Online shop and websiteThanks to the talented team at GFIVEDESIGN our new website launched in Autumn 2020. We hadn’t anticipated how exciting it would be to receive orders through our online shop. We are shipping orders all over the UK and Jersey. We had an offer for Valentines so watch or for more offers during the year.                Mudhouse Farm at  The Plant ShedWe were quite daunted but very excited to be approached by Lizzie to produce a retail line for The Plant Shed.We have always tried to keep the live/work balance and developed our sales slowly through word of mouth. We love what Lizzie and the team have achieved in bringing together talented local producers and so this felt like a good time to link with a local and passionate farm shop.Ray has been giving regular butchery demonstrations and is really enjoying chatting to the customers. Look out for more ‘meet the producer’ dates.               We have fresh and frozen meat available at The Plant Shed.This month we have been running a campaign together to reduce food waste, consider food miles and created the ‘Say yes to frozen’ posters. Buying frozen really helps small producers manage stock and maintain steady supplies.Please do give us feedback on our packaging, this was a learning curve but we now have sleek packaging that is recyclable.                Photoshoots!Devon Life MagazineWe have a fantastic 2 page write up in April’s Devon Life magazine – out now!  Food photographyOur meat also had its own photoshoot! Thanks to Emily Fleur Photography. The pictures really showcase Ray’s expert butchery skills and the attention to detail. Our new customers now know exactly what to expect when buying from Mudhouse Farm.    ​

The wet grassland habitat restoration/creation work going on here at Mudhouse Farm. This was carried out by Devon Wildlife Trust in 2018 and has been so successful that this coming summer DWT are planning to harvest wildflower seeds from our creation field. The target species this summer will be yellow rattle, which often goes through a real 'boom' period (consisting of a couple of years) early on in grassland restoration projects. Harvesting is carried out using a 'brush harvester', which leaves the hay crop standing and simply takes a proportion of the ripe seeds. The seeds that are collected here will be used in grassland habitat restoration work elsewhere in Northern Devon, contributing to several projects to enhance sites, both for biodiversity and as natural flood mitigation measures. Devon Wildlife Trust are a registered supplier of wildflower seeds, and all seeds are sourced as locally as possible for use at nearby sites. The work at Mudhouse Farm was carried out as part of the 'Culm Grassland Natural Flood Management project'. The project started in 2016 and to date has worked with landowners and commoners on over 230 sites, carrying out over 650 site visits. Through the project DWT have helped restore over 380 hectares of Culm grassland and carried out habitat creation work on 78 hectares. The project is funded by Interreg 2 seas, the Environment agency and Devon County Council and runs until December 2020 

This weekend we put up our nest box with its perch, hoping a kestrel will hunt from this soon. This is in conjunction with North Devon Biosphere. #PledgeForNature. It is in a fantastic location with great hunting across #culmgrassland.. Read more about kestrels here;  Kestrels are masters of stationary flight, and hover-hunt extensively. They also hunt from perches, altering their hunting method to suit prey type, weather conditions and energy requirements. On farmland, kestrels have learned to watch farming operations, waiting for the tractors to flush prey. Voles are, by far, the most important food for kestrels, although they regularly take other small mammals such as woodmice and shrews, small birds, insects and earthworms. In towns, they take birds more frequently because of lower availability of small mammals. A kestrel is capable of locating its prey at remarkable distances - it can see and catch a beetle 50m from its perch. Kestrels need to eat 4-8 voles a day, depending on the time of the year and the amount of energy-consuming hover-hunting they do. They have a habit of catching several voles in succession and caching some for later. The stored food is usually eaten the same day, just before dusk. This reduces the risk of the bird having to go to roost on an empty stomach.