Barnyard Buzz – March & April 2025

CAMPSITE

LOCAL FOSSILS

This family was more adventurous than most and found interesting fossils in unusual places in the local area. [1]

FEEDING AND CUDDLING LAMBS, AND MEETING PIGLETS

We had lots of children at the campsite during the early spring who loved feeding and cuddling the lambs and getting to know the piglets. [2] [3] [4]

THE EASTER BUNNY

Over Easter our regulars, the Wellers, put on their usual exciting Easter egg hunt for their children which was enjoyed by all, and this year there was even an Easter bunny. [5]

PIGS HAVING BREAKFAST

Most campers walk over to the other side of the campsite, near the over grown pond [which is now a nature reserve] to see the adult pigs. Nelson, who is a Duroc Cross and his wife Gertrude II, is a Pretrain, were having breakfast at the time. [6]

CYCLIST

Yet another intrepid cyclist enjoying our English countryside, on a four day break, during the lovely weather we have been having. He travelled from Wales, through the Forest of Dean and Shepton Mallett to arrive at Crabbs Bluntshay. He was heading north the next day and then returning to Wales. He averaged about 50 miles a day, sometimes only travelling at 10 miles an hour. I wish I was a fit as he was! [7]

WASHING THE CABIN AND PAINTING STEPS

There is always non-stop maintenance on the campsite so the annual washing of the cabin had to be done and the front steps desperately needed painting. [8] [9]

TIDYING POT PLANTS AND STAPLING SIGNS

The pots around the campsite need regular weeding which is never ending and I usually try to advertise the wares of both local public houses, at either end of Bluntshay Lane. [10] [11]

FARM

SELLING OLD TRACTORS

My late husband had accumulated two vintage tractors, [an International and a Fordson Major] and several pieces of equipment over the years. Unfortunately the value has dropped on the tractors so I didn’t get as much revenue as I would have done several years ago. [12] [13]

CAT

Gingy is now nearly 4 years old. [14] She has become a lot more affectionate since her sister disappeared about 18 months ago. All the campers love her and she revels in the attention. Only about 20% of ginger cats are female.

LOTS OF NEW LAMBS

There have been many new arrivals on Bluntshay over the last 6 weeks. [15] The rams included Dutch Spotted, Chartox and Kerry Hill, whilst the ewes were Texal Mules, North Country Mules, Texals and Kerry Hill. [16] They spent some time in the field opposite the campsite, up and through Easter time but now they are distributed around West Dorset on several pieces of rented acreages. This is because the grass at Bluntshay needs to grow for silaging later on, and some fields for the cows to eat grass during the late spring and summer.
This spring there were 87 lambs from 50 ewes.

GARDEN AND SPRING FLOWERS

This year it has been particularly good for all colours of bells around the garden, and also for cowslips, primroses and polyanthus. [17] [18 [19 [20]

BIRD TABLE

You may remember that the bird table that was designed with a rat proof tray was demolished during a bad storm during the winter. [21] George and Harry, both being handymen managed to repair it back to its former glory. So now we can get a glimpse of the local bird life from the kitchen door. [22 [23] [24 [25]

LEAVE LEAVES   “Every Litter Bit Counts”  [26]

Let leaves stay where they fall. They won’t hurt your lawn if you chop them with a mulching mower. Rake leaves off the lawn to use as mulch in garden beds. For finer-textured mulch shred them first. Let leaf piles decompose, the resulting leaf mould can be used as a soil amendment to improve structure and water retention. Make compost. Combine fallen leaves with grass clippings and other green material and keep moist and well mixed. You’ll have nutrient-rich compost to add to your garden next spring.

During the late autumn, winter and early spring leaves create soil nutrients, moisture, shelter and protection for all manner of minibeasts and birds including: moths, spiders, insects, pupae, larvae, frogs, microbes, fireflies, bees, woodlice, arthropods, small mammals and tortoises. So please don’’t send them on for landfill as soon as they fall! [27]

RAYBURN AND WOOD BURNER

I thought that Rayburns were meant to last for donkeys’ years, but that wasn’t the case with this one! It had been causing dust and soot in the sitting room for some time and over the last 18 months had started to leak water. [28] By last January it was really getting out of hand. I had originally thought that the water was coming through from the outside wall, as the path is a good 12 inches above the sitting room floor. Eventually I found someone to remove the Rayburn. [29] It had to go out through the front door, but that meant moving lots of furniture to create enough space to do it. I was impressed with how it was manoeuvred on rollers to the front garden, and then just abandoned! It was such a treat to have a wood burner that doesn’t smoke and gave out a lot of heat. Mind you it does need a lot of wood to keep it going, but that is a small price to pay for the 100% improvement on the Rayburn. [30a]

