Open Farm Day 2009

Until recently I thought a sheep was a sheep was a sheep! The local farm has 12 breeds of sheep, lots of them are shown in this piccy. My personal favourite is the Blue Faced Leicester, so soft and squishy. In my little world BFL are grown for fleece. It never entered my head that they would be used for meat also, How dense was I?








I learned all sorts of interesting facts from the farmer himself, as he gave a little talk whilst demonstrating how he shears the sheep. He made it look easy, but those sheep are a handful! It made me realise that when my sons struggle as I shave their heads, it could be worse, I could be trying to shear a full grown, annoyed, ram lol!




We went on a guided tractor ride around the farm, members of the young NFU gave snippits of info as we trundled through the beautiful Welsh countryside. In fact it was so distracting that Hubby - who had been put on taking photo's duty - completely forgot to take any! So I gave him a nudge right at the end of the day.


Not very flattering piccies, but here I am spinning the fleece from the farm, I also made a little pair of shorties from the BFL to show off whilst there. All aspects of the sheep were demonstrated there. No part of the sheep is wasted. I am not a vegetarian, but I do like to think that the animals loss of life is dignified by us using every part of it in a valuable way.

Did you take advantage of the lovely weather? Did you visit your local participating farm? If your answer is no, then you missed out on a lovely family day out, bringing you closer to nature and availing yourself of all the lovely local produce available!