Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

I love the concept of Open Farm Sunday where farms across the country open their doors to the general public for the day giving us the opportunity to learn more about farming in our area.  last year my son couldn’t be convinced to visit anywhere I suggested but this year I spotted something that I thought might grab his attention.  I was right and we spent time in the sunshine enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew last weekend.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

My son is nine and a half now and I’m realising that it’s a slightly tricky age.  He’ll tell me in one breath that he’s grown out of something and is a ‘big boy’ and then prove to himself and me, that actually I was right all along and it’s more than ok to still like farms and tractors etc.

There’s so much for all of us to learn on an Open Farm Sunday visit, that I wanted to see if I could persuade him to come along this year.  Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew would be a little different as it mentioned a solar farm, and I thought that would tie in brilliantly with some school topic work he’s done recently when the school had solar panels installed.  He agreed, the sun was shining and off we went to spend a couple of hours outdoors.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

We parked up and noticed there were signs for a farm walk which would take under an hour to complete, so we started with that and could see the solar farm in the distance.  From what I read about the farm I’d expected that someone would be talking about the solar farm when we got down to that area of the farm, but it wasn’t to be, so we tested my son on what he’d learned from school and Daddy P filled in the gaps.  There was a representative back up at the farm buildings who we came across later when was talking about the system, but for families, I think they missed a trick to not actually walk groups around the site. There are 26 acres of solar panels and sheep have recently been brought in to keep the grass down.

As we passed the solar farm we noticed that the farm walk was going to take us away from that part of the property and we’d get to explore the arable crop fields and a woodland area.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

Along one field an area had been set aside to grow wildflowers to encourage birds and other minibeasts back onto the farm.  The photo doesn’t do it justice as it was a riot of colour.

My son decided that he was going to walk ahead of us, a pre-teen kind of day where walking and talking to his parents just wasn’t the done thing.  It’s hard, isn’t it?  In one hand it’s lovely to watch him becoming more independent to and happy to walk ahead, on the other, when this happens you miss out on company and conversation.  It’s the start of things to come I fear.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

As we headed into the woodland my son was still eager to stay well ahead of us in his own little world.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

We came out of the woods and the farm walk took us on a loop around the back of the solar farm where we could see a range of young trees that had been planted.  We then headed back up the track to the main farm buildings and we could see that the tractor trailer rides had started.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

The boy who’d told me earlier in the day that he was too old for tractor trailer rides couldn’t wait to jump on board! He was beside himself with excitement when we had the whole forty-minute ride to ourselves too! You’ll have to take my word for that as it was an ‘I’m not looking at the camera’ kind of day.

We’d expected the ride to just take us around the solar farm, but we went off through crop fields of wheat and barley too, before heading off to get up close to the herd of South Devon cross cattle.

When I asked my so what he’d liked most about our time enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew, he told me it was the tractor-trailer ride.  It was brilliant apparently.  the same tractor-trailer ride that he was ‘too old’ for when I’d first mentioned it.  His parting words were Mummy can we come back here next year or go to another farm with tractor-trailer rides, please. The joys of motherhood!

Did you visit anywhere for Open Farm Sunday?  If not then it might be worth making a note of the date for next year’s event – Sunday 7th June 2020.

Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

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14 thoughts on “Enjoying Open Farm Sunday in Duns Tew

  1. We went to Tuesley farm in Godalming. Fantastic day. Tractor trailer ride with a worker giving us information about the fruit farm, I didn’t know they bought bees and spiders. Pick your own strawberries, fantastic playground. Bouncy slide and machinery the kids could climb into and on. Strawberries and cream, bee hives and bees to look at and poster boards and info about why the bees are so important. Music stage with hay bales for watching if you wanted, lots of picnic tables. All of this was free.
    Face painting and ballon modelling for donations for charity. Coffe, homemade jam tarts and food stalls to buy lunch (I assume, my sister fetched the coffee and tarts and we didn’t buy lunch). Packed blueberries and raspberries to buy.

  2. Thanks for the lovely post! I didn’t know there’s this event named Open Farm Sunday! My son loves farms and he’d loved it! (esp the tractor ride :P)

  3. What a lovely sounding day and I’m glad tractor rides are still cool after all. Your son is approaching that tricky ‘wan-a-be independent’ age, but don’t worry, it happens very gradually giving you both time to ease into it. Keep enjoying these lovely days out together. #CountryKids

  4. I missed out on Open Farm Sunday this year – only spotted that it was on at the end of the day on that Sunday! The solar farm sounds really interesting and its great that it tied in well with your son’s learning at school too. I’m glad that he enjoyed the tractor ride too despite thinking at the start that he was too old for it! Thanks for sharing with #CountryKids

  5. Ah, a brilliant day and despite pretending otherwise your boy loved it all. I bet the solar panels were fascinating too and imagine an expert talk at that point would have been extra interesting. Hopefully they’ll add it in next year. We didn’t manage it due a friend’s weekend birthday party but I love Open Farm Sunday, it’s a valuable day out we should all take advantage of. Thanks for sharing your day and your fab photos with us on #CountryKids

  6. I’ve just put next year’s date in the diary! My boys are still very much into farms (we visit a lot) so we’ll definitely try and make the next open day, unfortunately we already had plans this year. I love the fact you went to a solar farm, that’s so interesting. With a lot of people making changes to become more eco friendly and use renewable resources then I agree with you they missed a trick, it would have been great to have a guided walk around the solar field. I also think it’s fab that he still enjoyed the tractor trailer ride best, we’re all kids at heart…even if on the outside you’re too cool to be seen with your parents #CountryKids

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