West Ilkerton Farm News

2012-01-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day at West Ilkerton 2011 (the big red Case tractor is Chris' Christmas present for the next ten years or so, and the Exmoor Horn lamb was born a couple of weeks before Christmas).

2011-12-29T07:02:00.000-08:00

A happy New Year to all our friends and guests. I'm afraid very few people got Christmas cards from us this year. I just wasn't organised enough, but also I had a deadline to meet with the re-write of my Katy books. Many apologies, and I'll try to do better next year.
In case anyone hasn't heard, I've been taken on by Orion Children's Books. They're publishing re-written and updated versions of the Katy trilogy and Midnight, and have also commissioned another trilogy, so I'm now a proper writer! The other great news is that Chris is still doing the illustrations for the insides of the books. It's hard work, but I'm loving it and it's great to have the oppotunity to make the original books better with expert editorial guidance. Chris is doing some new illustrations for the new books too, and an artist called Angelo Rinaldi has illustrated the covers. The first two books: Katy's Wild Foal and Katy's Champion Pony will be published on 2nd February 2012, and they can be pre-ordered from bookshops and Amazon now! See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Katys-Wild-Foal-Ponies/dp/1444005413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325176015&sr=8-1
and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Katys-Champion-Pony-Ponies/dp/1444005421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325176151&sr=1-1

I named our only colt foal this year Orion

We also had two Exmoor filly foals this year, called Gaia and Demeter, and an Appaloosa x Exmoor 'surprise' filly foal called Hell's Bells (her mother's called Hell's Angel).

Some other good news is that Sarah graduated from Cirencester this year with an Honours degree in Agriculture, and she won the award for the best student on her course. Here she is surrounded by her male fan club (yes, rams are very well-endowed, aren't they?!)

Winaway (Rosie's foal) is turning into a really useful horse...

Another horse Sarah's training is Tommy, a piebald Irish horse we were given because he had injured his foot and it was uncertain whether he'd be truly sound again. At the moment he seems to be progressing well. He's lovely to look after, but quite a keen ride and enjoys bucking!

There are now solar panels on the roof of The Tallat (where my Mum lives) and we have a smart red Case tractor instead of the old 70 horsepower New Holland tractor we bought in 1994!
George surprised us by arriving to stay for a couple of days on Christmas Eve - the best Christmas present ever! I hope I'll have some photos of Christmas to put up soon, together with photos of the first calf and first lamb of the season.

It may be of interest to our guests who come and stay in our self-catering cottage that it's a possibility this will be the last year the self-catering cottage will be available to rent. Sarah may live there next year, or we may get a long-term let. Nothing is definite yet, though.

2011-08-29T04:01:00.000-07:00

Summer time, and the living is easy (well, sort of, except there hasn't been enough dry weather so we've still got two fields of grass to cut, and other minor niggles). Anyway, here are some photos of West Ilkerton this summer:

Last, but not least, Anne (my mum, who lives opposite the farmhouse) is now a proud greatgrandma.

Our niece, Immy, and her husband, Dario, have had a son called Frankie:

2011-06-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

This picture says it all! Read below for full story....

2011-06-02T03:59:00.000-07:00

Sherman the Shire has come home to West Ilkerton Farm!
Sherman (left) and Spec (right) in 2005

Some of you may remember Sherman. He was with us for about seven years when we had the Horsedrawn Tour business. About five years ago we sold him with a younger black Shire called Spec and a set of harness plus a nearly new rides wagon which Chris had made (pictured above) to Mullacott Equestrian Centre. The reasons we sold the horses were that the Horsedrawn Tour business was no longer profitable and Sherman (then nearly 17 years old) was finding the hills difficult with a full load. We were assured by Mullacott Equestrian Centre that Sherman's workload would be light and that we would have first refusal if they ever decided to sell the horses. We also agreed that when Sherman became too old to work we would give him a retirement home here.
BUT just over a year later we heard through the grapevine that Sherman, Spec, the harness and the wagon had been sold on. Repeated requests for information from Mullacott Equestrian Centre were stone-walled, so I eventually managed to track the horses down through Sherman's horse passport number. The passport company told me to write a letter which they would forward to the new owners, and then it would be up to the new owners to contact us if they wanted to. Luckily, the new owners (Mr and Mrs Crocker from Bere Regis, Dorset) contacted us. It transpired that Mullacott Equestrian Centre had sold the horses to the Crockers unshod and untried on the strength of old photos of the pair working when they were with us! They also charged much more money that we had sold everything for, and didn't tell the Crockers that (although they had been fine for the first season) during the second season the horses had become increasingly unmanageable, which is why they were sold unshod and untried - a fact we found out from a former employee.
Moral: Don't trust anyone when buying or selling a horse. Get promises in writing. If a horse is really special to you, don't sell it!

Sherman in the field this morning

Anyway, about three weeks ago we had a telephone call from Mrs Crocker saying did we want to buy the horses back? After much soul-searching (and bank account searching!) we decided we really couldn't afford to buy Spec, and the Crockers said they knew of an experienced Shire person who was interested in Spec, anyway. However, we felt that at 21 years old we had to buy Sherman back and give him a good retirement. He worked his socks off for us for several years and never put a foot wrong. Also, he's the kindest, gentlest horse you could ever wish to meet.

Sherman having a good roll. At 21 years old he can still roll right over and back again.

So yesterday a very smart and expensive horse lorry fetched Sherman from Bere Regis and brought him back to West Ilkerton (the trouble with Shire horses is they can't fit in normal trailers!). The lorry was too big to fit down our lane, so we unloaded Sherman at our lane end, and Chris walked him home. As I followed behind I couldn't stop tears from welling up in my eyes because it seemed so right for Chris to be leading a Shire (especially dear old Sherman) down the lane again.
Some sort of ESP must have been at work because Sarah rang at midday and said she was coming home with some of her stuff from Cirencester, and she would be here at around 5 o'clock. We hadn't told Sarah about Sherman coming home because we didn't want to disappoint her if anything went wrong. Sherman was always her special horse, and she was (rightly) very upset at us for selling him.
When Sarah arrived I told her that Winaway was in the barn and needed to be put out in the field. As she went into the barn, she did the best double-take I've ever seen! She really couldn't believe that Sherman was standing there. Needless to say, we went weepy again.

Sherman is now here to stay. For the moment he's settling in, but seeing how fit and well he is we may just get out the harness and potter around the farm with him sometime - just for fun!

2011-05-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

The holiday cottage has just been awarded four stars by the ETC. Over the winter we made several improvements, including new oak furniture in the living room, new flooring in the bathrooms, new carpets in the bedrooms and a re-paint for the bathrooms and bedrooms. Oh, and the baths have been re-enamelled. The ground floor bath (with shower over) has had a non-slip surface, too - slimy bath mats with suckers are so last year!

The main bathroom

The twin-bedded room - less orange than before!

The sitting room. The new oak cupboard has new games in it,

including Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders and Scrabble

The second king-size bedroom

The master bedroom

The living room

Come on holiday to West Ilkerton, and see for yourself!

2011-05-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

We've finished calving! Primrose, our pet cow, held on for a long time, but she eventually calved yesterday. She's a very proud mum. We'll keep her in with two other cows and young calves for a few days, and then they'll join the rest of the herd in the fields.

The cows are sharing the barn with the hoggets (yearling ewes).

The hoggets have been shorn early this year. In the photo Chris is catching the sheep for Ian South to shear. We are going to keep the hoggets in the shed for a week or two so that they get used to being naked, and also so we can feed them some cake. If they get used to eating sheep cake now, they come up to eat it much more readily when they're in lamb and they really need it.

Sarah and Bramble
Now for some doggy news. Bramble the cocker spaniel is rapidly turning into Sarah's dog. She's so full of life that I can't keep up - actually that applies to both of them!
Beetle is still well, but unfortunately Ben, our young collie, was run over by the quad bike at lambing time. He was very poorly to begin with, and the vet thinks he may have cracked his pelvis. He's making a recovery, but he's still quite lame. Time will tell....very sad, as we're all so fond of him.

Our other bit of sad news is that Sam (the old scruffy collie) had to be put down before lambing. He's buried on the farm.

Beetle and Ben

We're fast becoming a vintage machinery refuge. Chris' brother, Nick, traced his old tractor and bought it back. Chris, Nick and Rupert have just had a lovely afternoon playing with their new toy.

Sarah's Landrover has been promoted to number one farm vehicle. Chris uses it every day to feed the animals:

2011-05-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung at last and lambing is over! Most of the cows have calved, too, with just our pet Primrose to go.
As you can see from this photo, West Ilkerton wasn't immune to Royal Wedding fever:

Why I should follow that photo with this one of a rabbit I do not know, but here it is:

Rabbits have been in short supply here for the past few years, but now they're back, fighting fit and poised to take over the world. Needless to say, they're breeding like rabbits.
The deer are also multiplying somehow - perhaps the rabbits are giving them lessons. Sarah took this photo, on the field we call Opposite, in mid-April. You can see that some of the stags have shed their antlers. Now, in mid-May, all the stags have shed their antlers. It's amazing how difficult it is to find the antlers, though - especially a matched pair.

We had some great lambing assistants this year. Chris' goddaughter, Tiggy Waterer, came to help for the first five days. She was a tremendous help, and we wish her the best of luck with her GCSEs. When she's a famous vet we'll be able to say she did some lambing experience with us! Then Shannon Hagger came to stay for a few days, and Seb Smith (our nephew) came to stay for a week. The Hagger family are regular visitors to the holiday cottage, and Shannon has decided to study agriculture. She fitted in immediately, and was a great help at a very busy time. Seb, who was with us for a week last year, was thrown in at the deep end and did Sarah's early morning shift and lots more besides. Sarah, meanwhile, did her final year dissertation - some of the time!

Lambing Team 2011: Shannon, Sarah, Seb and Chris
We sold most of our tame lambs (with apologies to Sophie and Alice!) but we still ended up with some which had to be rescued from the fields at a later date. Here's our niece, Alix Walton, feeding the tame lambs:

Now that lambing's over there's time to enjoy ourselves a bit. Chris took this photo of (l to r) me on Bella, Sarah on Winaway and Frances Steer on Tempo on Ilkerton Ridge. We'd just been on a lovely ride up the Hoar Oak valley. I can always make the excuse that I'm looking at the Exmoor ponies when I go out for a ride! We now have 30 ponies and 3 foals (the early foaling mares must have got in foal to Ziggy before I sold him last year) We haven't got close enough to the foals to see whether they're male or female yet.

