Cottage Diaries . August 2010
By Holly Norton
Welcome to the August edition of the Cottage Diary
Throughout the past month, we have been extremely busy with the horses. Tiny is still doing well and is jumping better than ever thanks to the addition of some new fillers for our growing collection of jumps. Fritz is being ridden again although only gently because of his arthritis due to a lifetime at the riding school. Earl recently had the vet out to see him because unfortunately he was stung on his face by a wasp. Earl is the most inquisitive pony, so only he was stung. He was given some anti-inflammatory and thankfully his face is better now. I have started riding Tinker. He is very inexperienced but is making good progress and can already trot very well. This month also saw an addition to our equine family; Judy. She is a 25 year old black dales pony. Although she is an old pony she is certainly not as well behaved as one might think, but she is a very friendly pony who is very strong for her age but can be sorted out easily enough. I have been riding her to try and calm her down, even though she is Mum's pony. She is very comfortable to ride but Mum has not ridden for a few years so needed an older horse just to go out for steady rides with. Mum rode her around the field the first day she came and Judy was well behaved, but since gaining confidence she needs regular riding to keep her well disciplined.
Some time ago we lost most of our chickens to the fox (with the exceptions of Mrs. Braekel and Mrs. Hamburg-Braekel) so we bought some new chickens this month, too. We have five Ross Lohmann hens, a mixed breed cockerel named Bob and a Dorking hen with three chicks, of whom Bob is the father. They are all doing very well although they are not laying any eggs yet and have all managed to escape the fox thanks to the presence of the horses in the field. They are all reasonably tame and the Ross Lohmanns are extremely so. Bob is tame but doesn't like to be caught and the Dorking family are free to wander around the field but they come for food and are not scared of humans.
Due to the shortage of grass in recent weeks, Baa Motswe, Coddle and her lamb are going to be sold next week, and although we will be sad to see them go, it will mean that the sheep will be easier to handle in the long run. We will be keeping Violet and April permanently and Teddy Bear for the time being until he starts being difficult to handle once he is more grown up. However our flock hopefully will not be small for long because we are hoping to buy some easy-cares in the autumn as they are not as nervous as the badger faces and they shed their own wool which is great for summer whilst the price of wool is at an all-time low.
This year was a prosperous year for our vegetable patch until the lambs managed to break in and eat almost everything. They ate our lettuces, strawberries and even our spring onions so they smelt rather like onions for a few days. Luckily we managed to salvage some small carrots and turnips so we shared the carrots between ourselves and the horses and the turnips went into a delicious casserole (thanks Mum!). Mum made a batch of lemon curd (which was excellent) to enter in the village produce show along with some of my artwork. Unfortunately for me, there are some fantastic artists in the village so I came fourth, but Mum managed to bag second place for her lemon curd which is brilliant considering there were lots of lovely looking entries which didn't quite manage to get a prize but congratulations to the winner as their lemon curd looked fantastic!