Limousin Farm Holidays Family Blog

If you want to keep up to date with what's new at Limousin farm holidays, find out here. If chicks hatch, a rabbit gives birth or I discover a great new french food recipe, I will let you know.

The kids give their input too. Maisy lets you know about french teenagers, Nelly tells us what life is like as a french punk and Fergus tells us about mud and stones.

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Aug 26, 2008, Wildboar on the menu.

It is the satrt of the wildboar hunting season. wild boar were shot on the farm last Sunday so the diners at La Tuilerie are in for a rare feast this Friday.

Menu for table d'hôtes this week;

Wild mushrooms stuffed with lardons and Roquefort.

Roasted wildboar with juniper.

Cheese

Crème brulée

Foolish bramble and elderberry meringues

Coffee and mendiants

Aug 26, 2008, Life in Limousin, How and Why do we Live Here?

How we sold our veterinary practice on the Isle of Islay and started life in limousin.

Aug 26, 2008, Your Limousin Farm Holiday

Book your limousin farm holiday here; Tipi or Yurt ? Come in June to see the lambs, August to swim in the lakes or September to gather mushrooms?

Aug 26, 2008, Limousin Farm Holidays Ecotourism Site Supplying Farm Fresh Local Produce.

Stay on our real, working, Limousin farm in Creuse. See beautiful, limousin cows in their native environment. An ecotourism holiday in the heart of the french countryside.

Aug 26, 2008, See Our Tipis and Yurts.

See our luxurious tipis and yurts, tastefully furnished and well equipped. We want our guests to enjoy a relaxed fun, cool camping holiday.

Aug 3, 2008, On Sale Now.

The harvests are in full swing, so the farm shop is full of delicious home grown and home made produce.

Here are some of the products available;

Cherry & recurrant jam

Pork & venison terrine

Harricot verts

Salads

Cucumbers, green peppers and tomatoes

Courgettes

Fresh free range eggs

Fresh fee range chicken

Aug 3, 2008, What do you think of it so far?

Our visitors' book is on the wall of our common room. On departure you can put your hand print and comment for all to see.

Here's what the last family to leave had to say about their stay.

"Thank you so much for sharing your lovely farm. We'll take away cherished memories of the days and nights in our tipi, and getting 'back to nature'. We go home to England rejuvinated and ready to face the rat race again. Many thanks again."

Adrian, Amanda, India & Jade White, Latchington.

Jul 7, 2008, Happy as a pig in ....

The holidays have started, the sun is out. Every afternoon, 'watering' the pigs is a favorite job.

Pigs have no sweat glands and have to cool down by wallowing. I know why my pork tastes so good, can't you see this pig smiling?

Jul 7, 2008, Hebergement à la Ferme, logez dans nos beaux tipis et belles yourtes.

Hebergement à La Tuilerie, notre belle ferme limousine. Logez dans les tipis et yourtes luxueux, un camping vraiment 'cool' et confortable.

Jul 7, 2008, La vie en plein air, promener, randonner, jouer ou détendre.

Vivez en plein air à La Tuilerie, Visitez tous les attractions du grand air de la Creuse.

Jun 29, 2008, Le situation de camping à la ferme en limousin, où on se trouve?

Notre situation dans la belle region de Limousin, les itinéraires les plus vites et les moins cher pour y aller.

Jun 29, 2008, Find Limousin Farm Holidays

How to find limousin farm holidays,? What are the cheapest, quickest and greenest ways to get there?

Jun 10, 2008, Nearly Full

We are now nearly fully booked for August 2008, there are only a few days left in a yurt, and a couple of weeks in a tipi.

This is the yurt this morning in the early mist before the sun came out.

May 30, 2008, Shorn!!

Finally, third time lucky, we managed to get the sheep sheared. We have had a week of heavy rain, and twice, when we tried to get the sheep in, it rained. The sun has come out and now we have cleaner, balder, cooler sheep.

Graham can shear our sheep himself but it is easier and quicked to pay a shearer and get it all done in a day. Graham does the 'crogging', turning the sheep ready for the shearer, I run about, pack the wool and keep everyone fed and hydrated.

This is the sheep and lambs before shearing this morning.

The sheep are positioned 'sitting' to clip their bellies first.

A quick twist.

Short back and sides.

Nearly done.

90 seconds later.

Starting at 9am, stopping for lunch and finishing at 4pm, Sebastian sheared 179 sheep, to produce about 400kg of wool.

A pile of fleeces ready for rolling and packing.