Mare and foals on Ilkerton Ridge, May 2011

2011-01-12T04:36:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends and guests. Some of you have asked whether we had a white Christmas at West Ilkerton. The answer is YES!

Snow is great fun, but hard work:

2011-01-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

It's finally happened! After two years' planning we've got a wind turbine. Here is an easy-peasy step-by-step pictorial guide to installing a wind turbine:

All done!

2010-10-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

The housemartins have now emigrated for the winter, so we can claim back our porch!

Yet again, many apologies for not updating the farm news page more regularly. A lot has happened in a few months - so much that I haven't had time to write about it.
Our best bit of news is that we've got permission to have an Iskra Evance 5kW wind turbine, and it should be up-and-running by Christmas. It will be a dream-come-true to lie in bed on a stormy night counting kilowatt hours and multiplying by pence per unit!
Our worst bit of news is that, for the first time ever, we had a reactor in our TB test a few weeks ago. I suppose it was only a matter of time because most of our neighbours have come down with it, but it's still a terrible shock. The implications are many and varied, but the main ones are we'll have about 20 more cattle to over-winter than we were planning on, we'll have to buy in extra feed and we will have a severe cash flow problem without the income from the 20 animals we were going to sell. What a worry.

Our best-and-worst bit of news is that we have two puppies: Bramble the Cocker Spaniel and Ben the sheepdog. They are great fun, but we'd forgotten what hard work puppies are. Our lives now revolve round their sleep, feed and excercise times, and we have to be vigilant when walking around with socks on in the house - anyone who has had a puppy in their house will know what I mean.

They're lovely when they're asleep! (Farmer included.)
Chris and I went to Sarah's graduation at Cirencester last weekend. She now has a Foundation Degree in Agriculture and Farm Business Management, but she's staying on for this year to study for a BSC Honours Degree.

She still comes home quite a bit to see her dog (Ben) and to ride Winaway - who's doing well, touch wood. Winaway's sarcoids were becoming a real worry, and we were spending a fortune on vet's fees and Liverpool cream. In desperatation, I turned to homeopathy - not believing it would work - and amazingly the sarcoid on her nose has disappeared and the cluster on her leg has reduced to a pimple. The bare patch around her leg sarcoids now has black hairs growing over it. I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but many thanks to Geoff Johnson, our homeopathic vet. I haven't a clue why homeopathy works, but it does seem to have almost magical properties if you get the remedy exactly right.

Sarah riding Winaway

2010-07-31T01:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Sarah took Anne (my mum, Sarah's grandma), MJ (my good friend, Sarah's Godmother) and me to Longleat for the day. It was a wonderful day out, and very interesting to see how a huge tourist attraction should be run.

July seems to have been the time for days out, as there was a Lundy Collectors' Club day trip to Lundy - and of course I couldn't resist that! Sarah and Luke came, too, as a thank you for looking after the farm while Chris and I went to Lundy in May. The journey out was decidedly choppy - I can confirm that the bit about seasickness in Midnight on Lundy is pretty accurate - but it was worth it, because the day turned out to be glorious and the return trip was much calmer. Here are couple of pics (of ponies, needless to say!). The foal is the latest arrival, called Bill. He's Charlotte Louise's foal, by a Connemara stallion.

We managed to catch 'blue number five', the naughtiest ewe on the farm, by leaving the feed shed door open. Of course, she couldn't resist the goodies within. Chris sheared her, and she trotted off - pride dented but otherwise unscathed - bleating for her two lambs. They followed her call, caught sight of her and ran away again. For several days they followed her at a safe distance, unsure of the naked ewe who appeared to be impersonating their mother, but they're now joined up and are suckling from her again.

We've always known that several lambs become prematurely weaned at shearing time, but we always thought it was because they all get hopelessly mixed up in the shed, not because they don't recognise Mummy with her new hairdo!

2010-06-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

George, Anne and Beetle

Our major piece of news is that George came down from Scotland for a weeks' holiday. We saw George a bit and his dogs a lot, because he left his dogs with us while he travelled around visiting as many friends as possible. It was great to see him, and wonderful to see Moss (his Cocker Spaniel which we looked after as a puppy before we took her up to Scotland for his birthday present three years ago). Rex, his labrador puppy, was adorable, too. Midge the terrier was slightly less adorable, but he settled down well in the end - after a major showdown with Beetle.

George & Anne (my mum)

Here are some photos of the farm animals in summer:

We have one ewe (blue number five, pictured above joining in with a barbecue) who thinks she's human. This year she had two lambs and she's determined to keep them round the house, eating roses, petunias and barbecued beefburgers (she draws the line at lamb chops) . She's very good at evading capture, and slunk off somewhere during shearing:

Tee!Hee! Can't catch me!
Find out in the next blog whether she's had a haircut yet.....

2010-04-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

The trouble with having a news page is that when there's lots going on I'm too busy to write about it. Many apologies to the people who've emailed to say, 'What's going on?' The answer is, 'Lots, and here's some edited highlights.'
The weather has been extraordinary: lots of ice, then lots of snow, then lots of rain, then a northerly or easterly wind and not a drop of rain for the whole of April, until this morning (25th April). At present the farm looks bare, grazed to the roots, and the animals are incredibly hungry because we've run out of silage. It's a rare to wish for rain on Exmoor, but we're all wishing like mad.
On the subject of weather, we're applying for planning permission for an Evance Iskra R900 wind turbine. (This is an upgrade of their tried-and-tested AT5-1 turbine.) Many of you will know that last year we got planning permission for an Alvesta wind turbine, but luckily we found out they didn't work properly before we put one up! Because we now want to put up a different type of turbine, we're having to apply for planning permission all over again.

Chris with Richard Gedge at Natsley Farm, looking at Richard's Iskra AT5-1 turbine.
The weather isn't the only thing which has knocked back the grass at West Ilkerton. The red deer discovered we had new grass in Cow Field, and they formed raiding parties every night until it was all gone. This is a photo of the deer gathering by High Bullen in the evening, ready to jump into Cow Field:

We decided the kitchen in the self-catering cottage was looking a bit shabby, so we thought we'd 'just' re-do the kitchen in March. Needless to say, this became a major and very exp[ensive job. The old Rayburn was taken out, the flue for the Rayburn was dismantled, the roof was sealed up, all the walls inside were rotten and had to be stripped bare, waterproofed, re-plastered and painted before the kitchen (which had been measured up inaccurately!) was put in. Oh, and also the electrics were dodgy so the whole area was re-wired....and there's a clever fire alarm system which means if there's a fire in one part of the house the alarms go off everywhere (our electrician is a volunteer firefighter, so is very keen on fire precautions). Anyway, the end result is that our bank account is running on empty and there's a lovely new kitchen (with dry walls and underfloor heating for cosy toes with your morning cuppa) in the holiday cottage. I'll take a photo on changeover day, if I have time. Unfortunately, Mary Jane (who has helped me clean the cottage for many years) can't work any more due to a bad back, so I'm having to do changeover day by myself.

Removing the Rayburn flue and patching up the roof.

Good news! Our first foal has been born, and she's a girl:

Sarah says I always put in far too much about the ponies and not enough about the farm, so here's some sheep and cattle news: lambing is nearly over. On the whole, it was a good lambing because the weather was dry and rather cold (good for lamb and farmer survival, bad for bugs which cause diseases). However, the dry weather has meant that the ewes now don't have enough grass to eat, and we may have to start feeding them concentrates out in the field - an expensive thing to do.

Chris injecting the sheep against clostridial diseases, before lambing.

Alice, Sophie, Phoebe, Sarah and Seb - lambing time.
Betty and Sophie stayed in the self-catering cottage for a week during lambing, and Sophie had her friends, Alice and Phoebe, to stay. Seb Smith (another cousin, but on the Eveleigh side) came for work experience because he's going to Bicton College next year. Sarah worked especially hard because she was also working part-time on a neighbouring farm, lambing and milking.
The cows have nearly finished calving, and we're very pleased with the calves, which are mainly heifers.

Cow and calf

This is a photo of the cows in March, when we still had silage to feed them!
I've put in this final photo because I like it. Sarah took it when she went for a ride with Chris.

Chris riding Tempo, Ilkerton Ridge.

2010-01-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! We've just been snowed-in for two weeks, with our only way out through Woolhanger. I bought some chains for the Land Rover just before Christmas, thinking that now I'd bought them we'd have no more snow for a decade, but I was wrong and they proved to be worth their weight in gold (well, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but we'd have been in a muddle without them). The snow was very pretty, but the novelty's now worn off (ice everywhere, frozen taps, fractious underexcercised horses, lots of cold, hungry animals to feed, Mum having to miss appointments with the doctor and the physiotherapist, the Atkinsons having to cancel their holiday in the self-catering cottage....yes, the novelty wore off some time ago!).
The ferrets (yes, Shannon, I promised you pics of those ferrets) have been behaving like delinquent teenagers on Red Bull, because the only way we could stop their water dispenser from freezing up was to add several spoonfuls of sugar to the water. It worked but it made them very naughty. Chris looks as if he's been at the ferret water, too - or perhaps it's that Edradour Single Malt Whisky I gave him for Christmas:

Hopefully George will come and get The Devil Children (as they're affectionately known) before they take over the house completely. Sarah has given them to George as a Christmas present, but we still haven't worked out how to get them up to him in Scotland, especially as he's really-and-truly snowed-in up there.

Stags coming over the hill, ready for breakfast!
Some other uninvited guests which are in danger of outstaying their welcome are the deer. Chris counted over 30 on the farm yesterday morning. We wondered why the high-energy licks and large round bales of hay we've been putting out for our animals have been disappearing overnight, and now we know. A few deer are a lovely sight, but feeding 30+ is like having another herd of cows.

Stags lying in the field we call Opposite (the field opposite the farmhouse, which you look out on from the holiday cottage)

Ziggy and his mares scoffing their hay before the stags steal it!

During bad weather we're glad we have Exmoor Horn sheep. They're much tougher than some of the larger, leaner breeds.

The Exmoor ponies are so well insulated that the snow often stays frozen on them.

The Exmoor pony geldings on the moor came as fast as their little legs could carry them when they saw Sarah and Chris with a bale of hay....or were they just coming to check out what the coolest farmer on Exmoor is wearing this winter?!

