Geoffstival FINALLY Arrived

For several years I’ve been planning ‘Geoffstival’. Moving to the farm was a monumental project and we left behind lots of friends. Both Saad and I also see ourselves as wardens of the land rather than owners; and we want to share the joy of wildlife and nature with our loved ones. And so, to celebrate both my 40th and the farm move, a long camping weekend was planned.

And then … COVID.

Not to be deterred, however, we delayed Geoffstival until 2022 and it just so happened to coincide with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, allowing our visitors the luxury of having a 4 day weekend. Lush! It was a fantastic weekend with over 40 guests despite rather chilled temperatures for June. We enjoyed good food, laughter, bonfires, smores, tours around the farm and more.

However, there was one major revelation.

And that is that both Saad and I need to slow down with the expansion on the farm and put more automation in place. The farm works well on a day to day basis with us both there micro-managing the animals and crops. But if we step away for a few hours, or take our eyes off the ball, all hell breaks lose. That meant, alongside the party, we had escaping goats, sheep and pigs as I hadn’t got the electric fence batteries charged. The pigs took advantage of this in particular, not only to go on another adventure, but to destroy a £100 energiser. The polytunnel didn’t get watered as much as it should; potentially affecting hundreds of pounds worth of future crops. Flowers weren’t dead-headed, seedlings dug up by pests weren’t re-planted instantly and the march of the weeds continued.

With so many coops, I need to find a more efficient way to feed/water

It was an eye-opener that the farm really doesn’t run itself, not that I would ever expect it too. But it should run more efficiently and allow us to step away without the worry that everything is about to go wrong.

One area I need to focus on is chicken and duck feed. With the rat population explosion earlier this year, we had significantly dialled back automation. That is, feed wasn’t left out overnight and big feeders couldn’t be left filled as it attracted pests and allowed them to reproduce easily. Now the rat population is under control with the introduction of our feral cats, we need to look at automating the process again. I currently have 13 various coops and so I need to go through each one, replace feeders and drinkers with more suitable equipment so instead of having to top up several times a day, it only needs to be done a couple of times a week.

The feral cats have drastically helped with the rat population

Electric fencing supplies need to be looked at too

I need to look at the electric fencing supplies once again too so that instead of spending hours herding animals back in, I know they are all where they’re supposed to be. After all, our land isn’t entirely fenced. That means escaped animals have the potential to get onto other people’s property.

And I need to investigate better ways of watering. Perhaps using our solar pump from FuturePump to push water into a header tank which can then be gravity fed into drip lines rather than having to manually go and turn on pumps and then remember to turn them off again.

So it seems that even our party was a huge learning curve! But I’m grateful Geoffstival happened and the lessons we had.