| Bird Boxes - Lamb Meat ,,, ,,,Lockdown Visits ,,,Fungi ,,,Kings Field open |
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Our Christmas Produce - buy now while stocks last!
A Bird Box for your kids to build
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These boxes are used mainly by Great Tits, Blue Tits and sometimes Sparrows |
The boxes were made as a contribution to our work by local bespoke furniture specialists Boatman Furniture. |
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Half a lamb for your freezer - SORRY ALL NOW SOLD!
Wiltshire Horn lambs produce excellent, really tasty meat: especially when they have lived their lives free-range in flower-rich fields never treated with chemicals.
Your half-lamb comes fully butchered, delivered and ready to go in your freezer.
The price is £10.50 per kilo and a half lamb can weigh anything from 7 to 10 kilos.
Delivery 4th or 5th December. Email Elaine@Corke.biz to make a reservation: but hurry, we already have reservations for more than half our lambs.
| Bird Boxes - Lamb Meat ,,,,Lockdown Visits ,,,Fungi ,,,Kings Field open |
Walden Countryside Lockdown
When Lockdown starts on November 5th
- You can still visit Noakes Grove, Kings Field or Ellis Green whenever you like so long as its just you and other members of your household.
- Our volunteers who take turns to visit our sheep, or help manage Noakes Grove at work parties, count as part-time unpaid agricultural workers. You are still allowed to work but must take all possible precautions.
- Our weekly "Wild Child Club" for home-educated youngsters is now classified as an "out of school setting educational club" which means the the Club can continue if we follow the sensible rules set by the Government. The Friday Club is much enjoyed by its 6-9-year old members but it is full. If anyone feels able and willing to run a second Club, on a different day, please make contact. We can explain exactly how the Club works and what you would have to do. It's fun for the organiser as well as the kids.
| Bird Boxes - Lamb Meat ,,,,Lockdown Visits ,,,Fungi ,,,Kings Field open |
Sheep back home
The eight ewes that we hope will have lambs next year are now back at Noakes Grove. Their suitor (Gaul - the same ram who sired this year's crop of lambs) arrives st the end of the month.
Next work party at Noakes Grove: Sunday November 15th. Please email us if you can come and need more details.
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New Fungus for Essex
Early in October Tony Boniface (the Essex Field Club's recorder for fungi) visited Noakes Grove to make a start on a survey of our mushrooms and toadstools. One, that he found growing on our old bonfire site was especially exciting: - the first ever record for Essex.
Its name is: The Goldleaf Shield (Pluteus romellii) and we are very proud of it
Wild Kids and Dog's Sick Slime Mould
The Wild Child Club also started to take an interest in fungi too: even the seven and eight year olds could take decent photos with their phones and we set up a web page which Tony agreed to inspect and identify those fungi which can be named from a photo alone.
The kids were most attracted to the Dog Sick Slime Mould which isn't really a fungus at all. It's nearer to being a primitive animal than a plant.
To learn more about this attractively named beast, take a look at the Wild Child Fungus page. |
King's Field now open to visitors - bridge coming soon
We've just been given a new tenancy agreement by our Landlords: they have added a small extra piece of land to our nature reserve and we've agreed the way we can use the land and allow visitors and organised group events in much the same way we do at Noakes Grove. When you visit, you'll find the rules set out on the gate sign and some laminated leaflets you can carry with you during your visit.
Because farm machinery needs to cross the end of King's Field, on its way too and from our landlord's farm, it is vitally important that visitors park off the entry track on the grass roadside verge. The bridge and entry gate must never be blocked.
The Wild Child Club went fishing in the Bumpstead Brook that crosses the reserve. There were plenty of small fish: both minnows and sticklebacks, If your kids want to explore the Brook do be careful: in rainy weather it flows fast and deep.
We have been given a very nice footbridge by Essex County Council: it used to be in Bridge End Gardens. Now we have to find some way of transporting it to Kings Field and installing it across the brook at the western end of the reserve. When it is in place, visitors will be able to follow an attractive circular path exploring the meadow and pasture on both sides of the stream.
There's more information on the Kings Field web page.
| Bird Boxes - Lamb Meat ,,,,,Lockdown Visits ,,,Fungi ,,,Kings Field open |
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