WALES WOMAN FARMER OF THE YEAR

Well who would have believed it!!!!! I have just been awarded the title of NFU Cymru/Nat West Wales Woman Farmer of the Year 2009/10 jointly with Daphne Tilley of Elwy Valley Welsh Lamb. It is the first time in the 13 years of the title that the award has gone to two of us!

I am absolutely thrilled to be given this title and am delighted to share the title with Daphne. As Daphne said to me on Monday at the award ceremony "Its the North and South of Wales joining together". It is also great for the goat industry to be taken as a serious contender alongside the cattle and sheep.

The award ceremony was held at the Winter Fair, Builth Wells, which was on Monday 30th November and Tuesday 1st December 2009, and what a busy fair we had. Our stand was as usual in the food hall and I have to thank my great friends Liz Thomas and Liz Hedges who very kindly stood in for Mike and I whilst we went to the award ceremony - Thank you ladies, much appreciated!

I would also like to thank my staff without whom this award would not be possible - I hope you all enjoy the champers!!!

Well Christmas is well underway here at the farm with chocolates and fudge flying out the door. The wholesale cheese orders are going out faster than we can make - the staff are going that extra mile, as always and we are all looking forward to Christmas day when we can recharge those batteries!

Till then I had better sign off otherwise I will be accused of slacking by those nearest and dearest! Thanks again to everyone and hopefully will blog again soon.

Loraine

Batterning Down the Hatches!

Well here we are again at that time of year where the leaves are starting to fall off the trees and the goats are going into kid if not already in! The noise from the shed is wonderful with the calling to the boys! And we are hard at work in the unit preparing for the Christmas rush!

We are also preparing to re-open one of our holiday cottages - a beautiful one bedroom cottage set here on the farm in the Cothi Valley an easy distant from Llandeilo, Llandovery and Lampeter. Why not come and visit us!

In the new year we will be offering a wide range of courses here on the farm from goat husbandry to basketry to fine art drawing so keep an eye on our web site for more news! Well I'd better getting cracking I have some hoofs to trim and a cottage to paint!

HECTIC DAYS AHEAD

Hi Everyone, well what a few busy weeks we have had! In the last few days as you can see from the pictures here we

rescued a little family of hedgehogs which,
unfortunately were abandoned in our stable yard. We originally found five but two were very poorly and sadly we lost them. Today I took the three remaining ones to a local lady who dedicates her time between her wonderfully talented obedience dogs and rescuing hedgehogs! She is going to let me know how they get on and hopefully they will be released back to the wild in about six weeks - I will keep you informed! Aren't they adorable! But they are much better off with Dyls as she can spend time nuturing them on and she has the experience and facilities for such a task. Good Luck Dyls!

Over the past few weeks we have seen a lot of comings and goings - we have had another two student vets from Nottingham Vet School - that will have made seven this academic year! All girls I hasten to add - Sophie, Fran, Jo, Jesse, Kitty, Vanessa and Moira. I am hoping that we will be able to post a photo one of these days, if not on the blog, then in the newsletter! They have all been very helpful and hardworking, so thank you girls, much appreciated!

We have also had some work experience with Flo from Buckinghamshire and then we have for one day a week for 18 weeks two students from a special needs college here in Llangadog, Sarah and Matthew. We had great fun with Sarah last week and we are looking forward to seeing both her and Matthew tomorrow. They are working hard strawing, haying, cleaning pens and playing with the kids. Well done!!!

We are about to launch another new product at the Royal Welsh Show at the end of the month so keep watching this space for updates! If you are a chef or do lots of outside catering then watch this space coz its just for you!!

Well anyway I had better crack on. Lots to do, lots to make. Please do keep the comments coming in I do like to know that there is someone out there.

Loraine

ALL CHANGE FOR SUMMER

Hi Everyone

I hope you are all well and starting to enjoy the sunshine - although I must say today seems a little grey here in Wales but I can't complain because we have had quite a few days of glorious sunshine although a little on the windy side.

Well we have been busy here as usual. What with the kiddings continuing to go well - loads of boys this year but I am sure the girls will catch up soon, they normally do end up being just about equal.

The guys on the farm are really busy at the moment preparing extra field shelters ready for all the new youngsters to go outside during the summer. All our goats here like to be out as much as possible in the summer although they hate rain so we need to make sure there is adequate shelter for them.

On the food side I have been busy re-vamping some of our packaging. We now have new brown bags for our fudge (As above) with some fantastic bright coloured labels with the help of Chris our designer. We are really pleased and so far the comments from you, the customer, are great - keep the comments coming we love to know what you think! Also our chocolate is taking a little face lift but this is ongoing as we are frantically designing our chocolates with some really wonderful, non nut, centres. Hopefully some of them will be really eyebrow raising creations - watch this space!

We will also shortly be sending out our monthly newsletter so if you haven't done so already, sign up to subscribe - there could be some great offers coming up in the next few months!!

Anyway enough from me now. Lets hope the sunshine keeps coming!

Loraine

Happy Easter

Hi there, it is finally Good Friday and once again we are out at shows. As usual you will find us in the Bay at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff for the whole weekend and today in Carmarthen. Sunday we are going to visit Bluestone Holiday Park near Haverfordwest.

Our children are rather excited. We have a new edition here in the house. Dolly the puppy!! She is a Dalmation Collie Cross and she is very special as she is deaf. Not that that stops her from being into everything and doing all the normal puppy things. Our other dogs find it a little confusing when they growl to tell her off and she seems to think it is just a game!! Here she is in the picture looking so innocent!

We have a had a very busy time recently having had a fantastic feature in Country Living magazine in the April edition - just right for Easter. I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who emailed and wrote in with comments. Thank you. It makes all our hard work worthwhile!

We are still kidding here on the farm, another 6 arrived this morning which means the milk is flowing nicely from the parlour. All our new farm workers are settling in well and we have recently had some vet students coming to learn about goats. So we have had a lot of fun and laughter here - just what the doctor ordered to come out of the winter and into the spring.

Hope you are all keeping cheery out there. Will try and blog again soon.

Loraine

WELCOME 2009

Many apologies for the delay in writing. We had a busy time towards the end of the year with many shows and lots of making!!!

Well here we are in 2009. Kidding has started and already we have many kids running around. We have started with mostly first kidders and last year's dry stock. So far majority of the first kidders have had singles whilst the older stock have come in with twins. We will be kidding through to July time with majority of the herd kidding around March/April.

We have just started back at markets so please have a look at our calendar to see where we are going to be and when.

We will have two new products to launch this year so keep looking to see what is new!

Signing off for now.

Loraine