In June the children in Year 3 and Year 4 of St. Francis’ Junior School were invited to visit Bowlee’s Educational Farm in Barnard Castle. The children and staff had an amazing time with Jemma the farmer. We got to meet Tina Turner, a pet lamb that Jemma has been hand feeding due to Tina’s mam not being able to feed her herself, Jemma told us that Tina Turner has become a member of the family and joins them in the house, on occasion for a cuddle from Brandy the dog, who Tina thinks is her sister! We also met the farm chickens who also joined us for lunch.
We started the day off collecting feed and having a lovely run through the meadow fields full of beautiful wild flowers, Jemma explained that they were letting them grow to be made into hay and some of the wild flowers were rare and being donated to another field to hopefully produce more of the rare wild flowers. They children enjoyed running and jumping through the meadow with the farm dog Brandy, who was eager to have a stick or two thrown for her. The children were so patient and kind to Brandy.
On our walk through the meadow we came across some sheep and their lambs. We gave them their breakfast and learned about their coats and diets. They were a bit smelly, but it is all part of being on the farm. We also came to another field full of ‘OAP’ sheep, these sheep were older or poorly, they had been retired, their retirement home was beautiful, surrounded by water and wild flowers sounds like a great place to rewind and retire from sheep life. Jemma explained how important it was for farmers to check their animals every day for injury or illness.
At the bottom of the field was a bridge going over the river tees, we collected some sticks and played ‘Pooh Sticks’ to see who had collected the best stick to float down the river. We also explored the river banks for fossils and found some amazing fossils.
After our visit to the river bank we had a stroll through the woods, Jemma told us these were very famous woods, films like 1917 and Venom had been filmed there, how exciting. We learned about lots of different trees and wildlife that lived in the woods.
When we reached the end of the woods we walked through another meadow that took us to the wishing trees, we hugged them and made a wish before going to feed Ronnie and Reggie the pigs. We got to stroke the pigs, some children were shocked at how rough they felt.
We were getting hungry, but before we could stop for lunch we had to go and feed Oscar, a 17-hand horse, he was such a gentle horse that likes a nose scratch. We left Oscar to his feed before heading to feed the calf’s, we got to give them a little head scratch.
After a spot of lunch (farming is hard work) we went to the barn and met Happy the sheep and her lamb. We got to hand feed them and feel how thick Happy’s coat was. Happy was very friendly, Jemma made sure the children knew they can’t just go to an animal in the wild and stroke or feed them. When Happy and Bow, her lamb, had been fed, Jemma walked Vanilla and Milkshake, two goats, for a feed. We learnt all about how to care for goats and how important it is to not overfeed them.
For our last exciting activity we got to meet the farm guinea pigs and Peter the rabbit. We fed them some yummy lettuce and got to hear them squeak for more! We then had to get back on the bus to school after a fun filled, exciting day on the farm.
The children and staff had such a good time, thank you so much to Jemma for teaching us so much and showing us just a snippet into what life on the farm is like.

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