Week 5 Spring

hard at work plucking the cockerels!

My black eye is well and truly shaping up - it looks worse by the day, and i'm not sure the students thought much of my 'horse' story...!  Anyway to Monday -  we had a great day - the weather was perfect for plucking cockerels!  We had Coln House School arriving at lunch time to pluck & dress our two cockerels - so the morning was spent doing all our other chores, combined with pet lamb' feeding of course - apparently we now have 18 pet lambs!! We had to dispatch two of our Rhode Island Cockerels - they were really bullying the ducks and other hens - Lucy (sister) has a 'stun gun' for such purposes and duly did the deed - with Helen watching avidly in between putting her arm round me reassuring me that it was all ok, and not to worry!  Ben & Will made a tripod specially, to hang the birds from - and the students sat / stood and plucked round them!
Helena then gave a wonderful biology lesson, whilst dressing them  (pictures to follow!)  No-one seemed unduly concerned, and it's great to know that they had a wonderful life up till Monday!  (We're going to have them casseroled for lunch on our last day of the Session)

stripped ready for action!

Wednesday and Thursday - Gerry one of my volunteer helpers arrived with armfuls of beautiful pansies, violas, wall flowers & lots more herbs - and she & Tom spent a happy morning designing new flower beds with....tyres of course!  They are now planted up either side of the path running up to the porta cabins and really brighten up the project.
Yesterday, Simon worked really hard all day, with Bob, Mike & Simon (a new volunteer helper) marking out (that took most of the morning!) and planting some of the fruit trees.  The fruit cage has arrived flat pack, and next week, we hope to have some of the Glos Constabulory workforce here to help finish planting the trees - having given us the donation to purchase them!  The rest of us, were feeding sheep / moving them, and generally being sheep people most of the day.  Steve, Bev & Leanne planted up a long long gutter with tomatoes, and rocket. Tom & Ernie transplanted a rose, and moved tons of top soil!

 Everything has really shot up over the last couple of weeks, and the site is starting to take shape at last

PS we had a very sick ewe yesterday, and last night the vet came and performed a 'caesarian' on her - and fingers crossed she has 3 lovely lambs and is doing well....watch this space!

(Piccys will follow - after the weekend - we're off to Roma!)