Orphans find new home

It's just over two weeks since Polly deserted her nest of 9 ducklings and went back to her mates in the Poultry Palace. Eight have survived and have been providing Rocco - nearest whose stable they have been living - with a continuous chirruping as they explore the confines of their pen. At least I think that's what he said they were doing. Four of the eight are yellow, so should grow into apricot ducks; the remaining four are brown and will probably stay that colour unless they are male, in which case when they mature they may display richer brown on their chests and slightly paler tummies. Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell at this age which sex they are. Theoretically, male ducks always have two or three curled up feathers in their tales but here on the Rectoryreserve we have a couple of males without this distinguishing feature! The other distinguishing feature is their voice: the females quackle and chatter for all they are worth, whilst the males communicate with a more sober single 'quack'.
Anyway, at the weekend the four little yellow ones - two of which are seen here having a last swim with two of their brown brothers (or sisters) - went off to new homes. Two of them are going to be staying in Lincolnshire with the lady whom we bought our very first ducklings from some 5 years ago so in a way this 're-homing' represents a closing of the circle. The other two will be travelling down to Kent later in the week. It's sad to see them go - especially as they are the very first to be sold from here. The four who were left behind snuggled that bit closer to each other for the night and were a little subdued first thing this morning, but they've brightened up as the day's gone on.

The Paragon of Virtue

Summer has arrived with a vengeance. The past 10 days have been glorious. Here on the Wolds hot days are often accompanied by balmy breezes wafting - or occasionally 'blowing' in - off the sea, and evenings are frequently accompanied by the most amazing sunsets.

Last weekend was the hottest of the year so far with people flocking to the beaches to cool off. Somewhat perversely, my horse and I were at 'Adult Summer Camp' - perhaps more accurately described as equine boot camp. Spread over 3 days, this is a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of the facilities of the Lincolnshire Rural Activities Centre and the experience of highly qualified trainers. Participants can do as much or as little as they like - so we did a session (one hour) each of dressage, show jumping and cross country on Saturday; dressage, show jumping and Le Trec on Sunday and dressage and show jumping plus a dressage and show jumping competition on Monday. In would be an understatement to say that my horse sweated and I glowed buckets! Normally he's such a cool character! He's never flustered or temperamental and will have a go at anything. In his 7 years here he has done most things: hunting (which he truly loves), cross country (next favourite thing), showjumping (which he used to think was just indoor hunting!), dressage (which he is learning to really, really like! - my view, not his) and Le Trec (which he will be doing more of in the future - possibly). Plus he'll hack out anywhere for as long as I like, alone or in company, and never, ever misbehaves even in the heaviest, or most bewildering of agricultural, traffic.

Who is this paragon of virtue?

He goes by the name of Rocco - aka Madonna's Child when competing at Dressage - and is a 16.2hh, 12 year old, bay, Irish Draft x Thoroughbred. Imported from Sligo in Ireland by Barbara Rich (of Leicestershire hunting fame) he was bred for the hunting field - where he truly excels: but he has grown into a genuine all-rounder, worth his weight in gold.

He's quite a character too and his favourite thing in all the world is bananas. The third photo shows us having a jumping lesson at 'boot camp'. His normal inclination is "see jump, must charge" so we've spent quite a bit of time getting him to slow up and think and actually jump rather than gallop madly at the obstacle ahead. He's really getting the hang of it now (shame about the rider) so after this lesson some of the other chaps had gathered together a bunch of banana skins as a reward! We have yet to discover how many he will eat before refusing to take any more. It's been suggested that they contain some hallucinogenic so maybe he's not so daft. This show jumping session was followed by cross country and he did get pretty excited as we went round so who knows? Anyway.... we came home with rosettes from both competitions on the Monday so clearly the training paid off. Next outing for the 'Child' is dressage competition on the 18th when we'll really see if it's made a difference....

Return of the Hairy Pigs

The Big Day finally arrived!

