Happy Days

Hazel is pleased that Mummy and Daddy have been using the wheelbarrow for its 'proper' use - ferrying Hazel about the orchard!!  Kiki is pleased to supervise activities as usual!!

And here's one of Arctic Dreamer, in happier days - miss him :(

This year Florence, one of our modern game bantams, has thrown her heart and soul into moulting with outrageous results, when she gets her new feathers she'll surely look amazing good, because now...

While she's been here Lindy has been making clothes for Hazel, here Hazel models an ambitious jumpsuit and carries it off beautifully!

Yep, winter is definitely on its way, the sunsets are getting more speccy, the trees are loosing their leaves and the mornings are definitely getting a bit chilly!!

Good Things and Bad Things

When I started farming someone said to me, you've got to remember if you're going to have livestock, there's going to be dead stock.  I knew it was true but it was not easy to accept.  We had a terrible week recently when we lost Azzura's 2 1/2 week old cria Arctic Dreamer, it was a terrible blow to us all.  The vets tried everything they could, but couldnt save him, and I returned his lifeless body to his mother to help her come to terms with his passing.  She guarded his body for 2 days before she finally got up and began to walk away.

Before the crows could get him I took his little body and buried it.  This meant not only digging a hole, but collecting a quarry's worth of rocks to put on the grave to prevent it from being disturbed.  Hazel loved the ride to the rock pile.

And then the trouble started.

Hazel did not want anything but herself in the wheelbarrow.

Finally the job was done and we can all start to move on, a very sad time for us all, and many tears shed, hopefully next year we can do better and Azzura will have a new cria.