2010-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Exmoor Foxhounds met at West Ilkerton just after Christmas. It was one of the few ice-free days of the Christmas holidays. A meet is a lovely way to have a party - no invitations are sent out, so you have no idea who will turn up or how much food and drink to lay on. Lots of people turned up at West Ilkerton, which was just as well as I'd made rather a lot of sandwiches!

Jim Sanders and Tony Piper entertained everyone with songs:

And Jim sang Happy Birthday to Felicita, the joint Master of the EFH.

And we all drank a toast (some while getting dressed!):

The Willerton Family, who have been coming on holiday here for many years, came to the self-catering cottage for New Year. Oliver brought his guinea pig with him, which I think is a first for pets which have stayed in the cottage. She was adorable. I've always wanted a guinea pig, but I don't think it would have a peaceful life with the dogs, cat and ferrets.

More about the ferrets in the next blog....

2010-01-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

Sarah and Luke wrote this in the snow on Opposite (the field opposite the house) a couple of days before Christmas.

For the first time in ages, we had a white Christmas at West Ilkerton. In fact, it was touch-and-go whether everyone coming for Christmas lunch would be able to make it, as the road to Barbrook was like the Cresta Run.

From afar, Chris and I saw the cloud which dumped most of the snow on the farm because we stayed for a night at the Red Lion, Clovelly, as my 50th birthday treat.

A snow cloud rolling towards Exmoor, viewed from Clovelly Harbour

We stayed at the Red Lion for the first night of our honeymoon many years ago, and for my birthday we slept in the same bedroom, which has wonderful views of the harbour and the sea (Room 4). If anyone is looking for a special place to stay (apart from West Ilkerton!) go to the Red Lion - it's comfortable, warm and friendly, with good food and a spectacular location. The harbour was lit with Christmas lights, which made it extra-special.

The Red Lion is the large white house at the end of the harbour wall

Lundy was never far away during our holiday. We went for a lovely walk in the sunset round Morte Point, and there it was:

Then, the next day, we went for a walk along Woolacombe Beach, and there it was:

And then we went to see Kizzy and her foals, and there it was:

Kizzy was our children's pony for many years. She's now back with the Oldhams, who bred her, and has had two foals. Her 2009 colt (the chestnut) is particularly handsome. Kizzy's mother was a Lundy pony called Magic Flute and her great grandfather was Midnight (as in Midnight on Lundy) If it hadn't been for Kizzy (and the Oldhams telling me about Midnight) I wouldn't have written the book.

Anne Bush and her family (Andy, Liz and Larry) stayed in the self-catering cottage over Christmas. Anne's family lived at West Ilkerton during the War, because their house near Plymouth was turned into a hospital. She has many memories of West Ilkerton when it was owned by the Tuckers, and it was fascinating to talk to her.

More news soon, but I must catch up on all the things I meant to do over the Christmas break....

2009-10-20T09:44:00.001-07:00

The book launch of Midnight on Lundy onboard the MS Oldenburg (the Lundy supply ship) went very well, despite awful weather. For further information about the book, please see http://www.tortoise-publishing.co.uk/

Here are some photos of the book launch:

(Photo courtesy of the North Devon Journal)
L - R: Peggy Garvey (who bought the real Midnight from Bampton Fair in 1961, and started the Braetor Herd of Lundy ponies with him), Mary Martindale (a former leading light in the Lundy Pony Society), me (author and giant!), Annie Alford (who was selling her wonderful cards of Lundy at the launch - she's spent a lot of time on Lundy and is Felix Gade's granddaughter) and Diana Keast (Diana is Martin Coles Harman's daughter, and her family owned Lundy before it was sold to the National Trust in 1969. The book is dedicated to her because it wouldn't have been written without her help).

Jaqui Pyle and Ann Mold looking at Peggy Garvey's old photos of Midnight

Chris talking to David and Debbie Kennard (http://www.mistthesheepdog.co.uk/ )

Mike (http://www.artisticexmoor.com/) and Val Sherwin (Val founded the Exmoor Pony Centre http://www.moorlandmousietrust.co.uk/ )

A terrible photo of me signing a book for Penny Ogilvie! I put it in because the Ogilvies and David Dyke were very helpful when I was getting ideas for the story. David Dyke (behind Penny) remembers being cornered by Midnight in the ruins of a cottage and being saved by his father,John Dyke. Liz Ogilvie is pictured between me and Penny, with Kate Ogilvie in the separate photo below. Kate and Liz are Penny's daughters. They grew up on Lundy (their father, John - Penny's husband - was the farm manager there for many years) and Kate's memories about growing up on Lundy and then having to go away to boarding school helped me get into Jenny's world when I was writing the book.

Lindy Mitchell and Vanessa Bee (who runs our pony handling courses www.positivehorsemanship.co.uk )

Simon and Tricia Pearce, and Crewman Aiden (all the crew of the Oldenburg were incredibly helpful, and I thoroughly enjoyed having five uniformed men asking me if there was anything they could do to help!)

Mum was the cashier - a job she seemed to relish! In the background Diana Keast is being interviewed by Hilary Bradt www.bradt-travelguides.com

George Rhind (who helps us out at West Ilkerton), Sarah Eveleigh and Luke Mayo (Sarah's boyfriend).

2009-09-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Chris and I went to Scotland to see George, our son. He's working as a stalker on the Glen Kinglass estate on the west coast, between Oban and Glen Coe.

Ardmaddy, George's cottage on the shores of Loch Etive

View from the hill above Ardmaddy (you can just see the roof of the cottage down below)

Loch Etive: looking south (above) and looking north (below)

We stayed with George for two nights, and then went to the central Highlands for a night.
If you are going to central Scotland, we can thoroughly recommend the Atholl Arms Hotel at Blair Atholl http://www.athollarms.co.uk/ .

The Glen Shee road between Blairgowrie and Braemar

We spent the last night in a very plush, spivvy hotel on the shores of Loch Lomond. The sauna was much too hot and steamy, the food was a triumph of marketing (give everything a posh French name and pile it in a round mountain in the centre of a large, cold plate, and with any luck nobody will notice it doesn't taste of anything), but the sunrise was worth it:

I hope this hasn't persuaded you to go to Scotland, rather than come to West Ilkerton, for your next holiday!

2009-09-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

It's time to say farewell to the swallows and housemartins for another year (and time to hose down the porch!) A family of housemartins took up residence on the electricity meter (see previous blog) and several swallows took over the antlers inside the porch during rough weather.

Cattle and deer grazing together in Rough Field

Last week Peter Ridd came to brand the horns of our Exmoor Horn two-tooth ewes. All registered Exmoor Horn sheep have to be inspected and branded. It looks scary, with lots of smoke, but it is painless to the sheep (honest!).

After we'd finished haymaking and branding, Chris and I went up to Scotland to see George for a few days. Sarah stayed at home to look after the animals. Some photos of Scotland will be in the next instalment.

2009-09-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

At last we're getting a summer, but at the wrong time of year. We made about half our total crop of hay and silage in the first week of September. The picture above is of baling hay in Ranscombe Field, with Countisbury Hill in the background.

Barham Field: Chris taking the hay back to the barn

Meanwhile, Sarah was an exhibit at the Dorset Steam Fair!

2009-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Summer at West Ilkerton

I've finished Midnight on Lundy at last! It's now with Sally Chapman-Walker, who's doing the book design. Hopefully it will be ready for the printers in early September. It's got to be printed by 11th October, because I've hired the MS Oldenburg for a book launch (hopefully literary, not literal) in Ilfracombe Harbour. So publication day is 11th October. The books will cost £8.50 each, and can be ordered in advance so they're posted on Monday 12th. Please see http://www.tortoise-publishing.co.uk/ for further details.

Luke's bear, outside the house at West Ilkerton

Luke (Sarah's boyfriend) was 21 yesterday. He had a really good Wild West party last weekend. I wonder whether people living in the Wild West ever have Frightfully English parties, where they sip Pimms, eat cucumber sandwiches and play croquet. I do hope so.

As this is really a farm news site, I'd better start talking about the farm now. I can't believe it was April when I wrote the last news page. Many apologies for leaving it so long, but I had to get the book finished. We had one or two other things on our minds, too:

We got planning permission for the Alvesta 20kW wind turbine, but we've decided to wait until there are actual output figures from the ones which have been installed before we go ahead. If the Alvesta turbines don't deliver their estimated outputs we may go back to the drawing board and apply for a Proven turbine. We definitely want to get something, but we don't want to end up with an expensive mistake.
In May, our Land Rover was stolen and used for robberies in the area (where trailers and quad bikes were taken) until, a week later, it was involved in a police chase through the fields at Woolhanger, and was written off. Unbelievably, despite police cars, a helicopter and tracker dogs, the thieves escaped. Thank goodness, the NFU gave us a very fair payment for the poor old Land Rover in the end, and we now have a dark green one of roughly the same age (which is locked at all times). It's so sad that crime like this has reached Exmoor - but don't let that put you off coming on holiday here!

On the subject of vehicles, we have just sold the lorry because it was too expensive to keep on the road, with all the HGV regulations. It was like selling an old friend, as we've had it for twelve years. Beetle always seems to get in photos, doesn't he?

Shearing was in July. Here are some photos of Ian South, Sam Smyth and Sarah E:

Sam teaching Sarah how to shear a sheep - and the result!

Our Exmoor pony breeding programme has been a bit of a disaster this year. We had four colt foals and one filly foal. Loving Cup's colt foal (pictured here) was a friendly little chap, but he was never very strong. The terrible weather in July proved too much for him, and he died from pneumonia. A couple of weeks later, Chris was moving the ponies, and Trifle's filly foal came reeling out of the herd - as if she were drunk - and dropped down dead. She had seemed fit and healthy, so we can only assume she was kicked or squashed in some way. We now just have three colt foals. However, I have arranged to buy some more colt foals from Woolhanger for the pony-handling course. After handling, all the colt foals will be gelded and put out on Ilkerton Ridge as ecological grazers for a Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement. The foals from last year (Kirbie, Rocky, Sandy and Pixie) are already on Ilkerton Ridge, along with two fillies from the Moorland Mousie Trust, a gelding called Clover and an old gelding called Steady Eddie.

This year, a pair of house martins decided to build their nest on top of the electricity meter in our porch. Daddy house martin took up residence on the antlers above the front door. They've made a terrible mess, but it's been fascinating watching the chicks grow.

