Harvest Party!!!

Waterfall Farm Harvest Party!

We are having a Paaarrrrtttttyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, 19th of October, from 11.30am to 3.30pm we are having a Harvest Party!

It will be mainly indoors, in the ‘Market Barn’ so never mind the weather. Bring your wellies just in case and put your costume over your winter woollies!

There will be loads of children’s games all of which are FREE.

Fancy-dress is strongly encouraged and there will also be face-painting.

We will have harvest fare food; BBQ’d sweetcorn, pancakes and the like!

There will be the usual farm animals to feed, pet and love.

Parking is FREE.

Entry is FREE.

So come along and enjoy a fun, fun, fun, family day out on the farm, with a Halloween twist!!!

For more information contact Hannah and visit our Facebook page and Twitter account!

 

Management reserve the right to change, amend, alter or cancel all or part of, this fun party day without notice. (But we will really try not to!).

 

Enniskerry Victorian Festival 2013

It’s that time of year again and the fantastic Enniskerry Victorian Field Day Festival is on this Sunday, September 15th. It is a super family day out with loads of fun events happening all day. This year it is in aid of several charities, The Wicklow Hospice Foundation and the local parishes. It is being held on Knocklinn Farm, Ballyman road which is within spitting distance of Bray and the M11. There’s loads of parking, children go free and adults are only €5 each all of which goes to the charities already mentioned. Have you ever tried sheaf pitching?? I have, it’s great fun but not for the faint hearted. You can really feel those tummy muscles getting to work!! There is also loads of kids games (which every adult wants to try), tug-a-war, archery, falconry, artisan food market, vintage cars and tractors, horse-shoie pitching, pony rides….. If you get to do or see half of it you’ll sleep well that night! Visit their website http://enniskerryfestival.ie/about-victorian-field-day/for all the information.

Rag Man’s Ball

In addition to the Field Day, there is also a ‘Rag Man’s Ball’ being held on Friday night. We are donating half a Lleyn lamb, freezer ready, valued at €90 to the auction! We also have are giving 5% of the price of every lamb (whole/half) that is ordered at the Ball to the charities nominated this year. Order forms can be obtained from Hannah on the night. See http://enniskerryfestival.ie/entertainment/ragmans-ball/for further details.

 

Quack Quack!!

Drum roll please! Du-de-du-de-de-dooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have arrived, the funniest, cutest, entertaining quackers! New to Waterfall Farm are our flock of Khaki Campbell ducks! We put a lot of time and thought and research as to what kind of ducks would be suitable for our farm, and the result is Khaki Campbell ducks. You won’t find these ducks everywhere and they are actually a special kind of breed. They are a breed that was purposely bred by an English lady called Adele Campbell in the late 1800′s who wanted a duck that would be a prolific layer and also be a good table bird. So she crossed her Indian Runner ducks with Mallards, there may also be Rouen duck mixed in there too, but the final result is the Khaki Campbell. It’s name comes from the original ‘creator’ Ms. Campbell and also it’s typical colouring which resembles that of the khaki colour used in military uniforms. There are three main colours,  khaki, dark and white.

Our drake is a dark colour and all the ‘ladies’ are a beautiful khaki colour. There is a perception that they are a skittish bird, but actually they are quite kind and gentle, which is important to us as we have so many little children visiting the Farm and Shop each weekend. Also they are quite a good laying breed, with as many as 340 eggs being laid each year, so we hope to supply the Shop with duck eggs shortly. At the moment they aren’t used to much human interaction, but they are getting more friendly by the day and no doubt in time they will be eating out of your hand! They are very entertaining to watch, it almost seems like there is an invisible string keeping them all together. As one stands up, they all stand up. One sits down, they all sit down. One goes left, they all go left. And so on!! Often they are splashing about in their water tub, which they get filthy and new water is put in for them every day. They would love a visit, especially from the younger people and are already proving popular with picnic makings and local families. Please visit our You Tube channel waterfallfarm to see a short clip of the quackers when they first arrived.

Peregrine Falcons & Silage bales.

Farmers and silage contractors put in a huge amount of effort when making their silage for winter fodder. So after all the work that has been done out in the field, and then bringing the bales in to be wrapped in plastic and then carefully stacked so they won’t tear, the bales are now safe in the yard, poised and ready for winter use. Hah! Not so. If the silage wrap gets torn the bale/bales are in danger of becoming spoiled by becoming mouldy and inedible when outside air disturbs the fermenting process. Even a little hole, made by a teeny-weeny little mouse can destroy all or part of the bale if not spotted in time.

So what kind of animals nibble on the silage bales and what can be done about it. Well, lots of animals like rats, rabbits, mice, birds, cats etc. So for the smaller rodents they can be more easily controlled by the astute positioning of bait boxes or traps. Cats are great at catching these little guys are their natural prey, but cats are also pretty good at sharpening their claws on the silage bales too, which isn’t desirable!

