Week 3

I'm afraid all the students and volunteer were cancelled last week due to the Snow! It was far too slippery on the Monday, and too much snow the rest of the week.   Unfortunately we also had a burst pipe in the Ladies...so all in all not a good week!  

some photos of our lovely brood of bantams...

Everything takes SO long in the snow - i was completely exhausted by Friday.  We had to get water for the pigs from down in the stable yard and push it up through nearly a foot of snow to the pigs!

Great excitement...... TODAY Monday 28th, the sheep scanner came and wait for it.....3 of our Ewes are having twins, and our fourth Ewe, June, is having triplets!

Week 2

Well the weather's taken a nose dive this week....luckily not till Thursday!  We've had a busy week again, with the freezing conditions and snow arriving, we have had to make sure the sheep are having enough hay so they don't lose condition.   We've just heard that the sheep scanner is coming the last week of January - SO exciting!
Helen has been learning how to use the 'crook' to catch the lambs in a pen, and doing really well (and extremely proud of herself!)  The Wilts and Glos Standard came to do an article about the Project again this week - i wrote a letter last week to the paper, thanking the residents of Ashton Keynes for their donations, and added a 'ps' - it's about time you wrote another piece on Care Farming...!  They took some lovely photos of Helen feeding the sheep, and working on painting the Hen House.

The plaque given to us
with the funding for the new house

Rolling the House into position!

Talking of Hen houses, we managed to move the new house out to the field on Thursday, using the 'rolling poles' technique, as the Manatou tractor had another puncture! It was great fun, and hard work, but it now looks very stately alongside all the other older houses. The Gloucestershire Community Foundation gave us the funding for the Hen House.

We will have two Berkshire weaners ready to go off in another two weeks - so if you would like some pork get in touch!
Let's hope the snow doesn't stop the students getting here this coming week - it's hard work looking after all the animals on our own...!

Week 1 Spring Session 2013

one of the weaners exploring 

We're back....and straight into the woods!! The weaners had completely

Ella and Hilly collecting for the
project at Christmas in Waitrose!

stripped their end of the woodland - not helped by all the rain so, this week we moved the electric fence to give them loads more space - they loved it!!  I think they should be ready to go off to the butcher before long.
We have been painting our new Hen House ready to get it moved outside -can't wait to move the hens into their new home.  We can then do some much needed repairs on Ella's old play house!

Helen cleaning out the pig troughs

The Bantams making themselves at
home atop the clean straw for their houses!

The Rotary Chairman, Chris Tovey arrived with a cheque for £750, from the 'bag packing' day!  Fantastic....thank you to Hilly, Ella, Margo, Penny, Bill, Mike, Luke, Gerry, Martin & Rob, Chris & Liz - and all the Rotarians that helped packing bags for Christmas shoppers at Waitrose & shaking tins!