While on the subject of wildlife, Chris took a picture of this badger on the field we call Opposite (because it's opposite the house)

Our new bull, Wellshead Duke, has settled in well, and (luckily) appears to be quite a lady's man. Here he is chatting up his latest love a few weeks ago:

July was a wash-out, and so we're late with the hay harvest again. In fact, it looks as if we'll have to make silage out of all the hay fields now. Last week there was a slight weather window, and we managed to make some good haylage in Cow Field and Marley Combe.

Chris immediately started ploughing Cow Field, before the grass grew back. The field suffered very badly when we were organic, and became over-run with hay rattle. This is a parasitic plant which takes over at an alarming rate - a problem which only ploughing and re-seeding with vigorous grasses can solve. Chris ploughed most of the field, but Sarah did some of it. Anne supervised on her Tramper:

Enjoying some summer sunshine

2009-04-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

Our most important piece of news is that, after nearly a year, we have been granted planning permission to install a 20Kw vertical axis wind turbine at West Ilkerton. This is very exciting and also rather daunting because there's now a lot of work to do in preparation. Hopefully by August we will be generating most of the power we use on the farm (as long as the wind blows). It's our ambition to lie in bed during bouts of bad weather and think of all the money we're saving!
In case anyone is worried that West Ilkerton will be blighted by a noisy, monstrous great turbine, the whole structure will be just over 12m high, and it will be almost silent. See http://www.alvestaenergy.com/ to get an idea of what it will look like.
On the subject of electricity, some regular visitors may remember that a few years ago the Sycamore trees at the front of the house were pollarded because their branches were a danger to the power lines and the house. Well, they grew back so fast that they were a danger again, so Sarah's boyfriend, Luke, (who's a tree surgeon) trimmed them down again for us. More like a coppice than a pollard this time. It's just as well he did, because two of them were completely rotten inside and full of foul-smelling liquid which sprayed everywhere - and we'd just cleaned all the windows!

Lambing didn't go as expected. For a start, Sarah was supposed to be No 1 Shepherd this year (sadly Bernie, the original No 1 Shepherd, had to retire) but within a few days she was very ill with a chest infection. The chest infection didn't respond to antibiotics because it was caused by a virus, which has now given her swollen glands and a high temperature. She's in bed, and under doctor's orders to stay there for at least a week. You just can't get reliable staff nowadays....

In the lambing shed

So, yet again, Chris did the bulk of the work (3am to 7 pm) and I did from 8 pm until 1 or 2 am. We were helped by our faithful band of guests: Sophie Perks and friends and Alex & Charlie Howlett. Also, a vet student called Jake came for a week to gain some practical experience with sheep. I think he's decided to specialise in dogs & cats!

The poor sheep had lost a lot of condition in the snow during February, and the first lambs to be born were underweight. An additional problem was several ewes had little or no milk. The result has been more tame lambs than usual. Once all our willing bottle-feeders (Sophie, Alex and Charlie) had left, Chris and I had a breakfast 'Board Meeting' to discuss the urgent issue of who was going to feed 11 lambs six times a day with a bottle. By lunchtime we had bought and installed a Shepherdess lamb feeder www.scanutec.com . This is an ingeneous fake Mummy, which is essentially a bucket full of hot water with another bucket full of milk inside and two teats on one side. The whole thing is heated by a device which switches itself on and off, giving hot flushes for added authenticity. The lambs love it, as they can help themselves whenever they want. They are growing rapidly, and don't seem to get the pot bellies of bottle-fed lambs.

The weather for the past month has been pretty good. In fact (dare I say it?) we need rain. It's such a help to get warm, dry weather at this time of year because there are so many baby animals outside. Yesterday was beautifully warm and sunny, so I took some photos:

Calves enjoying the sunshine

Our new bull, Wellshead Duke

Exmoor Horn ewe and lamb

Our first foal (Ivy's foal) As you can see, he's a colt.

Ivy, Claret and Christmas Pudding have foaled so far. They all have colt foals. Still, an alive colt foal is better than no foal at all.

A few days after birth, Claret's foal was very poorly and couldn't get up. We weren't sure what was wrong, but thought he could have a navel infection. Chris gave him an injection of 'Pen and Strep', and within 12 hours he was running behind his mum again. In fact, he was so lively we couldn't catch him to complete the three-day course of injections!

Claret with her colt foal the day after he was injected (still looking ill, but standing, suckling and impossible to catch). He now appears to have made a complete recovery.

Some RSPB volunteers are doing a bird survey of the farm, which should prove very interesting. Mike Howlett, who stayed in the cottage for a week during lambing, took these photos of a buzzard and a dipper at West Ilkerton:

Chris went out counting deer and took these photos of West Ilkerton from the unusual vantage point of Butter Hill:

Make a line up * from the asterisk, and West Ilkerton is the grey blob just below the cloud shadow on the far hill.

See?!

http://www.westilkerton.co.uk/

2009-02-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well, It turns out that the snow we had at the beginning of the week was only a dress-rehearsal. We woke up this morning to this:

First we fed and watered all the animals in the farmyard (including a little heifer calf which our cow, Livelong, had at midnight last night), and then we put the horses out in our safest fields to stretch their legs:

Winaway knee-deep in snow

By midday the snow stopped, thank goodness, so Chris wrapped some lengths of chain round the tractor tyres and braved the hill to Cow Field to get some silage:

One lump or two?

After lunch we went over to the other side of the farm to find the sheep and bring them back to the safety of our sheltered valley field, away from the northerly wind. The snow was already drifting dangerously. One ewe had died, and two others were suffering from cold and exhaustion, but we managed to get the flock to follow the tractor tracks slowly over the fields and down the lane to The Cleve. If panicked, the sheep jumped out of the tracks and became stuck in the snow. We had to go very gently, and the dogs stayed at home. The silage bale on the front of the tractor acted as the carrot and I was a well-padded stick, complete with cuddly Winnie The Pooh hat. Mist The Sheepdog would have laughed, but the main thing is it worked. The flock is now in a sheltered field, with plenty to eat.

The sheep finally made it to the Cleve, just before dark.

The only animals which seem to be perfectly happy in this weather are the Exmoor ponies.

2009-02-03T14:06:00.000-08:00

Whilst skidding around defrosting drinking troughs and feeding hungry animals, Chris and I stocked up on potential Christmas card photos. Please vote for your favourites by leaving a comment at the end of this blog (guess where they are on the farm, too):

If you didn't know cows could be smug, you do now!

2009-01-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone! We're getting a proper winter for a change, so let's hope it'll be followed by a proper summer, with plenty of sun by day and the odd refreshing shower by night.
I'll start with some sad news: Basil the Shire had to be put down before Christmas because his heart was giving up and he was filling up with fluid. He was put down at home, munching on his favourite food.

Dear Old Basil
Now for the good news. We had a great Christmas, and 18 people (four generations of the Eveleigh family) sat down in the dining room for Christmas lunch.

Sarah on Bella and Chris on Tempo at the Boxing Day meet

Calving started on 2nd January, with three calves in one day! Two bull calves and one heifer. Mothers and babies are fine. It's always a thrill to see new life appear as if by magic.

On Tuesday David Kennard came to West Ilkerton with his sheepdogs, Mist and Gail, to film a scene for his latest Mist DVD with our singing Exmoor ponies! You'll have to watch Channel 5 at Easter to hear the full story. See www.mistthesheepdog.co.uk for further details. If you haven't seen the Mist stories on Channel 5, you've missed a real treat. The DVD is one of the most watched in our self-catering cottage.

David Kennard filming at West Ilkerton

2008-11-29T04:47:00.000-08:00

I had a lovely surprise in the post today (makes a change from bills and junk mail advertising monogrammed silver toothpicks as the perfect gift for HIM!): Chris and Cherry Hughes sent me a DVD full of photos of the 2008 pony handling course. Here are some of the best (more of the best on the Exmoor pony page of our website http://www.westilkerton.co.uk/ )

Everyone was given a talk about how to handle ponies

Here's Claire with Rocky. He didn't like having his headcollar buckled to begin with, so Vanessa taught us a handy trick with baler twine

Nikki and Kirbie: love at first sight

The ponies appreciated Colm's laid-back attitude

Vanessa showed us how to use a rope to teach a pony to lift its hind feet

Then we had to do it (Boudicca was overwhelmed by my bottom!)

On the second day we took the ponies into the yard and introduced them to scary things like trailers, hoops, plastic and road signs

Nikki with Kirbie and Cathy with Bucks Fizz

Shaun with Sunny Delight

Lisa with Fanta

Cheryl with Boudicca

Nikki with Kirbie and Cherry with Sandy

Rocky, Lisa, Vanessa, Kirbie, Nikki, Sandy, Cherry, Philip, Boudicca and Cheryl

The grown-up Harry Potter, ready to fly off on his turbo-charged glove-on-a-stick to work his magic on more ponies

2008-11-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

The pony handling course was a great success. This year we handled the ponies before they were inspected and branded, and it definitely made each process less traumatic. The foals have now been turned back with the herd for the winter, and will go to their new homes next spring. All three colts passed inspection. It was decided that the young filly was too small to inspect and brand, so she'll be presented for inspection next autumn.

The colts are:
Ilkerton Sandy 265/22 (named by Cherry)
Ilkerton Kirbie 265/23 (named by Nikki and Cheryl)
Ilkerton Rocky 265/24 (named by?)

Many thanks to Vanessa and Philip Bee http://www.positivehorsemanship.co.uk/ for running the course, and to Vanessa, Philip and Lisa for helping on inspection day.

The adult ponies were obviously overjoyed to be reunited with the youngsters, and the mares instantly suckled their foals. Hopefully, by handling them and then turning them back with the herd for their first winter, we will have given the foals a good start in life.
As the fox says in The Little Prince, 'You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'

Here are a few photos of the pony handling course (more to follow):

2008-10-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

George came home from Scotland for a few days last week. It was great to see him again. He's sold his car to Sarah, so he had to drive the Beduki. (Don't worry, it doesn't go on the roads; he borrowed our car to go and see his friends!)

Sarah came home for the weekend. It sounds as if she's having a wonderful time at the RAC Cirencester. I think we've had a carefully edited version of events so far!

The sheep have been gathered off Ilkerton Ridge (the area of moorland on which we have grazing rights) for the winter. Beetle was a great help.