PANCAKE DAY AT BROADWINDSOR [30b]

I nearly missed the pancakes at this event, but fortunately some ladies, who had arrived late from a Chair Yoga class, had a late sitting. [30c] Broadwindsor residents have been having Pancake Coffee Mornings for several year years and they have always been well supported. All the ladies involved seemed to be happy doing their various tasks, and 50 pancakes were made in all. [30d] [30e] [30f]

The event was used to raise funds for St Andrew’s Church at Burstock, near Broadwindsor. [30g]. The church was built in 1280 with a thatched roof. In about 1680 the church was almost entirely rebuilt, and in 1847 the upper part of the tower was remodelled and increased in height. The gargoyles of the tower were part of the old tower of 1280. In 1877 the church was restored with the gallery and panelling removed, the walls plastered, the stone work of some of the windows renewed and the pitch pine pews put in. The bowl of the font is Norman.

As is generally known Pancake Day is on Shrove Tuesday which is the day before the 40 days of Lent. Lent is meant to be a time of sacrifice, in honour of Jesus who spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness. Shrive is the past tense of the verb shrive which means to go to a priest for confession of penance. It takes place on a different Tuesday each year but is always 47 days before Easter Sunday. Lent begins from Ash Wednesday, the day after Shrove Tuesday.

Lent is a time when people give up something.  In Eastern churches, Lent is a time to fast – which may mean that only one meal a day can be served, and certain foods like meat and eggs cannot be eaten.  In Western churches, the rules are more relaxed.  People stop eating something they really like, like chocolate or sweets.  Catholics may also choose to give up meat on Fridays during Lent.  But before the rules were relaxed people would give up all animal products throughout Lent, including foods like eggs and milk. Christians would eat pancakes on the last day before Lent begins to use up things in the cupboard like flour, eggs and milk that they wouldn’t be eating for Lent.

Lent is symbolic and highlights the fact that Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights before later dying on the cross.  So to many Christians Lent is a time to give things up and test their willpower.

RIVER CHAR   [31]

The Char Valley Parish Council has been involved with projects concerning the River Char for some time: River Char Community Project, and River Char Action Group. This has culminated in several presentations of findings at Wootton Fitzpaine Hall over the years. The latest one was in February this year when the report entitled “River Monitoring and what it tells us about Pollution in the River Char” was distributed and discussed.

This was attended by 73 members of the local community. The meeting was ably chaired by Hilary Joyce who skilfully managed the three speakers, Julie Leah (Chemicals and pollution), Keith Miller (invertebrate monitoring) and John Kenward (bacteriological testing), as well as the enthusiastic audience during the Q & A session.

Each speaker presented an illustrated talk on their topics, supported by many photographs, graphs and bar charts. The overall conclusion after our first year of monitoring and measuring was that the River Char has a reasonable invertebrate and other wildlife populations, a fair amount of chemical pollution principally arising from household and agricultural effluents and run off, and significant counts of Escherischa coli/Enterococcus spp bacteria indicating the presence of animal-derived faecal matter from private septic tanks/cess pits and from farm animal slurry. No part of the River Char so far tested can be said to be safe for river bathing using the Environment Agency’s own guidelines.

Much more work needs to be done to monitor the chemical levels and to measure the insect populations over several years to provide sufficient data to show whether the environmental health of the Char is improving, stable or deteriorating. More scientific methods are being developed by the River Char Action Group to improve bacterial monitoring and in particular to try to show what are the exact sources of the organisms we are finding eg human sewage, cattle slurry, water birds.

The village of Whitchurch Canonicorum, worryingly, is producing consistently high levels of faecal bacteria compared to other nearby villages and agricultural areas.

Other planned initiatives include Himalayan Balsam pulling parties, Water Vole monitoring and Mink monitoring programmes. [Mink were allowed to escape from captivity in the 1970’s and have wreaked havoc on rivers ever since].

The full report on the above can be found at www.riverchar.org.

