Monday, May 05, 2008

May Day – blistering hot up at Streamvale Farm

Deer at Streamvale Farm

We’d a great time back up at Streamvale Open Farm today – with Littl’un enjoying feeding the ducks, walking down by the stream to find the deer, and playing in a pile of sand that’s probably not supposed to be played with by visitors! Oh, and stroking a very cute white rabbit.

Rabbit stroking at Streamvale

Blistering hot sunshine. (Glad I wasn't sweating it out on the Belfast Marathon.) Yet the heated chocolate brownie with two scoops of ice cream choice of chocolaty sauce was to die for in the café. And the mezzalunas (“half moon” fold over pizzas) are worthy of a mention (and repeat purchase) too.

View across to Stormont from Streamvale farm just outside Dundonald on the Ballyhanwood Road

The end of April was rough for Streamvale, when the E.coli outbreak that’s affected some schools and nurseries in Belfast caused a precautionary closure for testing and cleaning one weekend. With the number of school groups passing through the gates of the farm, no surprise that some of the affected kids had been there in previous months.

But good to hear that all the test results from the farm and staff came back clear. Hopefully they’ll now have a good summer season to make up for the cancellations and caution shown by some groups and visitors.

2 comments:

Timothy Belmont said...

Great snaps Alan.

Ruth Strong said...

Awwww i really need to get up to pet all the baby animals too!