So then onto the birds, how to deal with these guys. Well I guess if you had all day with nothing to do you could just hang around your yard with a shotgun and make it a ‘no fly zone’ and invent interesting recipes such as crow pie, raven stew or pigeon stir fry. I don’t know many, or even any, farmers with that sort of free time. We did try using close mesh netting but it wasn’t satisfactory. So we were discussing our ‘flying rodent’ problem with a good friend of ours who is a silage contractor and he recommended the use of a ‘dummy Peregrine Falcon’.

Peregrines are about the size of a crow, but are very adept hunters and generally attack their prey during flight from above, at speed, killing it with a closed claw and then retrieving it mid-air or when it hits the ground. That is why it is important that you have your ‘dummy Peregrine Falcon’ perched on something to give it an elevated position simulating it’s stance hunting in the wild. You also should move it about a bit, so ‘familiarity doesn’t breed contempt’ with the birds you are trying to keep off your bales. As he explained it has to be a Peregrine Falcon because they are the type of bird of prey that hunt crows and ravens. So don’t go out and buy another type of dummy bird of prey because they won’t work, I’m told. You can buy a ‘dummy Peregrine Falcon’ in any hunting or fishing equipment shop.

Irish Times Feature.

Well much to our surprise we featured in the Irish Times magazine article “100 Things to do in Ireland this Summer”! It was a giant list of all sorts of things you could do to keep yourself busy in Ireland whilst enjoying some summer madness… and fun! We were number 66 but I don’t think there was any particular order. You can read the article by clicking here.

A Fantastic Article in the Sunday Independent!

One Sunday recently a lady I didn’t know came into the Shop and was asking all sorts of informed and ‘loaded’ questions. The Shop was busy and I couldn’t really give her my full attention, but as I dealt with customers one by one, she explained that she was Lucinda O’Sullivan from the Sunday Independent and could she have quick conversation with Michael and I. “Of course” I said and after phoning Michael, “he’s just mixing some concrete” wondering how long Michael’s “five minutes” would be this time! But Michael arrived on the scene promptly and showed Lucinda all the animals around the farmyard while I looked after the customers.

When there was a break in customer “traffic” we sat down around the picnic table outside the Shop, in the scorchingly beautiful heat and had a chat about farming, the way the winter went for us,  the fodder crisis at the time, the Shop, our suppliers, how we started, how it’s going and what our plans are for the future. Due credit to Lucinda she listened to us rabbit on about our daily life and wrote the most fantastic article, that just hit the nail on the head. Our friends on Twitter @kilmullenfarm put it nicely when they said: “Great article, a balance of the dreams and realities that face farmers..”. Which sums it up, in a nutshell, you can click here to read the article.

We feel so fortunate to receive this kind of media attention, it is a real boon to our business and what we are trying to do here, because we are only ordinary farmers facing the daily trials and realities of farming life like countless others, and we count our blessings everyday.

Rabbits, Rabbits….. And More Rabbits!!

When the first litter of kittens (baby bunnies) arrived they were so cute and cuddly and we were thrilled with there safe arrival. After six weeks these little speedy, fluffy little things were ready to launch into the outer world and easily found new homes for themselves. Innocent little me thought that there would be a reprieve. Perhaps as much as three weeks maybe. To give Mammy bunny (Ruby) some time to recover after the birthing process, not to mention raising a family with a Daddy (Max) who just hangs around all day. And a girl needs to get her figure back, right??!

“But, oh no! Not so silly human. Us parent rabbits can’t wait to kick the fist lot out because the second lot has ALREADY ARRIVED!!! And we have them hidden under the straw, in fact they have been here for maybe ten days! HA HA! Stupid human, don’t you know we breed like… well, rabbits!” Huh! I do now. So the second lot of joyful fluffy rabbits have arrived and are waiting for little boys and girls to come and visit and play and politely ask Mam and Dad for a new rabbit hutch!

 

 

Actually they are very cute. I was in feeding them and didn’t they creep up out of their little hide-y-hole and I got a pic! One of them is snow white and just adorable. Come and see for yourself!

Visitors to Liz Keegan

For those who are visiting the Farm or the Farm Shop please note the access route remains the same, just follow the clear sign posts for the Farm Shop.

 

For anyone visiting Liz Keegan please note there is no access to the farm house from the yard. Liz now has requested her privacy and as soon as was possible this has been facilitated. She now has her own separate entrance, with new gates and a safety mirror. Visitors to Liz please note that there is no parking in the yard, but ample parking in front of the farm house. We hope that this will ensure Liz’s privacy and comfort and maintain the health and safety of those visiting the Farm and Shop.

Give-away Weekend!!!!