Here are two charts from the report: one showing details about the Freshwater Shrimp, and the other about the Mayfly [32] [33]

Since February two stalwart volunteers, Sandy and Chris Hinton have visited my stretch of the River Char once a month, to check on the “health” of the water and its inhabitants. [34] [35] [36] [37] I think that they have been happy with what they have found, with little pollution. The results of their most recent survey found the following:

• 1 caseless caddis (Trichoptera))
• 25 Olives (Ephemeroptera)
• 10 blue winged Olives (Ephemeroptera)
• 3 shrimps (Gammarus)
• 1 stonefly (Plecoptera)
• 3 minute bullhead fry (Cottus gobio)

DAVID AND KIM SQUIRRELL

ROPE – A JOURNEY IN MUSIC AND POETRY  [38]

This event was held at St John the Baptist Church in Fishpond. [39] Kim and David offered to put on the Poetry Reading event with music at the church in order to raise funds to erect a toilet in the churchyard. [40] [41] The Poem Rope, written by Kim, is a long narrative poem which echoes with the voices of people connected through trade and the work of hands, [41a] It begins on a spring morning in 1830 in Bridport on the South West Coast of England and listens-in on the crew of a ship becalmed in the Atlantic, the people of Benin City in West Africa and the inhabitants of St Kitts in the Caribbean, finally looping back to England.

In writing the poem Kim explored and researched objects, raw materials, archive documents, illustrations, portraits and rural skills. Then populated it with characters, real and imagined, found in archives and collections in the West Country, London, Liverpool and the Americas. She drew on the culture and history of her Caribbean family [from St Kitts] and the Dorset landscape where she has made her home. She is seeking publication for the poem as a chapbook and will submit it later this year. The event was well attended,[42] and the poem and music were much appreciated [43] with amazing food and drink afterwards. [44] [45] [46]

Kim was born in Birmingham in 1958 to Caribbean and Irish parents. At 17 she declared herself a poet and went in search of the countryside, settling in the West Country in 1988. She holds a degree in Fine Art and English from the University of Exeter and her interdisciplinary practice has encompassed environmental theatres, collaborative performance and site-specific installation. Her writing has appeared in publications including “Poetry Review”, “Stand”,”Riptide, poetry anthologies “Out of Bounds” and “More Fiya”, and the short story anthology “Resist”. In 2021 she was shortlisted for the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize

Returning to study at Exeter Kim received an MA with distinction in Creative Writing, submitting her narrative poem ‘Rope’ as her dissertation. Further experiments in long form poetry and prose led to her winning the Bridport Prize Dorset Award for her novel in progress and the Sky Arts RSL Writers Award for fiction. Her CV as a novelist, poet, short fiction writer and artist is very impressive.

David was born near Canterbury in Kent and trained in Bristol as a bookbinder over 35 years ago. Once in Dorset he revived the skills he gained in his first career caring for apple trees and worked as an orchardist, pruning, propagating new trees and teaching all ages these crafts.

He is also an accomplished musician playing mandolin, and along with Emma McEvoy, who plays fiddle and recorder, they form the duo Yellow Room. [47] [48] David and Emma are part of the Ceilidh band Up and Running, along with Robert Lee, [49] guitar and stompbox with various callers. [50] Both the duo and band play at many folk concerts and the like all over West Dorset. A popular venue for the Yellow Room is the Goose and Badger, next to the Electric Palace in Bridport [51]

Kim and David met in 1997 as studio neighbours. They threw their lot in together and moved to Dorset in 1998 where their second child was born. One of the first things they did was to restore an orchard and acquired as many crafts skills as they could master, sourcing materials directly from the land. This connection to nature cultivated mindfulness and convinced them of the need to bring creativity into everyday life and for many years they ran environmental learning projects that did just that. In fact I met Kim and David through cider making, when they came to one of our cider pressings at Bluntshay in 1998!

In 2018 they set up Ink & Page, Bridport’s first makers’ shop. [52] This is situated in West Allington, along from the butchers, Balsons. The shop was built for a tailor in 1845 and is decorated inside and out with hand carved details and is the perfect home for handcrafted work. [53] [54] [55] [56] Upstairs in the bindery and in the nearby print room they produce handcrafted books, block prints, letterpress cards and poetry, all of which are collated alongside other artist and makers. They offer tuition in all their disciplines including Keeping a Notebook. Since Autumn 2024 there has been a focus on writing with a programme of events and learning opportunities.

Kim’s latest community led project is to convert the two obsolete telephone boxes, outside the post office on West Street into a mini writing room to support writing creativity. Kim was due to be interviewed by BBC Radio on the day I interviewed her. What an amazing couple!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Kim and David Squirrell, Judy Squirrell, Cora Rawlins, Goose and Badger, Harry Matterface, Alisha and George Lambert, David Kenward, Kate Penney, Sandy and Chris Hinton and an interesting Dutch cyclist.