Family farm holidays in Cornwall magical for children, toddlers and babies.
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Coombe Mill Blog
"Tales from the farmers wife" shares the funny and interesting happenings on our lovely holiday farm with Farmer Nick and our 6 children. A behind the scenes look on balancing family, farming, the holiday business and cooking for all.
Colourful Junk Model Raft Race
Junk model raft building and racing with a clever use of paint is a great way to keep kids entertained whatever the weather. ... Read More
Celebrating 50 years since the 1st moon landing
Win "When we walked on the Moon" and "The Race to Space" from Quarto Kids. 2 great educational books for kids to celebrate the 1st moon land... Read More
Summer Holiday Farm News & Cornish Events August 2019
Summer Holiday Farm Fun and a guide to Cornish Events August in our latest farm holiday newsletter. From Weddings to baby chicks we have it ... Read More
Let's Go Lotto from Orchard Toys
Let's Go Lotto from Orchard Toys brings learning and fun together for 2 - 5 years. The perfect travel game for 2 - 4 players.... Read More
How to Create a Dinosaur Dig Kids Love
Create our own ice age dinosaur dig with this fun to do craft the kids will love. Turn it into an afternoon of fun with easy model dinosaurs... Read More
I don’t often share the personal stuff from our family life on the blog, but when a big event comes around it feels only appropriate. Theo is our third son to be leaving school after completing his GCSE’s last month. The school leavers prom night has blossomed into a huge event over recent years and our family life has revolved around this date. Long gone are the days of a leavers disco in the school hall. Now it is limousines at the Eden Project in all your best finery. It is lovely to see the school uniforms ditched and the posh frocks and suits coming out for the night. Trying to find something to fit a lanky teen isn’t easy, at just over 6f2″ tall Theo is my gentle giant. We managed to sort it and Farmer Nick and I had to pose for the obligatory garden photo with him before he set off.
Proud Parents.
Living in Cornwall nothing is close by, ‘After Prom’ or the real party was in a field about 15 miles away with a band till 5am. Taxi of Mum and Dad did well that night but never fear, he now has a whole summer of helping out on the farm before going to college in September. I’m sure that will be more than payback for late night pickups and as any parent will say, it was my privilege to see him dressed so smart and having a wonderful time.
All set for school leavers prom night.
Not the only big event this week.
Before I let Theo take all the limelight, I should also mention that Felix turned 18 this week and Clio took her Grade 5 ballet and Grade 6 tap exams. Neither would grace me with a photo but they can’t escape a mention!
Country Kids is the original outdoor family fun linky designed to:
“Encourage family fun outdoors, in an age where technology and screens are such a draw to a sedentary indoor life”
Welcome back if you are a regular to Country Kids and if you are new please join in. You will find plenty of inspiration for enjoying outdoor space and please do share your own adventures. We support the National Trust #50 things along with all other ideas for family fun outside.
Hello July
The summer heatwave continues here in Cornwall, and I believe across the country. The farm is looking very dry and not at all like Cornwall in summer. However while the animals are sitting it out in the shade of the trees and shelters, our guests are loving it with long days at the beach and full evenings eating and playing outdoors. We have been joining them with BBQs and sitting out till late, I will think of these glorious summer days in the middle of winter. As always please come and share your summer fun on the link up below.
Guidelines for Joining in:
Post must be predominantly outdoors such as in the garden, the park, the woods or the beach with crafting, learning, exploring or playing.
Despite the title, both countryside and urban outdoor adventures are welcome.
Unheated covered areas like a barn or tent count as outdoors.
Please comment on my host post and a minimum of 3 others of your choice.
If you use #CountryKids when commenting the post owner will know where your found them and hopefully come back to visit your post.
Please take my badge, without it you won’t be considered for winning the lovely Rockfish Wellies.
Linked posts should be written and made live within the last 2 months.
I understand sometimes you need to do catch up posts and write about something from a couple of months ago but the publish date should be within 2 months.
There is no restriction on the number of posts that can be linked up, however please be sensible, if you have more than 3 consider linking over a few weeks.
Thanks to all of you who joined in last week and for the comments you took time to leave, we had a week with no link dumpers so a pat on the back to you all!
Rockfish kindly sponsor Country Kids
Win a pair of wellies from Rockfish Monthly
I am delighted to have Rockfish as the sponsor for Country Kids. Rockfish are a local Cornish company specializing in stylish quality wellingtons for all the family. We have been offering their country wellies in our borrow room here on the farm for over a year and they are always popular for their style, comfort and durability.
Each week my favourite #CountryKids posts, which include my badge or a link back here, will be considered for a free pair of Rockfish Wellies at the end of the month; the perfect way to enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather throws your way. Keep your posts coming, it could be you winning next!
For more more information on the Rockfish Wellies on offer with us and terms and conditions to win see here.
June Welly Winner
Congratulations to Joy from Pink Oddy who is our June winner of the lovely Rockfish Wellies. Joy has been sharing her homeschooling journey this year and recent trip to Germany which looked educational and fun. Joy, do DM or email (mail@coombemill.com) your choice of wellies from the Rockfish range including size and colour as shown in stock.
Favourite posts from last week added to the shortlist for winning the June Rockfish Wellies:
Top Commenter: Louise from Little Hearts Big Love
Dear Mummy had a great few days exploring the Jurassic Coast around Lyme Regis
Watching a caterpillar develop into a butterfly and realising them into the wild is both educational and fascinating as shown by Kids of the Wild
Country Kids Communities
I’d love you to join me:
Pin on the Pinterest Board Just ask for an invite to pin and include Country Kids on your pins for me to stop by on your boards too.
Join the growing Country Kids Instagram Community with #CountryKidsFun.
