This is a workplace with a cottage on it, not a hotel with a field.

A farm that would run identically without you — Nothing here is staged for guests and nothing stops because you're watching. That's the whole appeal and it's also why it can't bend around a lie-in
Nobody is on reception, because there is no reception — Keys in a box, a number that reaches somebody in a tractor, and a knock on the farmhouse door if it's urgent. Replies take an hour in summer
Cleaned between stays, not during — No daily service and nobody coming in while you're there. Bins, sheets and towels are yours for the week, which most people prefer once they've thought about it
Twenty minutes on the first evening — A walk round: where not to go, which gates matter, and where the water is. It's the most important twenty minutes of the week and it isn't optional
If something breaks — It gets fixed the same day if we're on the farm, which is most days. A leaking tap on a Sunday in August may genuinely wait until Monday, and that's the honest answer
Why it costs less than a hotel — Because it isn't one. The alternative use of this building is storing hay, and pricing it like a boutique stay would be a lie about what it is

The yard starts at five — Tractors, a loader, and the parlour on a milking morning. It is not quiet, and no amount of goodwill on either side makes it quiet
The cockerel is not negotiable — He starts before the yard does. Some guests find him charming for two days and then don't. Earplugs are in the drawer and that isn't a joke
Muck spreading is a fortnight in spring — It is genuinely unpleasant, it goes on all day, and we'd honestly rather you booked a different fortnight. We'll tell you which one when you enquire
Harvest is three weeks of late nights — Combines run until the dew comes down, which in August is close to midnight. It's wonderful to watch and loud to sleep beside
Lambing is a working week, not a show — You may watch from the gate and nobody will have time to explain it while it's happening. Some of what you'd see is difficult, and that's worth knowing before you book it as a treat
The quiet months are real and underbooked — November to February the yard is slow, the cottage is warm and the sky is enormous. If you want a farm without the racket, that's when to come

You can watch anything; you can't hold anything — Not the lambs, not the chicks, not the calves. It's about the animal rather than about you, and it is the request people find hardest
The dogs are working dogs — Friendly, and not pets. Calling one off its job mid-task is the single thing that genuinely annoys everybody here
Don't feed anything, ever — Not bread, not apples, not the sheep leaning over the fence. It's a real health problem for the animal and it is the rule we repeat most often
Gates are shut because of what's on the other side — Leave every gate exactly as you found it. The open ones are open on purpose too, which people find harder to believe
Most of them don't have names — Some do. The ones in the field this week may not be here next year, and this is a farm rather than a sanctuary. We won't dress that up and you shouldn't have to ask
The jobs you can genuinely help with — Eggs in the morning, feeding the calves at four, and moving the electric fence. All free, all real work, and all better than anything we could have invented

The real hazards are machinery, slurry and water — Not the animals, which is what everybody expects. A moving tractor in a yard genuinely cannot see a small child, and a slurry store is the most dangerous thing on any farm anywhere
Children stay with an adult in the yard — Every time, no exceptions, including the ten-second version. The cottage and the garden are yours; the yard is a workplace with vehicles moving in it
What the fencing does and doesn't do — The stock fencing keeps livestock in. It does not make a field safe for a child, it was never designed to, and it should not be read as though it were
Tell us their ages when you enquire — It changes what gets said on the first evening, and it changes which of the two cottages we'd put you in
Some weeks are wrong for small children — Harvest and the muck fortnight especially. We'll say so and suggest another week rather than take the booking
The best parts are free and supervised — Eggs before breakfast, the calves at four, and standing on a gate for half an hour. That is the actual holiday and it costs nothing

These roll forward with the template — Put your real weeks in before publishing — a farm calendar that has expired is worse than none, because somebody will book against it
We'll always tell you what's happening that week — In the reply to your enquiry, before any money moves. Nobody should arrive to a fortnight they'd have avoided
Weather beats the calendar every time — Harvest moves by a fortnight, lambing by a week. These are the intentions rather than the promises and we'd rather say so

Nothing is paid for on this page — Ask, we'll reply with the week and what's happening on the farm during it, and only then is there a deposit. There is no card form here
Changeover is a Saturday, four o'clock — Because the cottage is cleaned between stays by one person who also has a farm to run. Earlier arrivals wait in the garden, which is not a hardship
A deposit holds it, the rest on arrival — A third at booking and it's refundable up to a month before. After that it isn't, and that's said plainly rather than found in a paragraph
One dog, and not in lambing season — The rest of the year, gladly, on a lead anywhere near stock. A dog off a lead among sheep is the one thing that ends a stay early
Two cottages is the maximum and always will be — Six or eight would change what this is. It's the reason the fields aren't a car park