When Chris goes round the farm every morning he tries to take his camera with him. It's an old-fashioned film camera, so he always has to wait a few weeks for the photos to be developed. In his latest batch I especially liked this one of a cow sympathising with a newly-shorn Exmoor Horn ram. The poor sheep had to cope with endless bad weather after they were shorn this year.

2008-10-02T11:15:00.001-07:00

For those of you who have been following Winaway's progress from birth, here are some photos of Sarah training her last week. At last Cow Field, which is our only flat-ish field, has been harvested so it can be used for important things like pony-training! Winaway has a lovely nature, but is not above a good old teenage temper-tantrum. She is about 15 hands, which is a bit disappointing because both her parents were 16 hands plus. However, good things come in small packages, and it'll be less far to fall. Many a true word said in jest....

2008-09-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

At last the weather is good enough for us to attempt to make silage! September 18th must be a new record for late harvest at West Ilkerton (usually we've made all our hay and silage by the beginning of August).

We've been to yet another Eveleigh wedding!

Nick, Hannah & Bill

Brian, Sarah & Chris

Jack and Harry (our Exmoor geldings) are back home after a summer spent with Vanessa and Philip Bee. They starred in a TV programme where an unlucky celebrity spent a week in a large field surrounded by Exmoor ponies, to see how man and ponies would interact. Apparently, it was extremely interesting! The TV crew called Jack & Harry The Chuckle Brothers. If anyone is interested in buying Jack and/or Harry, please let us know. We want to keep them here until the beginning of November, but then they will be for sale.

Well that's all for now. I've got to take harvest tea up to the workers (after I've put on my coat, scarf, thermal underwear...)

2008-09-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

RIP Barbrook Post Office.

Barbrook Post Office traded for the last time yesterday. It was a sad day for everyone who lives in and around Barbrook, and especially for Sally and Ian Gunn who ran the Post Office for over thirty years. Our nearest Post Office is now in Lynton, a nine mile round trip away, so letters and parcels will be posted from here on Mondays and Fridays only in future.
I took these pictures of Sally and Ian outside Barbrook Post Office this Tuesday, before the sign above the door had to be taken down.
The end of an error.

2008-08-19T07:38:00.001-07:00

Photo of lambs at West Ilkerton by Kay Taylor
It's great that people read this farm news; I've had several e-mails recently asking whether we're all OK because there's been no farm news for ages! Thanks for your concern, but the answer is we're just forgetful and inefficient.
The main news has been the awful weather. Thank goodness, we managed to bale Ranscombe Field to big bale hay in July, but we still haven't managed to make hay or silage from most of the laid up fields (about 30 acres in all). It's turning mushy and slug-infested now. Yum! Yum!
Our poor visitors are in danger of becoming mushy too. All of them have been wonderfully good-natured, with comments like,'Thank goodness we're not camping,' and 'At least we're not on a flood plain!'
I managed to make good use of the one good day of the whole summer with a Lundy Collectors' Club day trip to Lundy. As usual, there were lots of new things to see and take photos of. Here's an inevitable pony grazing on the West Side, near Quarter Wall, looking north.

Sarah has made great progress with training Winaway this summer (with some initial help from Vanessa Bee). She and Winaway now go for long walks every day, in preparation for riding out. Although she's just turned three, Winaway is still growing, so we don't want to ride her quite yet.

The Taylor family stayed with us in July. Katya Taylor is very keen on ponies, and she often went for walks over the farm in the evening with her father. Here she is on the field we call Opposite.

For those of you who've been following the progress of the Beduki (Bedford truck crossed with a Suzuki jeep), it went to the Riphay Scuffle, and was driven around and much admired, but Sarah and Chris decided they loved it too much to subject it to the Scuffle.

The following photos show why the Scuffle is the ultimate punishment for a car that's been naughty and failed its MOT!

So, in case you were wondering, that's what farmers do when it's too wet to farm!

Sarah's friend, Luke, came to pick up the caravan today. They're going to live in it during Dorset Steam Fair. Luke has a pet raccoon (have I spelt that right, Marcia?!) called Vince. Here are some pictures of Vince having a lovely time in the stream outside the house, eating snails. The Hagger family are staying in the cottage this week. Shannon Hagger is crouching to take a photo.

2008-06-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

We had an action-packed half term. On Tuesday, Chris' brother, Brian married Suzanne (and about time too!) It was a great day, with a wedding breakfast at Powderham, followed by a coach trip to the marriage ceremony, followed by another coach trip to Haytor on Dartmoor for ice creams and a walk. Lots of family were present, and the grandchildren were bridesmaids and pageboys:

Thursday and Friday were spent injecting all the sheep against Bluetongue (the cattle have got this treat in store next week). George Rhind (who plays rugby, skis, sails....) broke his arm attempting to catch a lamb and spent most of the day with me in casualty, poor chap (poor chap for the time spent in casualty, not the company he kept, you understand). Working with sheep is now officially a dangerous sport. The photo is of Sarah injecting, George marking the injected sheep and Sophie keeping the sheep in the pen. Ironically, the first photo includes a marvellous 'before' study of George's left arm.

Sarah has also been busy making her 'scuffle' vehicle (with Chris' help) this week. She's hoping to get it finished in time for the Riphay scuffle in August. It's a unique combination of old Bedford truck, old Suzuki jeep and old oil tank. So far, nothing has been purchased, except a can of WD40.

On Saturday it was the Exmoor Foxhounds Point-to-Point. Chris has been promoted from car park steward to ring steward. He looked very smart and responsible in his bowler.
Sophie (my niece) and Betty (my sister) were staying with Mum for half term. Sophie was delighted to be re-united with the tame lambs. She sent me these photos of the farm which she took last week. Thanks, Sophie!

Cate, John and William Fade were staying in the cottage for half term. Cate sent us these lovely photos of William and Sophie with armfuls of tame lamb:

2008-04-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally sprung.

Phew! Lambing's over for another year!

Oliver Willerton is on the quad bike with Beetle. Oliver is staying in the cottage this week with Nikki and Richard, his mum and dad. Richard and Oliver have been a great help because they drive the quad bike round the fields every evening to make sure the ewes are with their lambs. This is a very tricky job; like the game 'Pick up Pairs', except the sheep keep moving! Nikki has been putting her nursing skills to good use in the tame lamb department.

All these photos were taken around the farm today (going for a walk with the camera is much more fun than doing the VAT return!)

2008-04-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

Lambing is nearly over (38 more to lamb) and touch wood it's gone very well. We've had a good team this year, with Bernie on his usual 10 days 'holiday', George Rhind as our very capable student, Sarah at home most of the time (with the occasional breaks for parties which couldn't be missed) and Chris and I taking the roles of manager, cook and nightwatchman/woman. Sophie Perks and her friends took after the tame lamb department for a week, which was a great help.

The weather hasn't been particularly kind this year, with hail, thunder and the odd snow flurry, but at least there have been some dry periods so the animals can get warm and dry before the next onslaught.

The first Exmoor foal to be born was found dead in the field after a particularly rough night, poor little thing. The second foal was born today, and seems to be fine. He's a colt foal.

On the subject of horses, Arabella is now recovering from a nasty infection which the vet thinks was Lyme Disease (a bacterial infection caught from ticks). Thankfully, she's now making a slow recovery, aided by injections of mammouth proportions which she bore with incredible good humour (perhaps she was just too ill to protest).

George (Eveleigh) has four black Labrador puppies (all dogs) to sell if anyone is interested. Price negotiable. They were born three weeks ago up in Scotland, but he's probably coming down south for a few days in July and can deliver them to English homes then. George's gundog bitch, Ali, is the mother. The father is a working black Lab. Unfortunately Ali isn't registered because she was a rescue dog, but she's a lovely Labrador and a very good, willing worker with a gentle, biddable nature. Pics to follow, when George can get near a post box.

That's all for now. I'm on night duty, so I'd better go and see what's happening in the lambing shed

The foal which was born today

Any spelling, punctuation and grammatical mistakes in this blog are due to sleep deprivation, not incompetence!

2008-03-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

As we feared, Mike the bull wasn't firing on all cylinders last year. We should have almost finished calving by now, but so far just five calves have been born (all heifers). We replaced Mike with our new bull, Winston, in July 2007 so we'll probably get a surge of calves in April (lambing time) which will cause problems if the weather's bad. Here are some photos of the calves when they were in the back yard while Chris mucked out the shed and gave them clean straw.
.
The stags are back on the farm again. On 4th March, we counted 27 red deer stags on Opposite (the field opposite the farmhouse). I took a photo with Chris' camera.
When I was spring-cleaning the holiday cottage this morning, I saw three stags from the window of the master bedroom, so I took a photo of what guests may see from their bedroom. It's usually sunnier than this, of course! Chris saw a roe buck by the track to Barham Field the other day, and took this photo. We seem to be becoming a wildlife sanctuary. It's lovely to see so many deer on the farm, as long as they leave a bit of grass for the sheep, cattle and ponies.

2008-03-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

Chris and Sarah on Arabella & Tempo

Chris didn't want a birthday party, so the Exmoor Foxhounds met at West Ilkerton and we had a party anyway. Our wonderful neighbour, Jim Sanders, collected £1 coins from lots of friends and neighbours and bought a lovely Rowan tree which Richard Leworthy supplied and planted. Many thanks to everyone for making the day so special. Ken Walker made a speech, Jim Sanders sang, and everyone had a good time despite occasional flurries of sleet and snow. We were very pleased that Ada Tucker came. She was born at West Ilkerton and lived here until the farm was sold to my Grandma in the late 1960s. It's always a treat to see Ada at West Ilkerton. I took a photo of her standing by the entrance to the yard (last picture below). The photo at the top of the Farm page of our website http://www.westilkerton.co.uk/ is of Ada standing in the yard when she was about nine years old.

2008-01-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a happy Christmas. We had a lovely time. I've discovered the secret is to delegate. That way everyone does something and nobody feels put-upon. This year I delegated so efficiently that I had very little to do; I conveniently missed all the put-upon vibes from everyone else! There were 13 of us for Christmas dinner, so we split into two tables:

Our nephew, Lawrence, took these photos of Christmas Day, including one of some stags which he saw when he went for a walk after lunch.

