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Bampton Annual Fair is being held throughout the Town with sales and events at neighbouring farms on the last Thursday in October, Thursday 25th.
Bickleigh Mill Apple Pressing Day Sat Oct 6th – Bring along apples and they will turn them into Juice (bottles provided) free event
Sampford Peverell are holding their Autumn Fair on 13th October 2012 from 11am – 3pm
On 19th August Tim went on a Woodlands Course, we’ll bring an update soon so’s you can see what he covered.
Tiverton Balloon festival starts tomorrow 24th August and runs until 27th August, it’s being held at the joint Tiverton High School/Petroc campus in Bolham Road Tiverton. This year they’re supporting Devon Air Ambulance and Childrens Hospice South West, plus they’re also raising some much needed funds for the Tiverton High School Minibus appeal. The organisers are hoping to beat last year’s achievement of raising over £10,000 for charities and other local clubs and voluntary organisations.
A lot has happened since our last update…
Tintin, our border collie, unfortunately wasn’t happy here with us and went back to the Blue Cross, he gave it a good go, but he developed a fear of horses and cats; Since then he has been re-homed with his brother.
We’ve had our 1st two weddings of the year.
The wet windy weather has blown down several trees in our woods and…
… we’ve started preparing the play area for the coming brighter, warmer and drier weather, ready for the children and young-at-heart adults.
Our 1st wedding, back in April evolved around a bird theme; in keeping with this Georgina and Philip hired some birds to attend their wedding. They weren’t the usual pigeon, swallow type of bird but very special ones from the Haven Falconry. One of these birds, the Barn Owl, was entrusted to be the ring bearer…
We have a new member added to our family, Tintin is a border collie cross. See our facebook page for a picture of him.
We’ve started puning our Cider Apple trees in the orchard.
Tim’s photo project has also started, for which Chaya our techie girl, and Tim received some training for. This is a major project, and will take place over the next 1-2 years. The project involves transferring Tim’s massive collection of slides into digital pictures in preparation for selling to photo libraries.
We have maintained our Accommodation to Gold Award standard from the Green Tourism Business Scheme, receiving a score of 90%. 4% up on last time!
On Wednesday 7th December 2011, Angela attended the Preparing to Prosper: Building Resilience to Change Workshop at the Exeter MET Office.
Speakers included:
Alex Webb from Climate South West,
Manda Brookman from CoaST (The Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project)
Emma Whittle sea – Chair of the Climate South West Tourism Sector Group, University of Plymouth
From this day, Angela learnt how to adapt and prepare for climate change.
The Apple Pressing festivities back in October were a wonderful success with the children running the smaller press for the juice and the adults the larger press for the cider.
We pressed four barrels of cider, and 400 litres of apple juice, of which we kept 100 for ourselves and the rest was given to the helpers from the weekend.
Tasting of last years cider was participated in from the youngest to the oldest
Amongst the apples we used, were our own for the first time from our orchard which was planted 10 – 11 years ago. We thank the local estates who let us pick from their orchards the apples that would otherwise have been wasted.
Well, hello everyone out there. With the unusually warm autumn, and coldest summer since 1993, we seem to be having an unusual year. The recent weather update is that the beginning of October is going to be the warmest since 1985, some parts of Britain will reach temperatures of 27 deg C.
This unusual weather, however, has not affected the apples, and our Annual Community Apple Pressing Weekend is going ahead on the weekend of 14th – 16th October 2011.
This years pressing will include:
Adults pressing apples on the large press for cider whilst…
the children press on the mini press for juice.
Traditional games such as the original 9-pins and Bat-the-Rat.
Sampling cider from last year’s pressing.
Possible mulled cider sampling courtesy of book report writing service and his burner.
Open fire for toasting marshmallows (weather permitting)
Bring an instrument and play opportunity
Pumpkin soup – bring and share (pumpkins permitting)
20th June 2011 saw the Malyon clan – Tim, Angela, Sofia and Finbar – heading off up to London to the Green Tourism Business Scheme ‘GOLDSTAR awards for UK & Ireland 2010-2011’.
This was a great day out and a chance for the junior members of the clan to really see how the Green affect is achieved and how effective it is; it also helped to bring about a realism to Finn and Sofia to how their family lives and operates, and for why they do it.
And the award? Well, that’s always an exciting time, the awards.
It is with great pleasure that we announce that
‘The Coombe Farm Trust’ has achieved Highly Commemded.
Middle Coombe Farm is well named. Coombe, meaning a hollow in a hillside, has seen some little fairy like structures appear. So, if you keep your eye keen as you’re walking that way, you may well see out of the corner of your eye a fairy folk go scurrying by.
Richard Yabsley, our woodcutter, and Sam Ellis, a chainsaw pirate, have been working hard in the woods; During the winter whilst thinning the trees, Richard would come also use his chainsaw to re-create the tree stumps into the various sized carvings that now appear in the clearings on the walk up to the ‘Oak Tree’.
March, the month of change.
A lot is happening. We, The Coombe Farm Trust, with the help of our website manager Peter Morgan, have set up a new page on our website ‘Logs & Timber for sale’. So please, go and have a look at that, let us know of any changes you think we need to make, bombard us with questions and let us know what you think.
The sun is out, the daffodils are out, snowdrops have been out for a while now, in fact, come to think of it hares, foxes and other forms of wildlife have been spotted round about as well. Please take care whilst driving at this beautiful time of year, there are too many casualties on the road.