Wild End baby

 

Honey!

The first honey from the Wild End - I'm just soooo chuffed!

I got 4 jars out of 3 frames... crush and strain, simple. 
Wasn't that hard really (once I got the bees off the frames).

Wild garlic - now in bloom!

 Time runs and runs - wild garlic season is over already. And once again I wish I had harvested more...

Donkey walks!

I'm sooo pleased with my boys!
I'm now able to take Luca & Henry on walks, together and on my own!
I walk them 50m down the lane to my 'big field' on most days but attempting a walk down the village when we were both quite green with each other was a bit of an embarassment, so it took me some time, and some work, to dare trying again.
After several weeks of practicing 'stop' we took our first walk down the village a couple of weeks ago, past a car, a tractor, a chatty neighbour and his stone lions(!). The donks were great, if a bit careful.
Every possible circular walk out the door here involves crossing a stream or two, so the footbridge was our next challenge. It took 3 walks down to the bridge until they felt comfortable by the gushing stream, but then just 5 minutes to tempt Luca to cross the bridge. He then kept going back and forth over it as he done nothing else his whole life, while I was trying to persuade Henry to step on the bridge... took another 3 walks until he felt it was safe to cross. All the while was trying to be less clumsy with my bundle of lead ropes...
Today we did our second circular walk around the village, past gaggles of lambs, a friendly pony, and some not so friendly horses in a distant field making a racket as soon as they saw us - the donks perked up their ears but stayed very cool otherwise.
I can tell they love it - they actualy demand it now!

Winter cosy

Let this be a year of hope and inspiration!

RIP Luna the chicken

After almost 9 months of battling with illness, Luna died yesterday. I'm still sad.

Her egg laying system was messed up from the beginning, as soon as she came into laying age the problems started. I don't think she ever laid a proper egg, instead most of them ended up as yellow gunk in her belly, eventually building up to unbearable pressure (but stragely not poisoning her, until the end). I just couldn't watch her suffering, neither could I just put and end to it, so over the last several months she was a regular patient at the vets, trying to help her or at least make her more comfortable. 

Not that the vet knew much about chickens, but she was quite wonderful about it: she made a real effort and did her research, and so did I, and we tried the few things that seem to have worked for others: Oxytocin & calcium injections to help form & pass any eggs in the pipeline, a (hideously expensive) hormone implant that was meant to stop her laying and therefore halt the problem for a few months (unfortunately, if it worked for her at all, any effects lasted 4 weeks max, on two attemtps), as well as regular syringe draining of the gunk in her belly. I also started experiementing with homeopathy but I am unexperienced and I was running out of time with this rather complex case. (For more on this read a very concise description of the condition, and treatment here.)

The only thing helped, somewhat at least, were the drainings - she seemed to get better for a few weeks after that, having at least some fun in life, roaming the field, sun bathing and digging arund in the dust. But then she would relapse again, her belly would start blowing up again and the pressure build-up would make her misetrable... everytime she would get a little worse than before. 

Yesterday it seemed like the end of the road. RIP Luna.

Donkey strop

Just when you think things are settling down nicely (finally...) there comes a new stroppy episode, to make sure I don't forget that donkeys do have their own mind.

Of course, it always is my fault. I was just going out on the big field to bring them in for the night (i.e. back to the small field where they have access to a field shelter. 

Mistake no.1: I forgot the treat bag. 

Mistake no.2: a friend (= a stranger, kind of) came with me

Mistake no.3: it was getting rather dusky already

Mistake no.4: I forgot the treat bag, despite all of the above 

So Luca decided he just would not let me catch him. And Henry would not go anywhere without Luca... And I almost got into a strop myself and let them spend the night in the field.  

Then C rescued me with the treat bag full of carrots and suddenly Luca was perfectly happy to be caught, and so we all went off happily (?) on the way home. 

This photo: Lenya Bass

Donkey conundrums

Having two donkeys to care for has been (still is) a steep learning curve.

Not being a horse person, I didn't have any preconceived ideas about donkeys at all, but also no previous experience of animals that big. A donkey running up to you is quite a sight, and quite a force to consider, just by sheer moving mass!

Are they happy to see me or are they trying to push me away? Or trying to stop me from leaving he field? Are they starving? Or just demanding? Do they need needing yet more attention? Or just throwing a stomping tantrum?
Their winter coats were clipped before they came to us to prevent lice, so they came with rugs to put on in cold weather. That throws up a whole load of different questions again: When should I put their rugs/coats on? How cold is too cold? If it turns cold but wet, can I put the coat on a damp donkey? How long should or can I leave it on? Won't they get itchy under the coat? Actually, how on earth do I put on a donkey coat?
It gets worse: Just the act of mucking out the field shelter brings up another barrage of questions: How much straw to put down for them to eat? How often? How much is too much and how much is too little? How much for bedding? How much old bedding straw should be removed and replaced? Dirty straw, obviously should be removed, but how dirty is 'dirty'? And how wet is 'wet straw'? And how do you test whether it's wet? (With bare hands? I have occasionally, actually.)
And all that has not even touched the tricky issue of feeding donkeys correctly - luckily it is getting into winter now, so at least I don't have to worry about lush grass, just yet.

And then there was that afternoon the other week, when, riding on a wave of confidence, I thought I'd take them up the road for a short walk. So up the road we went - they walked like a dream. But it was only meant to be a short stroll to test the waters, so we turned back quite soon. That's when they decided they would gallop off down the lane - I had no chance but to let the ropes go. They didn't stop by the garden  gate, they didn't stop by the field gate, they didn't stop at all in fact and kept up the speed. I was running down the lane behind them, having visions of disasters... 400 yards down the road, by the next property they finally slowed down - the neighbour heard the commotion and stepped out on the road, that made them stop and consider. Phew. Though my neighbourhood reputation as a donkey owner is now ruined.
Ho-hum... Never a dull moment!

This photo: Stefanos Pavlakis

Sheep training

The access route between the two fields is rather complicated - the small fiel only exits through a narrow steep gateway into the garden, the big filed has a gate into the road some 50m down the lane from our garden gate.
So I have been planning the sheep move for some time with as many daily training sessions as possible (sometimes with a clicker, sometimes just with a feed bucket):
- come to me when called (somehow I ended up with a rather silly call, that sounds a bit like 'shoooosheeeee shipship'... it works though, even across the big field)
- eat from the bucket, then from my hand (it took the first one less than a week, the last one almost 2 months to be happy to eat from my hand)
- allow handling while eating
- follow me with the bucket
- follow me to new scary places (i.e. the garden, which turns out to be lush and yummy!)
- eat from my hand in new scary places (not suprisingly, they seem to return to a 'raw' flighty state when in new surroundings)

After all that, I just opened the garden gate and the flock happily followed me down the road and intothe new field, no problem - who needs a trailer?