Road Tripping

You wait and wait for something to happen and then everything does at once.

With about two days notice, I got the go ahead from my steering group to pair up water voles again in order to breed more and expand our release site. At the same time, I had to collect all of the voles that were at the right age for release into the wild. Only trouble was that most of our voles are being bred by Derek Gow and Kathy Holder in Devon... and 100+ voles were never going to fit in my little Jeepy thing.

Looking at my diary, the only days that I could get down to Devon and back was this weekend, which scuppered my chances of going to Badminton Horse Trials with Kath... or did it?

Kath and I studied the maps and planned our time-table. It wasn't a big detour at all to go to Badminton, only a matter of a 20 minutes in fact, and having an extra person on my trip would be a great help... so we decided to go for it.

On the way down, it just so happened that there was a horse that Kath wanted to look at just off the M6, so we decided to pop in there too.

Interestingly enough, Amy, the horse in question, was bred by my Grandma's cousin Vin Toulson, the well known horseman. Sadly Vin, who won the Horse of the Year Show five times, recently died aged 78 and I came to learn that his young stock were being sold off as his partner couldn't deal with them on her own.

We arrived to meet Amy late in early evening. She was in a paddock with a little friend and came down to greet us immediately.

As it happened, I took to Amy far more than Kath did, if only I had the money for keeping a horse! Kath is having a think. So I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. However, considering that Mi Mi will be arriving soon, along with Fizz's new foal, due in June, and the fact that Quem Foi (Kath's Luso Stallion) is still around, probably means that another filly on the yard might be stretching things a wee bit!

Sheep Shopping

Following my supporting Kath on her horse shopping mission the other week, she kindly returned the favour and accompanied me to pick up my new little flock member this weekend.

Bartistown Ruby is a black blettet sokket shetland (or a little bandit as Chris described her). She has the most divine fine fleece and a beautiful little fluke tail. I can't wait to take her to a couple of shows this summer.

On introducing her to the others she seemed a little overwhelmed at first. But soon settled down and got to know her new field mates. Of course she is half sister to Rosy, Rebbecca and Rachel and I wasn't too surprised that she revealed that she did indeed recognise them. They soon split into their usual groups, but now they number five and four.

Pssst, wanna buy a pup?

We found this dodgy looking character in our local the other night. Luckily we soon identified him as Stuart pulling a silly face and having his new little field trials hopeful tucked in his jacket. Juno is the daughter of Stuart's gun dog Teal. She'll be trained as a working dog like her mum.
I got a cuddle but the pup was more interested in the bar!

Working boy

My little man is back at school and doing very nicely. Hes starting to get the idea about driving now, although you can still tell that he's uncomfortable and a bit unsure as to why I've spent ages teaching him to bring me sheep yet now want him to take them away!



He is starting to "feel" the sheep better and anticipates their movements. Although he wasn't quick enough to stop one escapee who got away because of a mistake I made. He returned her to the little flock with no difficulty though.

Fencing Finished

And about time too! Wal and I finally finished the fence to allow us to move the sheep into a field that they couldn't escape from.

We really slogged to get it finished and I discovered that I'm now perfectly capable of whacking fence posts in with a drive-all on my own. Who needs a gym?! All that work seemed to make Wal go a bit crooked!


The girls were thrilled to be in their new pad and pranced about like lambs... for about five minutes before trying to work out the best escape route. No girls, I think Wal has the gate covered!


Many thanks to everyone else who helped along the way. Especially Louise for working on her holiday, and Dad for working in the snow!

French Otter!

it seems that one our local otters is rather keen on frogs legs!
I found these piles of massacred frogs by the side of a pond. Only their legs are missing since these are the most worthwhile parts eating... just ask the French!

Going Off Road

It was definitely high time for a new vehicle. With 178,000 on the clock, a leaky roof and a fog light that sometimes flashed on and off with the indicators, my little red polo has finally neared the end of his life so regretfully has now been replaced with my "little jeepy thing" also known as shed on wheels.

It was quite a novelty taking my own vehicle off road when I went water vole surveying at Warcop.
Speaking of voles, the animals that I released last year have finally put in an appearance to show that at least some of them have survived the winter. This poo might not look very exciting but it is proof that we are on our way to restoring the water vole population in this area. Now I just have to organise the next batch of voles that are due to go out in the next few weeks.

I also had a look at our new notice board that will tell visitors to the site about our project. It's very smart and has cute little vole footprints carved into it.