Both my New Year's resolutions (to lose weight and write my Lundy story) lasted as long as the dry weather ie 48 hours. George's surprise homecoming for a week's holiday just after New Year provided an excellent excuse to fill the kitchen cupboards with all sorts of goodies and cook huge roast dinners. Then Sarah fell ill with flu, which turned into the sort of tonsillitis which doesn't cooperate with antibiotics. Luckily, she's on the mend now. While she was ill, she lost a stone on my behalf. Does that count? Novelty hot water bottle covers are so realistic nowadays
On the farming front, we weaned the cows and calves about a week ago, just before this bout of heavy rain started. One cow looks pretty close to calving, so I'll let you know when that happens. In the meantime, I'd better chew on a lettuce leaf and write a story....

2007-12-16T03:16:00.000-08:00

It's easy to take Exmoor for granted, especially when I get bogged down with the usual day-to-day things like office work, farm work and (very occasionally) housework. A few days ago, I did a book delivery to shops in the Exmoor area. I remembered my camera (for once) and took some photos along the way. It reminded me how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place. This was a routine delivery trip, not a sightseeing tour! http://www.tortoise-publishing.co.uk/

Porlock Common, looking east (above and below)

Winsford Hill
Brendon Common

Inevitably, I found an Exmoor pony near Chetsford Water!

On the subject of Exmoor ponies, Pippit has been sold to Laura Barbour, who lives near Arington and keeps ponies to work with autistic children. Stardust and Beckham have both gone to a family in Wales, where they are assured a home for life. Unfortunately Jenny and Swallow can't be registered as pure Exmoors, so they're for sale. Please see the Exmoor pony page of the West Ilkerton website http://www.westilkerton.co.uk/ for details. We've let them out to run with the herd for the winter:

2007-11-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

The Exmoor pony handling course was a great success. Five students took part in the course, which was run by Philip and Vanessa Bee of Positive Horsemanship http://www.positivehorsemanship.co.uk/ . Each student had an unhandled, newly-weaned Exmoor pony to handle and teach the 'five foundation skills'.

Two places are already booked for the course in 2008, which will be a long weekend of three days from Friday 31st October, with full board at West Ilkerton. There are four places left, so book now to avoid disappointment.

2007-11-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

It was my turn to be 'home alone' while Chris, Sarah and Nick (Chris' brother) went to Scotland for a long weekend to see George at Ardmaddy. They went salmon fishing the first day (and caught one) and hind stalking the next day (and shot one). On the third day they took the boat out onto Loch Etive. Poor Sarah did all this with her foot broken in two places (she'd been kicked by an Exmoor pony during branding the week before. We thought her foot was just badly bruised, until she took herself to casualty in Exeter because her foot swelled up painfully after she'd been to Scotland!). Here are a few photos of the Scottish trip:

2007-10-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

Here's an update on the Exmoor ponies, by popular request:

The DNA test results have come back. As I feared, the first three fillies born this year are by Swift, not Ziggy. This means that they will be registered as cross-bred foals because Swift was a registered Exmoor but not a registered stallion. Ziggy's only daughter is Christmas Pudding's foal, and his only son is Loving Cup's foal. Unfortunately, the colt damaged his near foreleg when he was young, and it looks as if he'll never be entirely sound on it. So not much luck with the foals this year, but that's ponies for you!

Jack and Harry are proving to be a bit of a long-term project. They have become very friendly, and they're now good at long-reining, but Harry is still frightened of things (like carts and wagons!) behind him. We've gone back to basic training to try to build up their confidence, and we may send them away to be broken to ride this winter.

Ilkerton Shindig, Loving Cup's foal from 2005, was bought by Adele Gregory for showing. Adele sent me a photo of him (below). The other photo is of him at two months old. It seems he still likes to advertise!

2007-09-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

SOLD

FOR SALE: BOWTOP GYPSY CARAVAN

1930s and of Irish origin. Restored and painted in 2005/6 by Nick Dow of Ingham and Fallon

A particularly pretty wagon. I bought it intending to use it to rent out with the self-catering cottage, but it's too special for that, with many unique features like the lovely stained glass windows above the bedspot.

It is in very good order for its age, and is totally weather-proof. The canvas roof is in good condition. The stove is in good working order and draws very well. The top lid can be raised for cooking.

There is a bird-print three-part mattress on the bed (which is unusually large and can be used as a single bed or pulled out to make a double)

We feel privileged to have had the use of the wagon for a couple of years, but we can't justify keeping it for a bit of camping in the summer. The wagon was stored in a dry shed all last winter (October 06 to July 07!) and, if the wagon isn't sold within the next few weeks, it will be stored again this winter and put up for sale next spring at an increased price. The price for buying now is £6,000 plus VAT. Please telephone (01598) 752310 or e-mail eveleigh@westilkerton.co.uk for further information or to arrange a viewing.

2007-09-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Haymaking in Square Piece
As promised, here are some photos of haymaking this August. Many thanks to Victor, Michele, Natasha and Genevieve Mallet, who thought they were coming on holiday! Victor e-mailed from his usual (paid!) job as Asian editor for the Financial Times to say that he's now muscle-bound and super-fit, which made me think perhaps we're missing a marketing trick here. Could West Ilkerton be the perfect open-air fitness gym? Worth a thought. Haymaking tea in Marleycombe

Anyway, thanks to all the Mallet family, Sam Smyth, James Holtom, Richard Leworthy and Jack Chapman-Walker for their help. Sarah was also a great help throughout.

The final load in Church Close

Sarah has just passed her driving test with full marks. Perhaps it pays to be incredibly nervous beforehand!

I'm in the process of re-designing our website to include direct sales of beef and lamb to anywhere in the UK. Lamb is going to be sold in half lamb or whole lamb packs (cut and packaged to order) at £4.80 / kg plus p&p. Lamb orders can be taken now. There will be a delay of about two weeks between an order and delivery because lambs will be sent to the local abbatoir in Combe Martin and the meat will be hung in the traditional manner for about a week before being packed and dispatched by courier. Beef will be available from December onwards. Please contact me for further details:

Tortie Eveleigh, West Ilkerton farm, Lynton EX35 6QA. Tel (01598) 752310 e-mail eveleigh@westilkerton.co.uk

2007-09-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

The Exmoor Horn Sheep Colouring Book which Chris and I worked on last winter was published this summer, with the help of DEFRA and ENPA funding for the Exmoor Horn Sheep Breeders' Society.
The book follows the farming year of a fictitious Exmoor farmer called Mr Ridd of Worthy Farm, with a picture for each month and accompanying text on the opposite page. It's designed to be 'educational and fun'. Well, we had fun doing it, and several people (including farmers) have said they've been educated! Relations of all ages who stayed here during the summer spent hours colouring in the pictures, which probably only proves what terrible weather we had. Here is a sample of the book, from the month of October:

The colouring books can be bought from us for £3 each with free UK P&P (cheques or cash): West Ilkerton Farm, Lynton, North Devon EX35 6QA Tel: (01598) 752310 eveleigh@westilkerton.co.uk

Other news on the literary front is that we're going to be busy this year at the Porlock Arts Festival. We're speaking at a local authors' afternoon in Porlock Village Hall on Friday 21st September, and then on Sunday 23rd September we are hosting an afternoon for children at West Ilkerton. Full details of the Arts Festival can be seen on the website http://www.porlockfestival.org/ I've just realised that's not very far away now, so I'd better get to work composing the talk!

2007-09-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

West Ilkerton Farmhouse in sunshine!

It's official; the Met. Office has just announced that summer of '07 was the wettest since records began. We could have told them that using our sophisticated puddleometer called Beetle. Many thanks to all our guests for their unfailing good spirits! At least Exmoor was drier than the Midlands and we weren't flooded.

We've just managed to get the hay harvested. The last bales were carted on 31st August, so Chris is very smug because he won the bet that we'd get the harvest in by September. There'll be some photos of haymaking in the next news blog.

Sarah has been a great help on the farm this summer. She's re-built the back yard, done lots of walling and fencing and spent hours driving the tractor. (Yes, she's open to offers of marriage from farmers. However, they must be rich, good-looking and horse-friendly, which narrows down the field a bit!)

Mike, the bull, appeared to have a problem which could have been cured by a much-advertised blue pill. However, we were too embarrassed to order 'enough for a bull' from one of those annoying e-mailers who promise fireworks in the bedroom and similar terrifying experiences, so we took the easier (but more expensive) option of buying a new bull. He's a two-year-old called Lee Manor Winston, and he's got very good bloodlines. The cows seem to approve, which is the main thing.

Luckily, Winston arrived at West Ilkerton the day before foot and mouth disease was discovered in Surrey and all livestock movements were banned, but that's meant we've had two bulls on the farm for most of the summer because we haven't been able to move Mike.

On the subject of breeding, the Exmoor pony foals had a DNA test two weeks ago to see whether Ziggy or Swift fathered them. Here is a photo of the ponies running past the farmhouse to freedom afterwards.
I've decided to sell the gypsy caravan, if anyone is interested. It has been lovely to own it and enjoy it, but I can't afford to keep it. Originally, I bought it to let as an optional extra with the holiday cottage, but it's too nice to be used as a play-house by children. It was made in the 1930s and it's in very good condition inside and out, with lovely stained-glass windows. There will be a full advertisement for the vardo, with lots of photos, on our website http://www.westilkerton.co.uk/. Please e-mail eveleigh@westilkerton.co.uk for further details or ring 01598 752310.

2007-07-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

Sarah has proved to be such a good farm-sitter that we keep finding excuses to go away. This time, Chris and I went to Scotland to see George and deliver Moss, his puppy, to him. George is working as an under-stalker on the Glen Kinglass Estate, north of Oban. It was lovely to see him again, and also to see where he lives and works. The countryside is awesome, and makes Exmoor seem very tame. George has a cottage on the shores of Loch Etive, miles down a rough track from the nearest road, with no neighbours in sight. He has a beach nearby, and is considering buying a sea canoe for shopping expeditions. Ardmaddy is in this photo, but is difficult to spot! It's a small white dot at the edge of the trees in the centre-right of the photo.