May 23, 2008, An emergency meal

It rained on Monday so we were not able to shear the sheep. The clippers just don't work if the sheep are wet and the wool is worthless. So there are no photos of our bald girls yet. I did however, still have to give the shearers the obligatory 4 course lunch, luckily I had some pork at the ready.

This recipe takes about 15-20 minutes to cook and can be used with either chicken breast cut into 3-4 pieces, pork loin or rump cut thinly or into 'fingers', I even use this method with a jointed rabbit.

You will need;

500g-1kg meat (depending on how hungry you are this will feed 4-6 people),

White wine,

250-300g full fat crème fraîche,

A good tablespoon Dijon mustard,

Salt and pepper, Taragon if you fancy it.

Brown the meat briskly in olive oil. Pour in a glass of white wine scraping up any nice crusty bits from the pan. Let it bubble until reduced by about half. Add the mustard and crème fraîche and stir about until the sauce is well combined. Cover and turn down to a gentle simmer until cooked. Small pieces of meat will only take another 8-10 minutes, a rabbit joint about 15-20 minutes. Always extract a biggish bit of meat and cut in half to check it is cooked. Add a good pinch of taragon if you like it.

Serve with pasta if you've been caught out by the sheep shearers, baked or mashed potatoes if you have time to think about it.

May 18, 2008, Some new artwork

A preview of some new artwork at Limousin farm holidays.

Relax with a herbal bath.

'I love you, I love you not' daisies and the more elaborate french version, which extends to, 'I love you, a bit, lots, passionately, madly, not at all'.

Watch out for pirates!

May 16, 2008, Camping a la Ferme en Limousin, pour ceux qui aiment la nature et la nourriture.

Un camping a la ferme en Limousin, avec les tipis et les yourtes, dans un elevage des vaches limousines, Pour s'accorder avec la nature et manger les produits de la ferme.

May 14, 2008, Phew lambing is over !

Finally lambing is over. All but 2 of the sheep lambed in the first month, so we were very hectic for those weeks. We have been waiting for 2 weeks for the last 2 sheep, and finally they have lambed.

Today we emptied the lambing shed, putting out the last of the younger sheep with the main flock. The ewes are still split into those with twins and those with just one lamb. We will be able to stop feeding the 'singles', with their cereals in the next week, as we now have plenty of grass. The ewes with twins will need fed for a few more weeks.

We shall be shearing the sheep on Monday, weather permitting. So watch out for photos of wool, sweat, and bald sheep next week.

The cows have been turned out to grass too. We shall be putting the bulls out in the next week. As cows have a gestation period of 9 months, they have to go back with bull when the calves are young, if they are to have a calf every year.

Today we constructed a new 'tyre snake' for the childrens playground, photos to follow once we have painted it.

Apr 25, 2008, Vos Vacances a Camping a la Ferme en Limousin, Contactez Nous .

Vennez voir notre camping a la ferme en Limousin. Tipi où yourte? Vennez en mai pour voir les petits agneaux, en juillet pour se baigner où en septembre pour ramasser des champignons.

Apr 18, 2008, Table d'hotes

Table d'hotes dining at La Tuilerie, experience local produce, cooked simply in a relaxed, family atmosphere.

Apr 18, 2008, Limousin farm holidays for lovers of french food, the outdoors and wildlife.

A real working Limousin farm offering interesting accommodation, home cooking & a chance to connect with nature. Limousin farm holidays offers birdwatching, walking, cycling & eating.

Apr 14, 2008, Pets Lambs

Pet lambs are lambs that need to be bottle fed because their mums cannot feed them for one reason or another. This year we have quite a few for different reasons; 2 sheep both got mastitis (infection of the udder), immediately after lambing and their milk dried up, leaving us with 4 pet lambs straight away.

We also have a lot of 1 year old sheep (hoggs) who are lambing twins. Sometimes these young sheep do not have enough milk for 2 lambs and sometimes they are not mature enough to cope with mothering 2 lambs outside.

We also had 2 sheep which rejected their lambs altogether.

Feeding all these lambs from bottles would be quite a chore, so we have specially designed buckets with 6 teats each. The lambs have to be 'trained' to suck the bucket, and then it is much easier for them and us.

These lambs cannot be certified under our quality mark scheme, and many people do not bother to rear them. But despite the 4 feeds a day, messy buckets, milk powder and constant "baaahing", we like to give them a chance.

They need to be fed for 3-4 months so anyone visiting in the summer will get a chance to meet them.

