logo

April 2024 - Newsletter

head

Sheep at Noakes Grove Work Parties Wild Child New Shed School Visits Tractor

Sheep at Noakes Grove

The sheep that have spent the winter at Kings Field have left. Five of them (pregnant ewes) are now back at Noakes Grove. They are due to give birth around the second week in May

The other ewes and the ram are now grazing some private fields just down the road from Noakes Grove. Public footpath number 22 runs beside two of these four fields.

Sheep

Work Parties

The next work parties at Noakes Grove will be on:

Sunday 21st April
Sunday 19th May

Come any time after 10am and before 3pm.

It's the start of the nesting season so we will leave the work on the hedge now until the autumn. The volunteers have made great progress in winter and spring this year, cutting back the scrub where it had grown out into the field, so that we can get access to restore the original line of the hedge.

Hedge work

Photo: Emma Horton

Wild Child Anniversary

Our Wild Child group of home-educated children continued their meetings every second Friday throughout the winter and are now looking forward to Spring. They are already asking to have another overnight camp.

In a few weeks Wild Child will be celebrating its fourth birthday. Some of the original children are still part of the group but will soon be retiring (when they are 12).

One of the highlights of our first four years was a long walk from Noakes Grove to Kings Field which even the youngest of the group managed to complete (and earn a real dinosaur toothe to mark their achievement).

We have a good batch of new members. – but, if you have a 6 to 10 year old, home-educated child, why not join a sample session to see if he or she would like to join the group?

Contact info@walden-countryside.co.uk

Dinosaur walk

New Shed at Kings Field

Visitors to Kings Field may find a splendid new shed of they venture as far as the end of the Cricket-bat Willow Field. The shed was a generous present from a donor on “Freecycle” and has been erected by John Bagley and Peter Savic, It will be used for storing bales of hay ready for when the sheep return to Kings Field.

School Visits

DEFRA (the UK Government department that supports farmers and farming) is funding us to provide educational visits to Noakes Grove. These will help the children to learn something of our sheep farming and conservation activities.

The visits will be for groups of children of primary school age and can be arranged either by the school's teaching staff or a parents' group. There is no charge for the visit but the group must get to and from Noakes Grove in shared cars or by rented transport.

Contact info@walden-countryside.co.uk for more information.

Tractor

We are proud to be the owners of a classic tractor: a 1976 Zetor 4718 manufactured in the Czech republic when it was still Czechoslovakia. We can still use the tractor for grass cutting our pasture land but we would really like to get its electrics and brakes working so we can make it road legal. Do you know anyone who enjoys renovating classic tractors?

Tractor

Sheep at Noakes Grove Work Parties Wild Child New Shed School Visits Tractor

Copyright 2024
Organic Countryside Community Interest Company
Trading as Walden Countryside

Company number 06794848 - registered in England
VAT No: 947 3003 31

23 Tye Green, Wimbish CB10 2XE

01799 599 643

Updated 3 April 2024

Top of document