Here at Boscrowan we actively invite our younger visitors to participate in the routines of the farm. Children are invited to collect eggs from the free range poultry, watch the farrier as he shoes one of our horses or enjoy the rapturous welcome each time they come home from the two collie dogs.

Young children are delighted by a cat or two sunning themselves on the steps or chickens and ducks waddling past the door. We have also introduced a treasure trail to encourage our guests to explore our 25 acres with a river, wild fuschias, bluebells and fields of daffodils and grazing horses.

In Peace and Plenty we have a bird questionnaire aimed at children, to not only give them something to do on a rainy day, but also to help them leave Boscrowan knowing that little bit more. Our questionnaire shows pictures of birds often found in the garden and asks the children to name them. We have bird guide books and binoculars in the cottage so they can see the birds on our feeders and identify them from the books.

The farmyard friends at Boscrowan are:

• Dogs − Jess and Meg
• Cats − Milly and Molly
• Horses − Huckleberry, Gem and Bob
• Ducks
• Hens

Jess is by far the most important of all of our animals. Jess (in the form of a small puppy) was the first animal to move in and join us and the horses, about one month after we moved into Boscrowan in October 1999. She is a pure border collie − a typical sheepdog, but sadly still has not grasped the idea of where she should be when you are trying to move animals − she is always just in front instead of behind, which often has disastrous consequences!

She started off life as an outdoor dog, first living in a stable, then the room that is now the office but it wasn’t very long before the young Harris children overruled Mum and she made it into the house and she and Meg live in the utility room and are allowed in at night on a blanket in front of the woodburner.

Jess makes it her business to know exactly who is where − both humans and animals that is − who is coming in the gate and who is going out. One of her roles is a ’mobile doorbell’! One click of the gate catch and she’s heard it − day or night! Well that’s 99% of the time. Just occasionally Jess and daughter Meg check that no−one is around to notice them and slip off to the fields to see if they can find some rabbits.

Jess loves to see the visitors to our cottages and is nearly always at the gate to greet them when they arrive.