Mar 30, 2008, Spring is sprung

The real arrival of Spring for us , is not the warm weather, the swallows returning or the grass growing. We know Spring is here when we are working 18 hours a day to the mooing and baaing of our livestock.

We are now well over half way through calving, with 44 calves, and very few problems. The calves pictured here like to sleep in a row around the edges of the pens to avoid the push and shove of the cows.

We have put some of the sheep and lambs back outside. The marks on the sides of the lambs, are to enable us to know a set of twins. We use a mixture of symbols and letters which are somehow easier to remember than plain old numbers, especially for kids. This pair have a Charmois mum so they were labelled 'CH'.

Due to 2 sets of triplets arriving, and no spare mums, we also have our first 'pet lamb'.

Mar 23, 2008, Easter Sunday

We woke up this morning to a covering of snow.

There wasn't enough to go sledging but the kids did manage between them to scrape up a snowman.

By lunchtime the sun came out and we had our second surprise, our first lambs. The sheep are not due to start lambing until April 1st but we do usually get a few the week before.

Mum was a gimmer (2 year old ewe) who had not lambed before and by the time she had her second lamb there were lots of other expectant mothers offering their advice.

This is not always helpful as sheep are quite prone to pinching each others lambs and this can be quite off-putting for an inexperienced young sheep. However we put her in a pen and after a short time she had both her lambs licked dry and suckled.

Mar 20, 2008, Return of the Hoopoes

Twice today I nearly ran over hoopoes on the road. I believe they are returning from wintering in Africa and are setting up territories. Perhaps they think the roads make good territory boundaries. Soon we will hear their very obvious 'hoopy- hoopy' call.

Mar 18, 2008, Lambing time draws near

As lambing time approaches we bring the sheep into the lambing shed. Normally we wait until the first lambs arrive, but the weather has been very unpredictable recently. It is important to get the sheep into the shed when they are dry, as wet sheep inside tend to stay wet, and this increases the risk of pneumonia.

Today was a fine windy day, so we waited till teatime so the sheep were dry and hungry then rattled a bucket, and they all came running.

They are now all sitting quite happy in the shed where we can keep a close eye on them. We will let you know when the first lambs arrive.

Mar 14, 2008, Horse Livery in Limousin, Bring Your Horse on Holiday.

The horse livery yard enables you to bring your horse on holiday. Short and long term livery available at our 250 acre farm.

Feb 27, 2008, Our First Baby Calf of 2008

Today our first calf of spring was born, healthy and unassisted. She was up on her feet and suckled her mother within the hour. This is them a couple of hours later, after we had chance to check and ear tag the calf. You can see her immediately after she was born by using the link.

As a female calf she may stay and join the herd, if you want a chance to name this calf, follow the link.

Feb 18, 2008, Notre ferme en Creuse, une belle exploitation pour les vacances.

Vennez voir notre belle ferme en Creuse. Nous sommes éleveurs des vaches limousines, et des brebis.

Feb 17, 2008, Les produits de la ferme sont cuit pour faire nos table d'hôtes délicieux.

Nos table d'hotes a la ferme sont cuit avec nos produits de la ferme. Toute la viande et legumes pour les tables d'hotes sont produit sur notre belle exploitation.

Feb 11, 2008, See inside the 2008 tipis

See the beautiful interiors for the tipis, and imagine your blissful holiday.

Feb 5, 2008, New arrival meet Cumin

Meet Cumin, pictured here on the right, a 17.1hh Irish draught X Thoroughbred mare who has come to stay with us while her owner goes to Australia

Feb 5, 2008, Scanning the sheep

Yesterday we had the sheep examined by ultrasonic scanner. This tells us how many lambs each ewe will have in April. This way we can feed them better and be better prepared for any problems. This year our scanning percentage was 162% which means for our 163 sheep that went to the ram we are expecting 265 lambs.

Feb 5, 2008, Our Limousin Farm Year.

See our Limousin farm year, we breed Limousin cows and sheep and rear backyard self sufficiency breeds.

Jan 23, 2008, Babs' Babies

Babs' babies leave the nest and start to 'eat their greens'

Jan 17, 2008, Horse Livery Prices

View the horse livery prices. We offer long term, short term and holiday rates depending on what you want.

Jan 14, 2008, Barbara (Babs) gives birth.

Barbara or Babs as we call her, our oldest doe gave birth on New Years day. The first animal to have babies on the farm this year. I don't like to disturb them for 10 days or so, to give the doe peace. They emerged from the nest today and there are 7 babies all brown and white.