Hello.
Well, what a month so far! December was always going to be busy but this year it seems we've started early. First to come along were our 24 saddleback piglets. Good old Cagney and Lacey (that's the sows), had 12 each and once again they're doing a brilliant job with their little tykes.

Next the surprise arrival of Archie, our first child. He took us all by surprise by turning up a month early and weighing only 4lb 10oz. Luckily he was allowed to come home straight away and is a little angel - even at 4 in the morning!

Next came another litter of Gloucester old spot piglets and finally yesterday saw the arrival of our first calf for this season, Holly. Here's a picture of mum and daughter.
Happy Christmas!

Wow, it's literally amazing how quickly the time goes - especially when you have a farm to run, animals to feed, a shop to run, two festivals to cater for, oh and a baby on the way!

They say bad things always happen in 3s. What I din't realise is that is doesn't always have to end in 3! Poor old Chris and nephew Tom who's been helping us out for a few weeks had a right old time of it last week with broken tractors, escaped animals and to top it all, rain on the straw.

It doesn't feel like only 5 weeks ago we moved to Appleby Street but in that time we've certainly been working hard. All of the pigs, piglets and sows are now in their new homes. Some of the cows are here and the next ones should be ready to come over soon. The hold up was due to our last calf which took ages to arrive but low and behold today Ginger put in an appearance so we'll just wait a few weeks until he and mum are strong enough and then all the cows and calves can join us on their lush new pasture.

Well it's an exciting day for the Oakley empire, tomorrow sees us take over Appleby Street Farm near Cheshunt. It's a 100 acre livestock farm, perfect for our needss. Plus it's got a Farm Shop which we'll be able to fill up with our own home-reared meats.

So the warm days of summer are definitely behind us, in fact  as I write it's snowing and Chris is out on the stall at Baldock market. Brrrr.
We've been busy gearing up for Christmas, staring with the Baldock Christmas market this weekend where we'll be serving hot hog roast with stuffing and home-made apple sauce/
We've also bee busy getting the beef ready for our Christmas shop which opens on 23rd December. We'll be serving fresh beef and all the trimmings to go alongside your Christmas Turkey.
We've also been stocking up on our cattle and pigs, even buying one cow that unbeknown to us was actually in calf! She's due any day now so watch this space!

So this month saw us take a stand at the Benington Chilli festival for the first time and boy, what a success. Sunday was the first day and we thought that was busy but then Monday hit and that was even busier. So much co we sold out of packs of sausages and did pretty well with the hotdogs too.

Hopefully we'll see a few new customers returning and we'll definitely be back again next year.
Check out our stand:

Well it's been a busy old month for Chris and I. Firstly the lambs and new piglets arrived and then we had to get all the cows in to see how many of them were pregnant. And we're pretty relieved to say that 7 out of 8 have calves inside them! And they're all due in the same week in January, can't wait.

While we had them in, we decided to move them to a different location as grass was a bit thin on the ground where they were. As you can see from the photo now they're in their new home they've got plenty of lovely green grass to help their calves grow big and strong.

Wow, what a busy weekend. Saturday saw the arrival of 4, 8-week old saddleback piglets and loading them wasn't the easiest of missions with one making an escape into the neighbouring field. But luckily all 4 girls are now settling into their new home.
Sunday's activity saw the delivery of 10 3 month old South Down lams. They're very cute with their lovely wooly faces and they too are settling into their new patch. More photos to follow soon!

The sun's finally found us so it's time to make some hay!  Then we'll be able to use it to feed the cattle during the winter.

So the sunshine is here (sort of) and it's time to put the babies out in the field for the first time and they seem to be taking to it really well.

Ooops, been a bit busy recently, you know, getting married and stuff(!!)  so we're a bit behind on the news - which is that we've now added 10 lovely little Aberdeen Angus calves to our herd. Ahhhh.

Boy, what with trying to organise a wedding and launching a new business we've been pretty busy! But we've still had time to try out some new sausage flavours. Now on the menu we have sweet chilli, pork and apple (my favourites), and our traditional 100% pork. We reckon the sweet chilli are going to be a hit at BBQ time... whenever that may be! 

So our first Aberdeen Angus cow was slaughtered three weeks ago and we've just had the meat back from the butcher and boy, it tastes gooood!