Things to do at The Forge in February
Spring is coming... and our gorse flowers and snowdrops are in full bloom. The barn owls and the hens are getting active too! There's also an exciting new produce market opened just up the road. Lots to keep us smiling through the last few weeks of winter...
- Check out the gorse in flower at the top of our Iron Age hill fort: Did you know that you can eat the flowers (they have a delicious coconutty flavour) or even use them to dye your clothes? And watch out for the seed pods - they can explode and send the seed up to 15 feet away from the plant!
- Hunt for barn owls: we have a beautiful pair living in one of our barns and were delighted to do some detective work on their owl pellets with the local countryside service this week to see what they had been eating. It turns out they are rather partial to the mice and voles that live in our fields. Yummy!
- Admire the snowdrops: take a wander around our fields and through the woods to see nature's first real flowers of the year in full bloom. Or perhaps take a short 15 minute drive to Thomas Telford's famous Horseshoe Falls and the nearby picturesque Llantisilio church which is famed for its breath-taking display of snowdrops.
- Collect the eggs: our hens are now back from their winter break and we have lots of eggs. We've been making lots of cakes and omelettes and quiches. We've also popped a few in the incubator so fingers crossed in 21 days we'll have lots of fluffy yellow chicks running around for you to meet.
- Visit the Hawarden Estate Farm Shop - enjoy some of the amazing food and coffee at this wonderful local farm shop and let the kids have a play in the traditional wooden fort. And every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am-4pm the Market Place is full of all kinds of goods and produce from sellers across North Wales and the North West from wild garlic pesto, to decorated cakes, to jewellery, antiques and more.