Moss (the Cocker Spaniel puppy) settled in very quickly. It's doggy paradise there, with miles of countryside and lots of wildlife. These are photos of Moss exploring her new home, and George with Moss outside Ardmaddy:

George also has a Jack Russel terrier called Midge, who was a bit jealous of Moss to begin with. However, they soon became friends:

2007-06-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

May was holiday time! Chris and I were very lucky to be invited to stay on Lundy Island with Diana Keast, whose father (Martin Coles Harman) owned Lundy from 1925 until 1954. Diana, her sister (Ruth) and her brother (Albion) were then joint owners until 1968, when Albion died. In 1969 the island was sold to the National Trust. It is leased to the Landmark Trust.Chris with Diana Keast on Lundy
The idea was that we could do some research for the story I'm writing based on Lundy. It was a fascinating trip, and we had a great time with Diana and her friend, Bridget. Of course, we did some in-depth research into the Marisco Tavern. Sarah (who looked after the farm very efficiently while we were away) did some follow-up research in the Tavern when she went camping on Lundy with Bicton College a few weeks later.
The weather was fine and sunny on the first day, damp and misty on the second and gale force on the third, so we were air-lifted off by helicopter. Ideal! The only slight problem was that someone (who shall remain nameless) pressed the black & white setting on the camera, which was a great pity because the spring flowers were especially colourful!

I'd better write the book now!

For further information about Lundy, see the website www.lundyisland.co.uk . If you want to book a day trip, don't leave it until the last minute because numbers are limited and the boat gets booked up weeks in advance during the main holiday period.

'I'm just a travellin' fool' (to quote my good friend Marcia) . Four days after returning from Lundy, I went on holiday to Norway with my Mum, Anne. She had always wanted to see the Norwegian fjords, and I now know why. The scenery was truly spectacular. We went on a post boat/small cruise ship called the MS Richard With, run by Hurtigruten www.hurtigruten.com Here is a very small sample of photos:

It's back to work now, with lots to do around the farm, a book to write, loads of farm paperwork to catch up with, two Exmoor ponies to break to harness and a cocker spaniel puppy called Moss to look after until we can get her up to George in Scotland (she's a birthday present for George).

I'm tempted to keep her!
We're hoping that Sarah will be around for a bit during the summer so she can help train Jack and Harry. Here is a photo of Sarah with Harry and Chris with Jack in the yard. Sophie Perks is the groom. One bit of sad news is that Rosie, my lovely old hunter mare, had to be put down last week. She had a bad sarcoid problem which was no longer treatable. Winaway, her foal (who is nearly two) is best of friends with Basil the Shire, so parting from her mum was not at all traumatic, thank goodness. Sophie took this photo of Rosie last spring:

2007-04-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday the first Exmoor foal was born. She's a filly foal. Amanda Howlett (Goldsmith), a good friend from my schooldays at Benenden, was staying in our holiday cottage with her family. Her husband, Mike, took these photos:

The foal's dam is called Claret, and her sire is called ?!

Here is a brief explanation: we had a two-year-old colt called Knightoncombe Swift who ran with the mares until the end of April 2006. He failed his stallion inspection in spectacular fashion when it was discovered he had an undescended testicle, but he could have sired some foals before he was sent to Northumberland to be transformed into a riding pony. Our current stallion, Acreswild Zeitgeist (Ziggy) arrived at the beginning of June 2006. The average gestation period for horses and ponies is eleven months, so either this foal was one week overdue or three weeks premature. A DNA test will probably confirm my suspicion that she's by Swift but, whatever the outcome, she's very beautiful. Yesterday, Ivy also had a filly foal. If the sire is Swift, he obviously made the most of his last days with the mares!

Bernie, our 'Number One Shepherd', left West Ilkerton yesterday after his annual holiday helping with lambing (yes, he is insane, and luckily it's incurable because we couldn't do without him). Other helpers during lambing were Lawrence & Sophie Perks and Alex & Charlotte Howlett. Sarah was really ill with tonsillitis and a ear infection for a couple of weeks, but she's better now and working hard in between driving lessons.

Bernie and Sarah with two newborn lambs: little and large(above)

Chris, Bernie & Sarah (left) Sophie Perks having a ride on Tempo (right)

2007-03-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

The daffodils at West Ilkerton are now in full bloom. I took this photo today because snow is forecast tonight, so tomorrow they'll have frostbite!
It is a very busy week on the farm. The cows and calves have been turned out into the fields, and all the sheds are being mucked out and disinfected ready for lambing. The ewes are heavily in lamb. They are being fed ewe nuts in the fields twice a day, and they will be housed by the beginning of next week.
We are also completing a hedgebank restoration project in Lane Meadow with the help of Michael, Mark and Andrew from Lyn Valley Contractors.
Here are some photos:

2007-03-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

The stags are back at West Ilkerton. Chris has counted 12 in our fields every day this week. Today, he took this photo:

Calving has been fairly sucessful in that all the calves born so far are alive and well. However, to date there have been eight bull calves and four heifer calves. Heifer calves are typically worth about three times as much as bull calves, unless a bull's good enough to keep entire for breeding.

Breeding is now not an option for Beetle (sorry to break the hearts of all those adoring bitches out there!) because he had a trip to the vet to make him 'two stone lighter'. It was a case of being cruel to be kind because he'd started going off courting and the alternative was to keep him locked up most of the time.

The daffodils are out already, and will be over by the time lambing starts on 5th April. I don't know if I can cope with a lambing at West Ilkerton without daffodils to cheer me up!

Talking of cheering people up, I took this photo at Blackmoor Gate Market last Monday, when Chris was selling some sheep. It proves that farmers are a jolly lot who love to get together and have a good time:

2007-02-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

Mike the bull is getting a bit fed up with being confined to his pen. when Chris and Sarah let him out into the yard today so they could clean out his pen, he charged around the yard, dashed into the hay shed and nearly caused an avalanche of hay bales. Perhaps he was just celebrating the birth of his first daughter at West Ilkerton.

She was born on 1st February and she's called Ilkerton Pimpernel. Her mum is Ilkerton Lovage.

We name our cows after British flowers, working one letter down the alphabet every year. This year ought to be O, but (apart from endless different types of orchid) there are hardly any wild flowers beginning with O, so we've cheated and gone on to P.

We've been pretty busy during January and February. The holiday cottage has three new windows: the two large end windows which look over the farm and one side window have been replaced with hardwood double-glazed units which open easily! Hurray!

The kitchen, living room, stair wells and master bedroom have all been repainted, AND we have installed satellite TV at West Ilkerton, with all the free channels plus BBC 3 and 4. Double hurray! Chris has found a channel called movies4men (endless westerns and war films) so he's happy. For the first time ever, we can get BBC south west. This means we now know about all the redundancies, rapes and muggings in our immediate vicinity, rather than getting all the same news about Wales. An added bonus is that we get a good picture even when it's high pressure. Before, good weather used to come at a price: a fuzzy TV. All in all, we wonder why we waited so long to get digital TV (NB it's in the self-catering cottage too.)

The weather has been most peculiar. For a couple of weeks it was incredibly dry and pretty hot (up to 14 degrees centigrade) and then it snowed. The snow lasted about a day, and now it's raining hard.

We hope the weather decides to stop in sunny mode during lambing in April.

2006-12-31T03:20:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!
Love from Chris, Tortie, George and Sarah.
And Anne, in The Tallat.
This was my favourite Christmas card of 2006. It was given to us by Sally and Ian from Barbrook Post Office:

2006-12-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

We all had a good Christmas, and hope you did too.

Chris and Sarah went to the Boxing Day meet at The Station Inn, Blackmoor Gate. Here is a photo of Chris on Bella and Sarah on Tempo. Sarah sprayed the horses' manes and tails with glitter, but that doesn't show up very well.

Three weeks ago a section of roof was blown off the hay barn, and it's taking ages for a replacement section to arrive. Stormy weather is forecast again for tomorrow night (New Year's Eve), so we're hoping the rest of the roof won't be blown off.

The cattle and the yearlings are housed for the winter. Touch wood, their roof is OK. Here is a photo of some of our Devon yearlings.

Jack and Harry (Exmoor ponies) look very wild and wooly at the moment. We hope that a magical spell will transform them into a sleek, well-behaved driving pair by next summer.

Their real names are Dunkery Coaltit and Dunkery Shrike, which is why we call them Jack and Harry!
Jack is four and Harry is three. They are full brothers. So far, we've just been leading them around and long-reining them.

Chris has nearly finished making a wagon for them to pull (it looks a bit like a Meccano wagon at the moment). When it's finished, we'll have to hitch them up, so he's taking as long as possible over it!

Yesterday the sun came out, which was a novelty, so I took the camera on my morning dog walk. I started off going up the back track towards the moor, where I said good morning to Rosie, Winaway, Basil and Tinks.

The ewe lambs were in Marley Combe, and Beetle couldn't resist trying to convince me he really is a blue-blooded Border Collie (right).

I walked up the hill to Cow Field (the photo of Baldrick and Sam was taken there) and then back to our lane and down the hill to the house. I expect it's the standard quick dog walk for many of our visitors, so I hope it's interesting to see what it looks like in winter.

2006-11-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

The Exmoor ponies (Ziggy, Fanta, Sunny and Fizz) had to go out with the mares today because the cows have been brought in for the winter. All the foals had reached the stage where I could catch each of them in the big barn and lead them around or groom them. Their education will continue next summer. In the meantime they'll enjoy running as a herd again. Here are some pictures of their release!

I smell freedom!

Follow me, girls!

Nearly there!

All together again

2006-11-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken at the end of day two of our pony handling course with Vanessa Bee. The three foals were previously completely unhandled, and Ziggy (the stallion) had been handled but was very nervous.
A lot has happened during the past six weeks:

Chris and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary with a party in Lynton Town Hall. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and hope everyone else did too. George made a speech and proposed a toast (left) and Chris and I made silly faces whenever we saw a camera (right)

I went to a commercial fiction writing and self-editing workshop run by Cornerstones, which was excellent. If anyone is interested, their website is www.cornerstones.co.uk

George and Sarah came home for half term, with empty tummies and full bin liners of washing. The house is now empty again, and so is the fridge. The washing machine has a headache.

We had our pony branding, and all five foals passed their inspection. The two colts (Cracker and Mungo) have gone to Ann Crowe in Derbyshire. I have kept the three fillies, which are called Fanta, Bucks Fizz and Sunny Delight (because their dad was called Orange Juice).
A week ago, Vanessa Bee came to the farm for two days to teach Chris and me how to handle unhandled ponies. It was an incredibly interesting, and exhausting, two days. We learnt a huge amount, and so did the ponies. Here is a photo of Vanessa showing us how to teach a pony (in this case Bucks Fizz) to tie up without pulling back.

All the ponies are different characters. Fanta is small and very quick. Her first instinct when frightened is to run away, and she finds it very difficult to keep her feet still. Fizz is a fighter. If she feels threatened, she'll defend herself with teeth and hooves. Both these ponies are still very nervous, but with calm handling they're improving daily.

