Will for scale

Oh hey there!

Sorry for the overly soppy post this month - but come on, how cute are these things?! 

Remember, on a serious note (booo), Christmas is just around the corner so if you're thinking of having a beautiful, free range goose, turkey or ducks this year, give us a bell. 

JGHQ x

The Jolly Goslings have arrived!

Hello everyone and happy August!

As you can see the lovely little goslings have landed at JGHQ...look how nosey they are! They were keen to get straight out in their paddock on arrival - exploring their new home and neighbours. They calves and pigs are very puzzled! They have been happily grazing the paddock and even enjoyed the little rain showers the other day! They are about one month old their beaks and feet are starting to take on an orange tint, though no signs of the first honk just yet!

We have already had some Christmas orders come in (you organised folk, you!) so if you're considering going goose this year (or turkey or duck......) send us an email;

jollygoose@live.com

Over and out! x

Happy summer everyone!

We hope you've all been enjoying the sunshine as much as we have here at JGHQ! The animals have loved the sun and fresh grass that has been rocketing during the past few weeks - June, you've won us over so far!

The sheep have been sheared ready for more balmy days out in the fields;

And we've taken the first cut of silage to see us through the winter:

Not that we want to think about winter too much right now!

The grass is cut and gathered before it dries (unlike hay) and stored under plastic sheeting to stop it from drying out and to allow it to ferment. After fermentation, the silage has a sweet taste and smell, which the cows love!

We're also about to put the piglets and their mummy out into the paddock so watch out for that update....!

Calf Chaos!

Hello everyone and happy Spring!

So during the recent weeks we've been busy doing reasonably dull things...like building sheds and painting parlours but finally we have something photogenic and fun to write about.....our new calves!

We've acquired five new little calves - just a few months old - to join our happy menagerie! This is Flora;

The calves are very sweet but are shy still - that'll soon change though! They are Simmental cross Friesian calves from our local dairy farmer and so will grow nice and big (hopefully). They're still drinking milk which we make them morning and night but soon they'll be weaned onto homegrown barley and silage. When they're big enough we'll put them out into the paddocks, which is exactly what we did this weekend with our bigger calves. This is them this morning, enjoying the sunshine!




To get them to the paddock we walked them on halters....much easier said than done. It turned into a bit of a rodeo! Who knew they had it in them! Anyway, after a lot of running, jumping and slamming on the brakes, we managed to get them into the paddock where they lept around and tasted grass for the very first time! They're five very happy calves!