We had a 2 day road trip down to Cornwall in November to collect 2 miniature donkey jenny foals to join our existing 2. They travelled really well and are now recovering from their journey and settling in very well. They love a fuss and cuddles so if your staying in the lodge please make time to come up to the farm and see them. Robbie and Trigger our elderly ponies just rolled their eyes at me as if to say “muuum, what have you bought home now!”
We were privileged to be asked by our lovely friends to host their wedding on Saturday 9th July.
What can we say, we were blessed with fabulous Cumbrian weather, great guests, amazing food and a truly memorable day. They, and their families, put so many man (and woman) hours getting the barns looking wonderful that High Plains was temporarily turned into a wonderful wedding venue. Well done to everyone involved.
If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise……
Actually you needed to go to the field just before the woods and this was our lovely surprise that greeted us last night. A little heifer calf to a young heifer that shouldn’t have been pregnant at all yet. Oops accidents happen. All seems well with mum and baby so we left them well alone. We have been back down today and caught the calf to check her over and put her ear tags in, so she is now all legal.
So lambing is well under way, to date we have just had the commercial mules lambing but a couple of nights ago our elderly Shetland ewe surprised us out in the field in the morning with two beautiful tiny white ewe lambs. The lodge guests at the time were thrilled to meet them and gave them the names Jack and Buttercup, they are doing very well and mum is very proud and protective of them.
Robbie, our miniature Shetland, found himself being called upon for a very important job today. Santa needed a lift to Asby Endowed School’s Christmas Fair and so that his reindeer could rest up ready for the 24th, Robbie very kindly stepped up to the task, ably assisted by Stephen the elf.
We open our barns up on the first Sunday in Advent for a non denominational church service to kick of the Christmas season. It is always cold, but the weather excelled itself this time and coated everywhere with a beautiful layer of snow, making getting up here harder work than usual. This year Carrie, our Guernsey cow, very obligingly calved a few days before the service so everyone was able to meet young Ellie-May our new pure Guernsey heifer.
We have been awarded a hedge planting grant by the government to help us plant 633m of new hedging along the west borders of the farm. This entailed firstly putting in over 200 fence posts to create a corridor for the new plants and to keep the livestock away . Thankfully when it came to planting the nearly 4,000 plants the newly formed Asby Tree Group were very happy to provide the volunteer labour to help plant, stake and apply tree guards to every plant. We are very grateful indeed to them. It would have taken Stephen and I weeks and weeks to do it on our own. The weather was glorious for the chosen planting days and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and got immense satisfaction for a job well done.
Today we would like to introduce our two newest recruits to the High Plains entertainments team. Winnie and Esme are Mediterranean Miniature Donkeys and were bred by Yvonne Simmons, who has kindly chosen us to be their new slaves.
Welcome to the team girls 🙂
The first proof that we are persuading the local red squirrels to visit the lodge.
Just like buses everything came in one day in July.