For this weekend only we are having a little give-away of some choice products to celebrate the safe arrival of summer!

Up for grabs is

Stokes Horse-radish; spend €20 and get one FREE!! Normal RRP €4.95

This offer is available while stocks last.

 

Sam’s Cookies Meringue Shells; Buy 3 punnets of Strawberries and get one pack of Meringue Shells absolutely FREE! While stocks last and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.

 

Open 10am to 5pm, see the cute new baby bunnies while you’re there!!

A Tweet-Up with some lovely Farming Ladies!

As you know Waterfall Farm is on Twitter, and recently a ‘Tweet-Up’ (a meeting organised over Twitter) was organised for us ‘farming ladies’ that are on connected Twitter. It was very exciting to be involved with this meeting, with lots of planning, organisation and consultation happening in anticipation of the delicious lunch we had at Cillin Hill, in Kilkenny. Females in farming is a ‘hot topic’ nowadays and Louise Denvir from ‘RTE’s ‘Country Wide‘ and Aisling Hussey from ‘The Farmer’s Journal’ also came along and sat in on our lunch listening to the nine farming women present chat about farming, from a female perspective! This was broadcast on the RTE Radio’s Country Wide programme on Saturday the 18th of May, click on the link above to hear it. As presenter Louise Denvir explains there was a lot of talk about the term ‘Farmerette’ which was used as a hashtag so those of us on Twitter could easily follow the conversation and interact with each other.

 

 

Famerette – To Be Or Not To Be…. Called A Farmerette

Gosh, well there was a lot of discussion between the nine of us as to whether ‘Farmerette’ was an appropriate term for women involved in farming or not! Between all of us present at the lunch it was a passionate but quite civilised discussion and everyone put forward their thoughts and reasons for or against the term. Some of the ladies were for ‘Farmerette’ and gave their different reasons for that opinion. Others didn’t seem to mind too much either way. And one of us flew solo and stated that she did NOT like the term ‘Farmerette’ and gave her very valid reasons. I believe on Twitter the debate became quite passionate. But I felt that this debate was taking up too much of our time and so we moved onto discussing other farming topics that were pertinent to our individual and collective situations.

 

The whole day revolved around Twitter and other social media outlets and how they are used by farmers. Twitter was the reason how our meeting came about in the first place. I think that Twitter has a role in making farming accessible for people who are not farmers and don’t know anything about farming, where their food comes from or food production. We spent some time discussing this and also how Twitter could help with farmers feeling isolated, which in theory is a good and valid suggestion, but I do wonder about the Broadband coverage around Ireland.

 

However I am no internet expert and bow down to the wisdom of people like Lorna @irishfarmerette and Elaine @newfarmerette and Suzanna @ZwartblesIE who all make huge advances through blogging and social media to bring daily farming life to the general public. From listening to Suzanna and following her on Twitter you can see how she is making what she does with the Zwartble sheep accessible and easy to understand to the non-farming folk, as well as promoting the breed. Lorna is a whiz-kid on the aul blogging and gave plenty of insight into that, her various websites and businesses as well as all the work she does on the farm, especially during calving! Elaine hails from Co. Wicklow, like me, and struck me as a real get up and go sort of person. Herself and her husband have taken over the family farm and are diligently improving it and adding their stamp to it. They farm sheep and cattle and Elaine runs a riding school! Oh and not to mention the blog she has and the Awards she’s nominated for!

 

The lovely Fionnuala @fimalone1 came from a different perspective as she is very involved in animal nutrition and an expert in that area, as well as being a full-time Mum/student/farmer & wife! While horticulture was the key component in the lives of Tracy @tracydwjones and Jo @CarraghNurseries and they discussed what they have to do on a daily basis. How they use different initiatives to help boost their businesses and the challenges they face in being taken seriously as females in farming and their industry.   I really admired Jo-Ann @JoAnnMcCormish from Co. Meath who talked about how she set up her farm, from scratch in recent years. Her difficulties when taking her lambs to the abattoir, both emotionally and also she felt maybe not being taken as seriously by the other farmers there because she was a ‘farmerette’.

 

The lunch Cillin Hill served was superb and the Piedmontese Beef steaks supplied by Helena of @cattlenclydes were just divine! She is a real promotor of this breed of cattle and she does a great job, and she has a fabulous Clydesdale horse! Anything with to do with horses is a big plus for me, because that is my area of expertise. While anybody that knows me, knows that my farming knowledge comes from what I have learned from Michael, but I do thoroughly enjoy working and living on our Farm, running the Farm Shop and being the back-up shepherd-ess!

 

So I just grabbed onto the coat tails of these lovely ladies and admired all the different women in farming, because no matter what term you use to describe them they don’t shy away from hard work and certainly know their stuff in all their various and varied areas!