Wintery Weather Arriving!

Last week flew by again - Monday, Ben & William made us a much needed book case to put in the porta cabin, whilst Helen, John and Linda focused on the animals.  We've been 'working' the sheep each day, trying to tame them to make it easier to check them over.  Helen loves working with them - and gets very excited when 'March' her Ewe comes up towards her!

twin calves  born recently - now out in the field with their mum

Wednesday, we had a very busy day - we had to bring the sheep in again, this time we let them through with the Portlands, and brought them all down to the crush - a device for singling out sheep in order to check them over.  Each student took a turn to 'trim' their feet ready for the winter - great excitement all round!  The students worked really hard, raking leaves, & bringing hay down for the horses.  In the afternoon, the 3 children from Christchurch school, came over again, and had a lovely time pulling out the pea plants, and feeding caterpillars to the ducks!  They have planted up 3 tyres in the poly tunnel, with onion sets, and winter salads. 

Thursday, we only had Simon here, and it was D day for the 3 bantam cockerels, and our HUGE Cotswold Legbar Cockerel - they'd all got rather aggressive and attacked us when we went into their runs - so they had to go...We took  them to the market at Kempsford - hoping to get a few pounds for them.  Unfortunately, not so - we got 20p each for the beautiful Bantam Cockerels, and £2 each for the other two....!  We made a loss overall, as we came home with 4 new laying hens - Lahmans - who had already laid 3 x eggs at the sale!!

This week we're frantically tidying up for Daisy my niece's wedding at the weekend  Potting up violas & pansies for the church, and strimming and tidying everywhere.

Ben & William made us a wonderful Hay Rack on Monday, out of old pallets - with the weather forecast getting worse by the day - we will need it before long i reckon!  Monday afternoon, we had a visit from 3 children at Paternoster School - it's their second week's visit, and they thoroughly enjoyed going for a walk and collecting 'hedge row' fruit, and helping to pick tomatoes to make Tomato Marmalade for the wedding breakfast!  Both John and Helen were very helpful with the children - it's great to see our students working alongside other children with Special Needs.

Week 3 & 4 Winter Sessions

Surrounded by the
'Team'! 

We've had the most fantastic weather up till now - the strawberries have started flowering again, and the tomatoes are all ripening in the poly tunnel, and have started sprouting new shoots and flowers! Our Cosmos, and dahlias have taken on a new lease, and our sweet peas are still going just - not sure after the winds today though...

We had a great visit from the 29th Regiment RLC, South Cerney this week - 20 of them turned out to help at the Project!  They strimmed, cleared, tidied, built, burned, and even welded....!  i was really humbled that they wanted to give up their time to help out - and i think they really enjoyed themselves!

The boys went home with sweet corn today - i hope they had them for supper - we did, and they are SO sweet!

We have two new students just started on Wednesday mornings, and three children from a school in cheltenham here in the afternoon - they are settling in really well, and Lily, who 'only eats pasta' was seen going home munching on a freshly 'pulled' carrot!