Chulmleigh Fair

Thank you so much to everyone who came to support our fundraising stall at Chulmleigh Fair today!  You raised an amazing £195.40 for the ponies.  Thank you to Margaret and Joyce who helped to run the stall, and to Roy for doing all the yard work whilst we were at Chulmleigh.  Our thanks also go to the organisers of the Fair who put so much effort into making the event a big day out for everyone!  We are so grateful for our new gazebo which allowed us all to stay dry whilst the rain came down during the morning!!

At the vegan event on Sunday we raised £41.70...next event Chulmleigh horse show!

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A Busy Week Continues!

After a successful haymaking, this week has continued to be pretty busy!  On Thursday we made a visit to Basil who has a touch of laminitis - not too bad thankfully and he took the opportunity to select plants to help him to get better - seaweed, spearmint and willow were his preferences.  He now has some probiotic and liver cleanse to get back on track.

The hedgehogs are doing well - Mum was seen the morning after haymaking by Jenny.  Bobby and Arthur were sleeping in the yard and Mrs Hedgehog was out with them.  Knowing Mum is about is such a relief! The babies seem happy with our replacement nest so we don't need to disturb them.  We are feeding a selection of best cat biscuits and mealworms to give them a helping hand - six babies is a lot for a mum to feed!  The babies are all quite different - watching them from a distance you get an idea of their personalities, some are more confident than others.  Martin and Nicole arrived last night - I asked if they'd seen any hedgehogs as they were camping and Nicole said yes!  One of the babies tried to get into her tent!!  They're obviously getting quite adventurous!

Nicole and Martin made the trip to Devon to visit Frances - we all think Babe has been offered the perfect home.  It was great to see Maisie and Jaffa again - they have such a wonderful home!  Thank you Frances for your hospitality!

Do you recognise the nose????

It's Jaffa!

Maisie

Cheeky dog!

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Mammoth Task Completed!

Oh my goodness...what an epic, mammoth task we had today (Tuesday)!  This morning we started to hear that people we were relying on to help this afternoon wouldn't be coming (eek!)...leaving 5 of us to work on bringing in all the remaining bales - and 2 of us were up most of the night unable to breathe because we're allergic to the hay dust, so were not on top form!  Ringing around didn't get us too far until thankfully Catherine and Victoria kindly agreed to make the journey down from Exmoor...and then amazingly Rachel and Faie agreed to come back for a second day and bring Oliver with them.

It was too hot again to lift bales during the day but by the evening it was cool enough to work.  Roger rescued us yet again, bringing his "flat 8" loader to pick up the bales in the field allowing us to use all our "man" power on the stacking...we thought we'd done quite well yesterday but the baler was still going when we took the finishing photos.  We've now found out that the total number of bales was 1,040 which is a record for the number to come off this field!  This evening we stacked...and stacked...and stacked...and stacked some more...so we now have 2 huge hay stacks, piled to the roof of the barn.  I think if we didn't have the loader there we'd have needed a week to get it all collected and stacked!

Roy and Stella

Getting higher

The "flat 8" carrying more than 8 as it's loaded on top too!

                                      

Bales being dropped onto the stack.

Snack time!

Starting on the second stack

Brief rest waiting between loads - feeling a bit wilted now!

Archie and Peter

Pam picked sweet peas from the garden to say thank you...
like a medal ceremony with flowers!

A full pen stacked to the roof!

A bit of room left on the main stack but not a lot!

Immense thank you to everyone who has given up their time and energy for the ponies today - we do appreciate it so much.  Thank you to Roger, Roy, Angela (who came from up from Cornwall), Faie, Rachel, Oliver, Archie, Peter, Pete, Stella, Catherine and Victoria.  Margaret, Pam, Ted and Jenny assisted with extra snacks for everyone.  Ted and Jenny amazingly donate the hay to People4ponies which is such an invaluable help!  We can't say thank you enough to everyone!

The hedgehog babies are still with us.  We haven't seen Mum today - she was there last night.  The babies are still all very healthy looking!  We hope Mum's been in to see them when we weren't looking but have left some food out for them just in case!

Comments:

 Cilla said...

Moving over 1000 bales is a tremendous achievement - even with some mechanical help, all the bales will have had to be hand manoeuvred to their final positions in the stack. I am so sorry that we couldn't help you. Utmost respect to those that did!

