Ashfarm is no longer offering camping. We are purely running as a smallholding for Zwartble and Zwartble x LLeyn sheep with a new adventure starting in Suffolk.
Christmas wishes from Ashfarm Campsite and some pictures of the campsite on Christmas Eve.
Our autumn and winter thus far have been particularly wet and windy
and to enjoy the sunshine one has had to get out QUICK into it!
But broom always brings that lovely coconut smell and the golden sunshine colour
and the delicate flowers of a strawberry plant are a bonus.
Much of our plantlife is uncharacteristically still
flowering, although many of the succulents always do well at this time
of year. Purple Hebe.
And a mild December has suited the treefern and the olive tree, both
are looking healthy despite the wind and wild rain this season.
My small succulent bed around the old reservoir grate still looks pretty, in long winter shadows.
Hedgerow succulents
and pennywort hang on.
The #eggentrepeneur has continued to sell his eggs to our villagers, although the chickens produce fewer eggs in the winter with reduced daylight hours and we have also sold some of our pork.
So, christmas is upon us and we wish you all a very merry one and leave you with a festive picture..
and a view from the end of our driveway in winter sunshine. x
2015 has been a great year for mushrooms, not so
much for the field mushrooms we gather from the campsite and pony paddocks, to eat with fresh eggs and bacon for breakfast, but the funghi from roadside foraging!
We found Giant Puffballs - whose geographic position will
now remain a family secret – which were delicious, but other varieties also
popped up in places we had never found before. Although we didn’t eat all of
them!
Dom’s new Legbar hens started laying, to his excitement,
blue eggs!
And the egg entrepreneur has found it necessary to redesign his delivery vehicle,
to accommodate the increase in egg supply and distribution.
Although we have had some wet days we have equally been blessed with lots of october sunshine and accordingly had fun days with ponies and friends.
I have had some lovely autumnal rides - you can follow us on twitter #throughtheearsofahorse
- along leafy lanes, beside autumnal hedges
along field tracks, with glimpses of St Michael's Mount
and past weather veins with Restless Temples in the distance!
Autumn in Cornwall also means empty beaches. It is a time for solitary
rides on the beach at Marazion
and family walks in the sunshine
delighting at beach art – I thought the pretty pools
were naturally occurring until someone sensibly explained they must be
orchestrated –
but thanks to the artist, because I found them a joy to behold.
Walks aren’t all about stomping off down a deserted beach
though,
sometimes you just have to sit and contemplate!
And you can find the strangest things on the beach, like this old pilbox that has quite simply slipped down onto the beach because of cliff erosion in the storms. Reminded me of a scene from Planet of the Apes!
But out of season there is still plenty to do. Our biggest project this year, is to get rid of our corner of unsitely ‘hillocks’ of spoil which we
inherited from Soutwest Water when we acquired the land. Our ‘area of
maintenance’ for those who have camped with us.
It has been quite a mission.
Requiring the whole family!
And not every day was kind weatherwise.
But, the area is now clear and landscaped and we now have
the rest of the winter to manually rake and fertilise and throw some grass seed
on it, remove the concrete and tarmac rubble and hope that by next summer it will be grassed over and looking pretty.
We did have a bit of a disaster in the old reservoir garden
The dogs had great fun frollicking in the flooded corner. However, periodic flooding has been an ongoing problem since we started developing the old reservoir into a garden. This time though, we had the digger and decided to investigate.
Excavation revealed, a 'washout' pipe belonging to Soutwest Water
that periodically, whether due to malfunction of electrical monitoring equipment, or usage and setting of water levels, outflows.
Our problem now, is to persuade SWW to resolve the issue and put in an extra piece of pipe to stop the flooding in the garden. Unfortunately they are a big organisation, with multidivisional departments and for one of those departments to take ownership of my problem and make a decision to extend the pipe and prevent further damage to the garden, may very well be more difficult than it needs to be.
To finish on a high, rather than a low 'water' note, here is a shot of the watery harbour in Penzance with the boats all looking pretty in our October sunshine. And long may the sunshine last.
August was full of family fun this year. We closed the site for a weekend to new campers in order to make merry as a family, with my brother and his crew, a cousin and her lovely red setter, my sister and her tribe and even our mum camped.
The campfire got used lots for cooking and brewing tea and general chatter and watching stars with a bevvy or two. And it was a delight to hear children's laughter and guffawing from the adults. So huge thanks to Caia, James, Jack, Poppy, Adrian, Kate, William, Sam, Amanda, Wendy and Gaia, Graham, James and Dominic for making our time together so special.
It also gave me the excuse to fend off the campsite maintenance and gardening chores in preference for some beach-time and I enjoyed several hours with family, toes in the sand, trying to tan those portions of me that are usually hidden by shorts, wellington boots and a strappy top, whilst gossiping, reading or generally watching family antics.
Porthminster Beach was very popular with the family. An easy ride from the campsite to St Erth Railway station, a short train trip along a gorgeously pretty route to St Ives and then straight down onto the beach from the platform.
Porthminster always seems to have the guarantee of sunshine, even when the rest of the landmass is in cloud, there are beachside cafes and restaurants, a mini golf course, toilets and it is a short and pleasant walk into town to some great bookshops and clothes boutiques and any amount of art and food outlets.
Even the inclement days didn't stop our fun with part of the family decanting to our cottage and packing in for rainyday lego and warhammer, silly hat games and makedo lunches.
And rainydays meant I got to spend even more time with my nephews - playing with ponies amongst other things - than perhaps I would otherwise have done if they had been visiting sights throughout this end of cornwall.
Sometimes you just have to ignore the rain though and get out into our landscape anyway. We had a fab afternoon with waterproofs donned, down on the beach at Marazion rock pooling, finding rock gobies, baby montague crabs and the vicious velvet swimming crabs, the starfish often are more difficult to spot, but all the more splendid when you found one.
I had a very damp horseride with my sister-in-law, where the imagination had to work really hard to conjure up the view of St Ives and Godrivy and the look-back to Penzance and MountsBay that we should have had, riding up over the moor from Castlegate Quarry to Nancledra. But the tack needed a clean anyway so another rainyday opportunistically gave way to a tack cleaning session in the kitchen and coffee with a friend.
And we had a grand walk out to Logan's Rock and a climb up for the compulsory "rocking the rock" with the view of one of my favourite beaches, Pednevounder on the climb away.
The new queen of compost loos got christened and well utilised over august.
And we also took charge of a couple of pigs on the farm, which the kids loved to feed and to pet and we hope will fatten up for christmas!
Generally though, August passed us by fast and furious and time
seemed to be in short supply, which is why the August blog page is being
written in September! But the gates are now shut to campers and Ashfarm is just me, the dog, a good book and the rest of my motley crew and menagerie.
Thanks to everyone who has stayed with us this year and special thanks to all those who took the time to write something in our visitor's book. If you forgot, or couldn't find the time whilst packing up, you can always add something to our page on ukcampsite.co.uk online. Have a very lovely autumn, winter and see you all in 2016 season!
Keep peaking in at the blog though, to see what happens out of season and say hello to me on twitter @ashfarmcampsite
Hedgerow succulents
