Warming Up

David Millward's photo - thanks David

Warming up

In the weeks leading up to closing for the winter many of our visitors wish us well for our holiday.  Leaving the shop they will say something like "Enjoy your break - you deserve it" or "Bet you are looking forward to putting your feet up for a while".  Usually we smile and agree - but just sometimes we find ourselves saying - We are closing to the public, not having a holiday!.  But when we say that, it is usually because the weight of the workload ahead of us is praying on our minds.  Because closing to the public is just that .  Everything else on the farm carries on, all the animals still need to be fed, cleaned and cared for and all the jobs that we can't do when the public are there each day, can now be started.

We start the 3 month "downtime" with a plan.  This could be called the Preposterous Plan.  It lists everything we want to do but it takes no account of the fact that:

there are only 3 of us to implement it;

only 3 months to complete it;

downtime is the start of winter and the weather will make many jobs impossible.

Oh, and then there is Christmas right in the middle - with a magic combination of all the family descending on the farm to be fed and watered and all the farm helpers staying at home with their faimilies.

Sometimes, if the weather has been kind, one month into the plan will still make everything seem possible.  We will have made good progress with preparing the ground for new fencing, laying down a new foot path, demolishing an old field shelter but then the snows will arrive or one of us will get (and pass on) a virus. Something always happens to throw the plans off course.

So, like most people, we end up working really long hours for the few weeks just before we open.  By this stage we are working hard not because we are trying to finish off the list but because we are trying to get the farm in an orderly way, from the havoc created by starting item 1 or 2 in the list (items 3 to 20 never got a look-in).

And so it was this year.  

Close to the top of the list was to re-work the shop toilets and replace the pig fencing.

The toilet facilities have been unsatisfactory for a while - as there were three urinals and one toilet for the men and only one toilet for women/disabled and nappy changers to share.

So we arranged to have all the area re-designed and agreed with the plumber and builder that they would be out by the end of January.  Unfortunately - like most building works - this over ran and although most of the job was completed and cleared away by the 4th February, the final touches were finished on the 10th - less than 24 hours before we were due to open.

With most of the builder's rubble out of the way on the 4th, I started cleaning the shop, painting the toilets and shop and getting the shelves cleaned and the stock put out.  Brick and plaster dust are always a nightmare to clean up and the shop took much longer than I had hoped.

A large part of Friday was spent baking, with the remainder being finished on Saturday morning.  But by  Saturday morning it was clear that the drop in temperature overnight had led to all the water systems in the shop to freeze over. I finished the remainder work in the house, while everyone else tried to get the pipes defrosted.

In the end, it took all day to get the water moving.  Without any water for people to wash their hands we were unable to open  to the public. It was so disappointing and strangely ironic.  To have put so much effort in to getting the toilets finished - it was then not possible to use them because the water was frozen.

As for the pig fencing, I can still see the stack of fencing posts in the disabled parking bay.  They were delivered just before the temperatures dropped and the snows arrived.  We could no longer see where the posts were due to go, let alone make holes in the frozen soil.

So all in all, an inauspicious start to the year..... Things can only get better.  

3rd February - we must be nearly there - surely?!

It is the same every year.  We close at the end of October and it seems like we have all the time in the world to put in hand the maintenance jobs that aren't possible when the farm is open to the public.  November slips by, some progress is made and we all feel quietly confident that everything is possible.  Then December whizzes by- a blur of cooking, eating, shopping and entertaining. On to the New Year.
January arrives, slaps us round the face and demands to know how it is possible to finish all the jobs we have started before we open our doors mid February.
By early February and the birth of the first lamb, the full horror of the situation is all too apparent.  We have a week left and about 1000 hours of work to complete.  Yet again, we have taken on way too many jobs, assumed there would be no hitches and forgot to factor in that we are only a small team.
By the time we open, on the 11th February, some things will have to be sorted.  The lambing pens are ready and our first twins are happily leaping around the pen. There will be more.
The posts for the new pig pens are still in the disabled parking lot.  Yesterday's efforts to start driving them into the soil failed as the ground is now frozen rock solid.
As I write, the builders who have been changing the toilet arrangements in the shop (who promised me they would be finished by last Friday) are still very much here.  My efforts to clean and prepare the kitchen yesterday were thwarted by the fact that the plumber still hasn't finished the pipe work and therefore there is no water.
On the positive side, once we start lambing we have to check on the lambs round the clock. As I got up this morning to do the 3am check, I began thinking that it would be a good idea not to go back to bed, but to head to the shop and start painting. But the thought of my nice warm bed was too great.  I went back to bed and worried instead.  At this rate, this time next week, we won't even be going to bed.