Sunny is very different. Her first reaction when scared is to "plant" her feet and refuse to move. In general, she is much more calm and friendly, and lives up to her name of Sunny Delight. Here she is:

Vanessa has suggested running horse and pony handling courses from West Ilkerton next autumn. If you would be interested in this, do get in touch with us www.westilkerton.co.uk or Vanessa Bee www.positivehorsemanship.co.uk

This is the time of year for livestock sales. Today (6th November) Chris took thirty lambs to Blackmoor Gate market. He took these photos:

2006-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Beetle is a great hit with all our guests. He is VERY friendly and loves to play. We bought him as a Border Collie pup last year, but it quickly became apparent that he's a Bordeline Collie, with quite a bit of (? Jack Russel Terrier? Beagle?) thrown in! He's a good sheepdog (well, good enough for us) but can also turn his paws to ratting, moleing and hunting rabbits. Multi-functional - a sort of doggy Swiss army knife.
Here is a photo of Susan Monkton and her friend, Lauren , with Beetle a few weeks ago. Beetle loved playing with them, and also with Katherine and Molly Stokes who stayed with us for a fortnight after the Monktons.
Katherine and Molly were very fond of the horses, too. Here they are with Sherman.

Katherine has adopted a pony at the Moorland Mousie Trust, www.moorlandmousietrust.org.uk . She and her family went to the MMT centre to see her adopted pony and go for a ride. She sent these pictures:

Wednesday 6th September was a very sad day for us because we took Sherman and Spec to their new home at Mullacott Equestrian Centre. we've heard that they've settled in very well there. We will keep in touch with them and let you know how they're getting on.
Here are some photos of our last trip with them:

Basil is now sharing a field (well, three fields) with Tinks, Winaway and Rosie. Soon they may be joined by two Exmoor ponies, but that's another story. Keep visiting www.westilkerton.co.uk to find out!

2006-08-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

Christmas came early this year: I've bought a real Romany vardo (gypsy wagon), which is a childhood dream come true. My excuse is that I need it for research purposes, as I'm writing a story about a Romany pony boy. It's a pretty poor excuse, as we use it for cosy evenings round the stove and then pop into the house for an Aga-cooked meal, the loo and/or a bath....so we're experiencing the hardships of Romany life to the full!
The Haworth family were staying in the cottage when the wagon was delivered, so we had a barbecue to celebrate. Baldrick the lurcher really looks the part.
My sister, Betty, was staying with Mum, and she took these photos.

We also have some sad news: we have decided to sell Spec and Sherman (the two black Shire horses) at the end of this season. Sherman will be 17 next year, and he was beginning to find our steep hills tiresome. Spec and Sherman are going a few miles away to Mullacott Equestrian Centre, www.mullacott.co.uk , where they will stay together. We will be very sad to see them go, but we either had to expand the heavy horse business or give up, and costs and regulations were increasing each year. Basil fans (Rahul in particular!) will be glad to know Basil will stay here for the rest of his life as a pet.

We are keeping a wagon and a set of harness incase we discover we can't live without Shires, and we are planning to have fun training up a team of Exmoor ponies to drive (yes, we're completely potty).

On the subject of training ponies, Vanessa Bee is going to come to West Ilkerton again for a couple of days in October to handle the unhandled Exmoor foals. The photos are of Vanessa handling Trifle, the foal Leah Haworth bought, and Leah stroking Trifle for the first time.

This week a very special girl called Nicole visited West Ilkerton. She loves Exmoor ponies and the "Katy" books, and she was determined to touch a real Exmoor pony. Tinkerbell was happy to oblige, especially when she found some coarse mix in a bucket! Here is a photo of Nicole, her mum and Tinkerbell.

2006-07-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

Hurray! We have finished the harvest, and in record time! (On livestock farms like ours, "the harvest" means making hay and silage, not harvesting crops like wheat or fruit.) With the barn full of hay, we had to make Marleycombe and Square Piece to silage, with the help of Michael Bowden and Mark Leworthy and their HUGE machines! Sarah was armed and dangerous; with a bale spike at the front and back of our tractor, she transported bales to the wrapper at lightning speed. Here are some pictures of silage making - especially for Oliver Willerton, who loves all things mechanical.

For more information about West Ilkerton Farm, please see www.westilkerton.co.uk

Well, I promised you some better photos of Ziggy, my Exmoor stallion, and so here they are.
For a chap who's just turned two, he's pretty handsome, eh? Luckily, the mares now share my opinion of him (they took some persuading at first) so I hope we'll hear the patter of tiny hooves next spring.
As I'm dotty about Exmoors, I'll put in another photo of Ziggy with some of this year's foals in the background:

If you're dotty about Exmoors (or you don't mind becoming dotty about them) , get our Katy's Exmoor books for some light summer reading. The books are written by me (Victoria Eveleigh) and illustrated by my husband, Chris (Christopher Eveleigh). The stories are called Katy's Exmoor, Katy's Exmoor Adventures and Katy's Exmoor Friends, and they are suitable for all ages. For more information please see www.tortoise-publishing.co.uk

Last week we took the day off and went to Dunster Country Fair. For the past two weeks our Aga has been turned off because of the hot weather, so we have been living off sandwiches and salads. (NB Our self-catering guests are much better off, with a full-size electric cooker as well as a Rayburn and microwave!) We tucked into the food in the lunch marquee at Dunster Fair as if it were our first proper meal in weeks - which it was, of course. Afterwards, we all dozed in the sunshine by the main ring; all except Sarah and her cousin, Sophie, who decided that a go on the bouncee, bungee, trampolinee thingee was just what the doctor ordered. Ah! The inexperience of youth!

One of the highlights of the fair is the parade of hounds in the main ring. There were five different packs in the ring at the same time, and it was a magnificent sight.

2006-07-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

The Willertons didn't escape! As predicted, they arrived in blazing sunshine on Friday, and we made hay on Sunday and Monday. Many thanks to Richard and Anna Willerton for their help. Thanks also to James Holtom, Jack and Harry Chapman-Walker, Sam Smyth, Richard Leworthy and Sarah (Eveleigh) for their hard work. We now have a full hay barn. Richard Leworthy won the prize for making the most beautiful load of hay (pictured above)

Anne was very useful on her Tramper - relaying messages like, "More ice cream! Quick!".

Trampers are incredible machines; they give people with mobility problems access to all sorts of places off the beaten track.

Summer is marked by various major farm tasks. Haymaking is one and shearing is another. This year James Holtom, Sam Smyth and Sarah helped. James used his mountaineering skills to climb the wall and take this photo:

We are really enjoying doing our "Heavy Horse Experience Afternoons". Some very interesting (and interested) people have visited us. With just a few people, life is easier for the horses and our guests can get much more hands-on experience if they want it. In general, the first couple of hours are spent getting the horses ready and taking them for a drive on the moor, followed by tea and then a tour of West Ilkerton Farm in the Landrover to see the sheep, cattle, Exmoor ponies and (usually) wild red deer. See www.westilkerton.co.uk for further details. Martin and Sue Bastone came on a Heavy Horse experience afternoon and sent us this picture of the horses enjoying a well-earned rest in the evening sunlight.

2006-07-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first newsletter! I will try to produce one every month from now on so that our friends, self-catering guests, heavy horse experience guests, readers of our Katy's Exmoor books and everyone who loves Exmoor can keep in touch. For more information about the farm, please see www.westilkerton.co.uk and for the books see www.tortoise-publishing.co.uk

I am writing this on July 6th, which is Winaway's first birthday (Winaway is my mare Rosie's foal, and her sire is Hot Rumour). Her first year of life has not been without incident (ie. vet's bills) starting on her first day with a plasma drip, hotly followed by a hoof infection, and then an eye infection. It really is true that "fools breed horses for wise men to buy", but she's given this old fool a great deal of pleasure.

Today is also significant because it's Sarah's last day at school. In September she'll be going to Bicton Agricultural College to study for a ND in Countryside and Wildlife Management.

George will be going back to Sparsholt College to finish his ND in Gamekeeping and Wildlife Management in September. At present he is working at Holkham Hall in Norfolk.
With two children into wildlife management, the wildlife at West Ilkerton had better watch out!

We have several new boys at the farm: Sam the sheepdog, Whitefield Millennium ("Mike") the bull, and Acreswild Zeitgeist ("Ziggy") the Exmoor stallion.

Sam belonged to some friends who farmed in Brendon. They sold their farm in the spring and moved to Ireland, so we gave Sam a home. He was a pretty good sheepdog in his day but, like Chris and me, he's a bit slow and creaky now; he still has all the moves, but they're performed at a snail's pace!

Anyway, he's settled down well, loves sunbathing in the yard and adores Chris. His worse point is he bites the back wheels of moving cars, but we're curing him slowly with the help of a well-aimed supersoaker water pistol.

Mike is a very well-bred fellow. For Devon Cattle enthusiasts, his sire was Kerrs Rupert and his dam was Whitefield Orange 123rd. We bought him from Mike Wright (hence the nickname) who breeds and shows Devon cattle. He is very good-looking with a lovely temperament (Mike the bull, that is!) and we're hoping for great things next year when the calves are born.

One of Ziggy's claims to fame is he's the newborn foal on Rackenford Moor who stars in the recently released film Discovering Exmoor Ponies. Now he is two years old and a registered Exmoor stallion. He is the stallion I've been looking for for ages: good breeding ( a very rare bloodline from the founder mare Just Jennifer 75/1 on his dam's side), a lovely head, beautiful movement, well-proportioned body, sweet nature and a golden dun colour. This photo doesn't do him justice, but I'll put it in until I take a better one.

We've had five foals this year: three fillies and two colts. Their sire was Orange Juice, so I suppose they'll have to be called something like Fanta, Sunny Delight, Oasis, Bucks Fizz and Jaffa. Any suggestions gratefully received.

It was so hot last week that we gave the Shire horses a week off. They were dripping with sweat just standing in the stables, and the horse flies outside were particularly vicious. Now, thank goodness, the weather is cooler and wetter. We'll need a good spell of sunshine before long, though, because we want to make hay. Perhaps we'll wait until the Willerton family are staying - they always bring good weather with them and end up helping with haymaking rather than relaxing on the beach!

Chris and Victoria (Tortie) Eveleigh

West Ilkerton Farm, Lynton, Exmoor EX35 6QA Tel: (01598) 752310
www.westilkerton.co.uk