We've been wanting to write this blog post for ages now but it just didn't seem right writing about all the great things #spring holds while there was snow on the ground... (at the risk of sounding very British, what about this weather hey?!) but, fingers crossed, just like the bluebells lining our woods, it's finally safe to poke our heads above ground and enjoy the spring sunshine! Not that we've been hiding away, we've been busy with lots of projects at Evans & Moose, just wrapped up like the Michelin Man and up to our eyeballs in mud... Ahhhh farming!
So it's been just over six months since we last had chance to sit down and write a longer update rather than the snapshots on our social media pages (we're on #Facebook, #Instagram and #Pinterest - @evansandmoose) and it really does feel like we've been non-stop... like so many people, we've actually tried to be non-stop, keeping the pace of a new business while the country is in and out of lockdown has been tricky as has avoiding the feeling of groundhog day and even though we're a long way off normality, we're still moving forward! As a business that has started as a Husband and Wife with no financial help living in an annex on a family farm in need of (lots of) work... we're pretty proud of this!
Which leads me on to saying #thanks. Thank you to those local to us who have and are supporting the floral side of Evans & Moose, we've got more #weddings booked in, floral subscribers and have had lots of chances to help people celebrate and stay connected through our bouquets. Continuing training (you never stop learning right?), our floristry side is also taking a turn down the floral installation route, think flower arches, floral ceilings and foliage towers! We're grateful to have partnered with a great local Celebrant (check out www.charteredcelebrancy.co.uk) to create beautiful #handfasting packages. Thank you to those across the country who have purchased through our online store, we've got more stock coming soon and thanks to those who have supported the forge (I've only had to supply burn cream once so far... there's still time). Ric's been creating lots of smaller homeware gifts, as well as larger items for your gardens. Our whole ethos is about celebrating the outdoors so hand forged bird feeders and garden decorations from reclaimed tools to decorate your space fit the bill perfectly (shameless plug... feel free to contact us to order)!
Out in the fields, we've got lambs bouncing around... this time last year, after Bonty (he features quite regularly in our posts, the #Jacob Tup with the skewer like horns...he has no idea how long his horns are so we might have to invest in some pool noodles to soften the blow when he walks into you!) and the other lambs were born, we had said we'd have a year or two off lambing as our fibre flock is a good size and we needed to get everything in order, like refencing each field. Well as if to prove a point of how bad the state of the fencing we'd inherited was, Speckle, our main man, barged straight through the fence one day in a hormonal rage! After much yelling and swearing and a flurry of dressing gowns and wellies (what an image... you're welcome) we got him back away from the ewes, thinking that he must only have been in with the girls for a few minutes.
Fast forward nearly five months, the weather's awful and there's a phone call from Ric at half six in the morning saying there's lambs, one's dead and the other is going the same way... Yet again in dressing gown and wellies (you're seeing a theme here yeah?), I rush out towels in hand, to see if we can save the surviving lamb (all while muttering about f**king fences and bloody Speckle). Luckily when Ric got closer to the #lambs, who had been very cleverly tucked under the hedge by mum, they were both still breathing meaning it really was action stations. Our first thing was to warm them up before they could feed, so wrapped in towels and huddled under jackets we moved them and the mum into a pen. A couple of hours under a heat lamp and with bellies full of Colostrum to give them a kick start, they finally found their feet and starting looking for Ember's milk. Two months later, Winnie, Roo and mum, Ember are out in the field with a smaller flock of our home girls enjoying the grass... and the fence repairing has had to hastily be bought forward much to our bank balances dismay!
The chucky eggs, tiny dinosaurs, or chickens... whatever name tickles your pickle, have also been enduring a #lockdown due to a four month housing order thanks to Avian Influenza. This ended in March meaning they were allowed out again! They've since celebrated by supplying us with more eggs than we can scramble especially since our two home reared hens (featured in our last blog post), Hex and Shadow, have also reached point of lay so are doing there bit to fulfil all our eggy needs!
Moose, as always, has been typical Moose! Always watching, always somewhere he shouldn't be and always there to help with all the important business decisions... he takes payment for his business consultations in carrots and #studmuffins and woe betide you if you miss payday!
We know our animals have lots of fans and we love how much you love them all, Moose has now declared he won't go out hacking in public without sunglasses and a member of security hidden in the hedges, but as well as all the animal antics, we've been busy planning for the future.
Evans and Moose is not just our business but our lifestyle too which is why we are constantly planning how we can grow, a lot of this growth is on the cards for the next few years but we're edging forward monthly! In the future we'll be running #blacksmithing workshops and Ric will be able to take on bigger welding repair projects (he's currently welding smaller repairs due to space, need anything doing? Feel free to send us a message). We'll also be running floristry workshops focused on bringing the outside in... using only #BritishFlowers! But bigger than that, you'll be able to come and stay on the farm, join us for a cider around the fire and experience everything first hand, including lots of traditional and forgotten farming practices! Also did someone say #BBQ? Food and farming go hand in hand and we've got exciting (hush hush at the moment) plans to marry these together even more in the future!
Hopefully as we edge out of the Corona haze (unfortunately not a haze caused by the lager) and are slowly starting to re-establish physical connections with each other, like the weather today, everything will start to seem a lot brighter! But right now it's time to get back to the jobs list... next, the fields need rolling, in the battered old tractor, this could be fun... bring on the heavy horses!
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