20 July 2016 at 21:07

 

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Making Hay Whilst The Sun Shines!

                                     

What a scorching day!  So hot...and the great thing is that the hot weather over the last few days has dried out our hay really quickly.  We were somewhat scuppered on Saturday when the hay turner was found to have a blown out tyre (not great timing!) and so thankfully Roger yet again came to the rescue.  On Sunday the hay wasn't turned,, but it was so hot outside it dried anyway!  Originally the hay baler wouldn't be able to come until Tuesday but Richard had managed to do more baling than he'd expected and so he could come this afternoon.  Roger turned the hay for us today and then rewed up so that Richard could come and start baling for us!  We have been so lucky to have lots of people come to help us today!

Whilst the baling was starting and we were getting the final preparations underway we spotted our little hedgehog in the barn again, on the hay against the wall (we'd seen her on Monday)!  We couldn't leave her there because she'd be squashed by the bales so I went to get a box to rescue her...when I went to pick her up, the hedgehog that came out of the nest was a third of the size of the hedgehog we'd seen...it was a baby!  Our lovely hedgehog is a mummy to 6 gorgeous babies who are all a great size and looking very healthy!  How amazing that they've grown up so close to our daily activity and in the cosy haystack.  We rang Secret World for advice - once the hay making is finished they could go back in the haystack but it's too dangerous at the moment and we'll be haymaking again tomorrow too...so the advice was to make them a cosy home in the meantime.  Thankfully John had finished the stable today so we recreated the nest in the stable - taking some bales to make a similar environment next to another wall and taking their nesting material with them.  They have the option to stay in the stable or leave this evening - we hope they stick around!  What a lovely surprise!!    

So with a small army of people this evening, as soon as it was cool enough we set out to bring the bales in.  The baler ran out of string and Richard thought he'd have to come back tomorrow but actually he has managed to finish tonight.  We think we've moved over 400 bales tonight - hopefully we're about halfway!

Angela on the little tractor...can you spot Peter?!

Ponies grazing out in the field whilst the activity is underway -
Wolfie's brought the central fence down again!!

Stacking the big trailer.

Heading back out to reload...

Peter riding the big trailer

Haystack getting higher!

The team by the end of the day - Peter, Margaret, Faie, Rachel, Stella, Pete, Angela, Roy
Beate, Cuba, Faye and Oscar.  Also helping today were John, Minnow, Archie and of course Roger and Richard,

Ponies in the lovely moonlight - so bright it still looks light at 10.30pm

Thank you everyone for their efforts.  

Day 2 tomorrow - it's going to be even hotter!

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Haymaking Is Underway!

 It's all go at the moment!  Yesterday Roger cut our hay field so haymaking is officially underway!  We now need lots of sunshine and warm weather to dry the grass.  It's a thick crop and Roger estimates there'll be at least 800 bales so it's going to be a lot of hay to move!  We need a successful haymaking to make sure we have plenty of hay in the barn to feed our ponies during the winter!  Ted's been busy turning the field today helped by John...

Lots of report writing going on for our Bodmin results!  Roy has been busy tack cleaning.  Margaret's been producing jams and marmalades.  Our 2017 calendars are in production thanks to Vistaprint!

John has also done a fantastic job of rebuilding the stable which is coming along really well!

Topsy has lots of friends in the field with her!

 Evening snacks in the yard - 7 ponies in one photo!

 Babe coming in for dinner!

 Wolfie, Frodo and the "silver chicken"! Frodo actually looks fairly clean in this photo!

A little hedgehog came to visit on Monday

 

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Crumbs....

Some what of a surprise this morning to find that the ponies have demolished the front wall of the stable overnight!  Crumbs...it been rather a hectic, chaotic week on many fronts!

 This is what the stable used to look like...although the door is usually left open for them to go in and out!

Luckily for us, today we had Martin visiting and volunteering with us.  Huge thanks to Martin who helped us to clear up and to stabilise the structure until it can be rebuilt.  John the gardener is finding that "gardening" is encompassing many tasks and is thankfully up for the challenging of rebuilding it!  All the ponies were fine and no-one was injured in whatever took place!  

 Other exciting news is that Frances, who already has two P4P ponies (Maisie and Jaffa) came to meet Babe today and has offered her a home once her rehab is complete!  Great news for Babe - thank you so much Frances!

Babe, Martin and Rocky

Wolfie and Martin

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