Author Archives: richard

More gosling sights and sounds

Goose egg on contact microphone

Goose egg on contact microphone

The goose heart starts beating before it hatches, as I found out listening to an egg with a contact microphone

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So far we have 14 baby goslings, and two eggs from the final batch (from our own breeding geese) are starting to “pip” (break through the shell, as you can see in the photo of the egg on the microphone above).

Joanne picks grass grass for the younger ones, who are still inside in a special insulated and heated pen, several times a day from our back garden.

before

at 7am Joanne serves our baby goslings breakfast in bed ….

And here is the sound of baby geese with a whole load of fresh grass – life doesn’t get better than this!!

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after

… and a couple of hours later they’d like some more, please!

They have baby gosling crumbs to eat too, but they prefer grass!

Meanwhile the eldest of our goslings, who are growing up fast, went outside in our back garden for the first time today! They are in a specially heated and glass covered home and run (they are still little!) but they just loved picking their own fresh grass…

Safe in their heated, glass covered home...

Safe in their heated, glass covered home…

oooh - grass!

oooh – grass!

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Incubating the goose eggs and raising humidity for them

Unlike chickens, geese are waterfowl, and the shell on goose eggs is very thick. People recommend a higher humidity towards the time of hatching for goose eggs, so we needed a way to know what the humidity actually was.

A gosling breaking otu of the shell

A gosling breaking out of the shell

I developed a sensor that is connected to the Internet to make display easier, so here is the humidity of our gosling incubator

humidity of the gosling incubator (this is %RH and the x-axis is time, over a 24h span)

Unlike temperature, controlling humidity is low-tech – bar towels soaked in water and a water spray.

High tech bar towels raising the humidity

High tech bar towels raising the humidity

 

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The sound and sight of our beautiful new goslings!

We have new baby goslings (still at my home for now, but they will come up to the farm in a couple of weeks or so…)

Goslings_sm

 

Richard kindly did this sound recording of them – don’t they sound sweet?!

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Soil temperature at the farm – what a polytunnel does for us

Soil temperature is important because seeds need it to be above a certain temperature to germinate. I’ve been tracking the soil temperature in and out of the polytunnel

soil temperature readingsOnce again the air temperature overreads in the day – what’s needed is an aspirated thermometer in a screen to get the air temperature right. However, the sun doesn’t shine in the night so the below freezing air temperature is true. The soil temperature varies less inside the polytunnel tha outside as well as being 5 degrees warmer at the coldest point, so it shows the advantage of having a polytunnel in keeping the seedbeds warmer.

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Raising Polytunnel 3 at The First Working Party of Spring!

Today’s first working party of the spring included  lots of seed sowing, hoeing and raising our third Polytunnel, masterminded by Chris with his band of able volunteers!

Looks like thumbs up for a good job done!

Looks like thumbs up for a good job done!

stretching the polytunnel film

Stretching the polytunnel film

sowing seeds

Joanne, Dave and Kate sowing seeds

sowing seeds

Sowing Spring Seeds

tensioning the sides

Tensioning the sides of the Polytunnel

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CSA Social at the Fat Cat pub

A great turnout at the first Oak Tree CSA social evening of 2013! There was plenty of good cheer, and some fine pizza, bread, cheese, pate etc to share for those who chose to eat, others just enjoyed a drink.

Our socials are held on the first Tuesday of the month, but as the January date was so close to New Year Celebrations we decided to cancel that one. It was lovely to see so many people last night at The Fat Cat pub in Spring Road!

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Welcome to the farm, Tom!

I wanted to share the moment when Tom received his card and “wet weather clothes” fund from CSA members last night! Welcome to the farm Tom! Tom will be working on the farm from the beginning of January

Until Friday Tom worked as science teacher, and a very good one, I understand. The teaching profession’s loss is our gain. Tom (along with his lovely wife Kirsty) has been a devoted member of the CSA since its inception two years ago.

I am delighted to be working alonside him in the new year. His arrival on the farm heralds a new year of opportunity for us all – we’ll be able to do far more on the farm with  Tom’s hard work, practical intelligence and cheerful good humour!

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The Oak Tree Christmas Party 2012

Thanks to everyone who made The Oak Tree Christmas Party such a happy event last Saturday!

The was chatting, dancing eating and drinking with a whole lot of lovely people! I can’t think of a better way of spending Saturday night :)

 

 

 

Kate and Fraser invite Steve to take on the Hot Chilli Challenge…

a studied consideration of the heat?

 

And Tom finds the chilli challenge bracing

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The Official Launch of the CSA as a not for profit social enterprise

A few weeks ago I announced the creating of the new not for profit social enterprise which was to run the Community Supported Agriculture scheme at The Oak Tree Farm. On Saturday 13th October CSA members gathered during a working party to celebrate the handover of the farm activities to the new organisation.

Tom signing the land lease on behalf of the new social enterprise

 

 

 

 

 

CSA members celebrating the handover of the farm activities to the new social enterprise

 

CSA member Lesley calling CSA working party members to celebrate – normally the bell means tea and coffee, but not today!

 

Toasting the handover of the Farm activities to our new not for profit social enterprise, the South Suffolk Low Carbon Food Community Interest Company, also known by the more familair name “The Oak Tree Farm”

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Farm Guided Tour

We invited any and all to join a tour of the farm last Saturday, and were delighted to welcome more than 30 people!

Taking a look at the vegetable beds

 

We invited visitors to cycle rather than drive, thank you to the many people who did so!

Tom and Joanne making tea – we’ve never had such a big tea break at the farm before!

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Coffee anyone?

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CSA members Kate and Kirsty helped to organise the guided tour – thanks ladies!

 

Lesley presented her clay oven to the delight of visitors!

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