Today was Open Farm Sunday across the UK. Open Farm Sunday is where working farms open their doors to the public for free, in the name of helping bring consumers closer to producers. This has been an increasingly popular annual event since 2006.
We visited Manor Farm, in Lund, East Yorkshire.
We dodged the cow pats (proper farm, you see) in the marshalled make-shift car park, and were straight into the farm. We saw lots of animals including chickens, cows and bulls, and a lovely little pony called Pepper.
Then we watched some sheep shearing. The sheep were brought one by one out of the pen by a very brave young man, then the sheep were sheared, and put in to another pen looking very shy and vulnerable, but a bit lighter. It was fascinating to see sheep shearing, and it’s something we’ve never seen at any of the more sanitised children’s farms we have visited.
The tractor ride was excellent! We were taken on a tour of one of the wheat fields where the grass was being cut and made into hay bales. One tractor cut the grass, another collected it and compressed it into bales, and another collected the bale and popped it in the wrapping machine. Fascinating.
The farm is home to a day-nursery, so we went and had a look around and painted a pebble (for a charity donation).
Then we had a play in the nursery’s superb outdoor play area. There were mud beds for digging, tyres for jumping in, and a trampoline overlooking the rolling fields. Lucky tots!
We bought some ice-creams from Mr Moo’s ice-cream van, which were very nice, and had a browse of the craft stalls located inside the barn.
The whole event was very well organised, the main things (toilets, activities etc) well signposted, and we had an amazing time. Some of the commercial children’s farms we have been to could learn from them.
For more information you can visit the Open Farm Sunday website. The event will be held again in 2014 on the 8th June.
If you have visited a farm today, you can visit the website and fill in a visitor survey (prize draw) and enter one or two of your photos in their competition. Feel free to post links to your own Open Farm Sunday blog post in the comments section.
For more great posts about Open Farm Sunday, visit Jennifer’s Little World, and Cheetahs in My Shoes
This post is written by Joanne Brady
Looks like you had a great day out!
We went to Oaklands Farm in St Albans and had a brilliant time too http://wp.me/p2OiOj-12B