I'll like and comment on all and share my favourites from the week with a tag on a Friday on Instagram and Twitter. With over 10,000 posts this community is flourishing with outdoors photos.
Back over the Easter Holidays we started our Kindness trail. The children had a lovely time spotting all my giant painted stones and plaques and helping to start a wishing tree. As summer arrived the stones became buried in lush new growth and Farmer Nick had to rescue them and hammer them onto batons in the ground for me. I also added a wishing well next to the wishing tree and the trail took on a new lease of life. I was keen to use the newly refurbished trail to build on our Easter activities around trust and friendship. This time instead of stones we created kindness bunting, played some games centred on trust and finished off with rainbow friendship bracelets.
As it was half term I had a huge variation in age from 2 – 11. I wasn’t sure quite how it would work and at first I only had the younger children as the older girls were busy playing with the ponies up in the field.
Kindness bunting
However as I set to work in the afternoon sun with the younger children a couple of the older girls came down to join us. Cutting the material was always going to be a challenge for the younger children but the older girls were able to work independently. We choose colourful material from my scrap collection and stapled while sheet over the top to create a mounted piece of bunting. The children all chose their own kindness message to add in pen.
Kindness hunt
While the older girls finished their bunting pieces I took the younger ones off across the fairy gardens to hunt for kindness rocks to tick off on their sheets.
We attached all the bunting shapes along string to create our kindness bunting adding the older girl’s pieces at the end as they finished carefully writing. Then we set off up the kindness trail in search of the plaques with messages. I was very impressed with how well the 5 year old’s read and identified each plaque to mark off on their sheets and their enthusiasm running from one to another as they saw them approaching .
Make a wish
The little well was an instant distraction. The children added grass and flowers to the bucket and wound it up and down.
It turns out we were missing one plaque, it must be buried deep in the summer growth on the slopes and I’m now determined to take a long stick and have a good look for it. We hung our bunting between two trees on the trail and watched it flutter in the breeze.
Trust games.
Back down on the grass we began our trust games; I had a set of games I thought everyone could manage. Many involved a blindfold and instructions demonstrating the need to trust the instructions given.
Friendship bracelets
Finally we settled back down and made kindness bracelets with little animal trinkets. I taught the children how to finger knit the wool which gave it both stretch and width. They were delighted with the results.
As always it was an action packed afternoon with a little gentle learning and a lot of friendship fun.
Kindness bunting trust games and friendship bracelets
If you have a football mad tween enjoying the world cup at the moment we have just the books for them. Top of the League Football Facts and Trivia and 50 things you should know about Football are perfect for football fanatics. Watch the games and stars of today become the facts and trivia of tomorrow. These fully revised editions bring the reader right up to date with players and leagues as well as delving into some fun moments in history. To find out more and be in with a chance of winning our own copies of the books read on.
Top of the League
The book has everything young football fans will love. Impactful illustrations support clever tactics, legendary matches are shared with fun trivia to take kids from beginners to experts. I love the rules of the game at the back; finally I think I understand the off side rule! The book isn’t just for boys either; there is a whole section on women’s football. I had no idea women were playing matches as far back as 1895.
50 Football things you should know about
Discover how football spread across the globe as the most popular sport. Meet the stars in each country, see how mascots play their part, who ended up in major films and how technology has influenced the game. This book is packed with interesting bit sized snippets carefully presented to capture the eye of kids even if they are not prolific readers. I really appreciated the words in bold all being in a glossary at the end. Very handy for a non expert!
Both these books you can just pick up and put down, read in bite sized chunks and revisit many times over. It didn’t take my football mad son to get his head in them, and that isn’t something I see too often.
We were sent our copies of top of the League and 50 Football things for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Our copies can be borrowed by our holiday guests from the Coombe Mill library in the games room.
From the start of June each year we are on the lookout for baby deer fawn in our deer field. Last year we didn’t spot any in the early days, instead waiting until they were grown sufficiently to run with the heard. It was 2016 when I last spotted a deer calf hiding. This year we have been lucky again and our group searches revealed our first fawn hiding in the bracken.
How to behave with baby deer fawn
The only means of defence for a baby deer fawn is camouflage. They are vulnerable to many predators, notably birds of prey, foxes and badgers. The mother’s visit them for feeds and then just leave them hidden. The fawns know to just keep still, like a game of statues, until mother returns. If you are close to a baby fawn the mother will not approach, instead she will stand back and watch you from afar; hoping to fool you into thinking her hidden baby is not there. For this reason if we are lucky enough to spot a hidden baby we never go too close. Watching from a short distance will prevent a human scent trail being left for predators to follow. By standing back the baby will hope they have not been spotted and remain as still as a statue, with just their eyes following you. If you go very close the baby will have no option but to try and run for safety, but with no idea where mother is or where to run this can be a disaster. In our field it is easy for them to re-hide in the bracken but it can still alert a predator to their presence so we try to avoid this at all cost.
The perfect location
Our first discovery was in a typical location, hidden in bracken beneath an oak tree. Fortunately this was just below a granite outcrop that gave everyone an opportunity for a reasonable look from above without the need to walk too close.
Zoom lens from a safe distance, still this little one knows we are there.
As we turned to walk away I spotted the mother watching anxiously from afar.
The mother wasn’t taking chances, by the following morning she had moved the baby deer fawn to a new hiding place. However we have since spotted more, of course we are never sure if we keep seeing the same ones or different ones! As this is the first year our new stag has worked the field we are thrilled to see his success.
No dual parenting here….. our Stag waking from a nap in the Bracken.
“Tales from the farmers wife” shares life on our lovely holiday farm with Farmer Nick and our 6 children. Step into our beautiful 30 acres and experience nature close up with farming and educational crafts in stunning North Cornwall. Family, fun and adventure start here.
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