Today was our fourth Open Farm Sunday attending event. The first year we went to Lancing College farm which is just up the road from us and more of an educational resource than a working farm with a handful of all animals but no real crops. Years two and three we went to an organic lamb farm which was highly educational as they are very passionate about what they do, education for all and sharing their views on organic farming, homeopathic treatments for their animals and restoring old farming methods and have a mix of arable crops to feed their lambs and a very labour intensive method of farming. We’ve combined that with a visit to a more commercial visitors farm down the road. This year we decided to head in the other direction and found a different sort of farm to visit – a large farm which grows lettuce and celery for supermarkets and local grocers. After some email contact with the owner booking places on tractor rides etc she emailed me to say she had arranged a limited number of canal boat rides to and from the farm on the Chichester canal and would we like to book that too?
So 1130am saw us dashing to the canal basin (traffic had been bad) and being last on the canal boat. We joined three other families aboard and had a lovely 30 minutes or so along the canal having wildlife (loads of ducks, coots, moorhens, a heron, terns) pointed out and spotted and the history of the canals talked about, while the kids mostly hung out on the top and all had a go at steering the boat, we arrived at the road. A tractor and trailer was waiting for us and took us along the road (very exciting riding in a trailer along a road) to the farm.
We had some tea and coffee and a look round the stalls – we particularly liked the wildlife stall where a very knowledgable woman was showing some stuffed mammals and animal skins. I then queued for ages and ages (about 40 minutes) for hog roast for Ady and I while Ady and the kids sat and ate the small amount of food we’d brought with us. The hog roast was delicious and worth the wait but frustrating because it was one of those situations where there was no real reason for such a delay.
Scarlett spotted a dead shrew on the floor and insisted on taking it to the wildlife woman to show her. They truly bonded over animals and a man from the next stall which was about owls joined in the love-in with his tupperware box of owl pellets. The three of them spent about 15 minutes rummaging through the fur and feathers and bones pulling out small mammal skulls and exclaiming at each other about them – I think Scarlett had found her spiritual parents 😆 She donated the dead shrew to the woman, Sarah, who promised to use the shrew to learn more about animals.
We then jumped on another tractor trailer for a tour round the farm. Huge fields filled with four different varities of lettuce and celery. They supply Asda, Sainsburys, Co Op and local greengrocers. The farmer commentating told us about sowing, harvesting, delivery to cold stores ready for collection, irrigation, pest control and how supermarkets dictate colour, size and weight. They have 2 llamas who they shear annually and sell the fleece and 3 pigs who eat all the reject lettuces but no other animals. They have 23 tractors and farm machines of all different types, some of which were out for children to clamber over.
We had time for an ice cream (made on a farm down the road, truly delicious) before needing to catch the next tractor to return us to the canal for our return boat trip. This time all the children spent the whole duration of the ride on the top deck while all the adults stayed below decks chatting to the member of staff. The farm visit was really good and the canal trip made it ever better – and all free :).
There was a family fun day at Shoreham airport today as part of the Adur Festival so we came home via a quick visit there to see if anything was happening but they seemed to be wrapping things up there so we came home. Ady and the kids did garden based things while I got a roast dinner on. We sat down to eat and watch Countryfile.
The kids and I read a few chapters of Alone on a wide, wide sea and they had yet another late night.