Heckington is Britain's largest village show; last year's 22,500 visitors smashed all previous records and made it bigger than some of the County shows. All the usual attractions are there, (pig racing! jousting! sheep-shearing, shire horses, Grade A showjumpers, masses of shopping and eating opportunities etc etc) as well as some unique features like the annual Lincolnshire Longwool auction and, of course, this year for the first time in over 3 decades - the return of the Hairy Pigs. Good job Wurzel and Pepper were totally unaware of their celebrity or we'd never have managed to keep them so quiet all day. And what a day it was. But I'll backtrack a little way first....

We transferred Wurzel and Pepper from their outdoor pen to the Old Stalls on Friday so they would be clean-ish, dry and ready for 'polishing' and preening on Saturday. All that was duly achieved with minimal fuss - in fact, though Pepper didn't really appreciate the brushing, the rest of the preparation was most acceptable! We went off on Saturday afternoon to 'suss' out the show and location of our pen and loading/unloading facilities; also we took Gunner along to give him a foretaste of what to expect the following day. So many new sights and sounds for a little pup. He was quite overawed and kept stopping dead in his tracks to stare at yet another novelty! So it took quite a while to perambulate around the showground and get our bearings. Eventually, though, we managed to locate and organise things to our satisfaction and felt reasonably confident that we could manage to get sorted on Sunday. Since neither we, nor the piggies, had done anything like this before it was all just a little bit nerve wracking......

Sunday morning dawned fine and dry - and we were up by 5.30 a.m. to sort the rest of the Rectoryreserve inhabitants before loading and leaving home at 7.30 - accompanied by quite a few snorts and grunts about "Bit early" and "Hang on, where's breakfast?" and "How's a chap supposed to travel on an empty stomach?". Unloading at the show an hour later was no problem thanks to the assistance of a large number of sheep hurdles with which we built a 'runway' from the trailer to the pen.... Wurzel and Pepper let their curiosity lead them along till they reached the pen - where, Joy of Joys, they found plenty of food and fresh water and - best of all - fresh grass and earth to dig up! They couldn't have been happier. The visitors who came along in the first hour were greeted by the sight of pigs doing what they love best. After that, exhausted and content, they spent most of the day sleeping, snoring and grunting (pigs, not visitors ... though perhaps some of those did too...) - largely with their backs turned to their numerous admirers - apart from the occasional flurry of activity digging up the late arriving straw in order to return to rootling in the grass! And what a lot of admirers they had. Not only were they the ONLY pigs at the show but their attendance had been much heralded in the local media, so people had travelled from far and wide to see them. "40 years since I last seen one of them hairy pigs here" said one well-worn farmer. The day sped by on a host of tales and stories told of the 'old' days of the Lincolnshire Curly coat. Apparently the catalogue for the 1911 Lincolnshire Show had pages and pages of entries for the Curly Coat classes. Lots of photos were taken and if we'd collected a £ for each time somebody said "Oh Look - pigs" we'd have left the showground with very heavy pockets indeed! All in all, a very worthwhile - and slightly overawing - event.... As for Gunner; well, he attracted almost as much attention as the pigs for his looks and his manners - we probably could have sold him a hundred times over. He certainly came away well experienced in dealing with sheep and cattle - especially Very Large Bulls (one just along the line from us was fully 5' tall and must have weighed nearly 2 tonnes!). He couldn't wait to tell Lancer and Pilot all about his adventures when he got home. Were they Impressed? Not a bit. In fact you could almost hear them muttering to themselves... "Another shaggy dog tale..."

It's raining cats and dogs.......and ducks

The rain abated overnight on Thursday. We awoke in the early hours of Friday to an amazing cacophony of quacking. One of the ducks sounded in some distress. "Crikey" I thought, "Polly (who is the last of the ducks still sitting on a nest) has flown out of her nest in the barn through one of the horses' windows and can't get back in again". I sprang out of bed, sped down the steps and - donning wellies - dashed down to the yard. Where I found Polly still quacking for all she was worth outside one of the barn doors. I quickly opened two or three doors for her and, as I'd suspected, she speedily waddled back towards her nest. So I left her to it and returned to bed and my pot of tea!

It's THE BIG WEEKEND for the piggies - showtime - so the main job of the morning, when we surfaced again, was to move Dolly and her brood from the stalls nursery to the main Poultry Palace pen so that Wurzel and Pepper could later be transferred to the stalls from their quarters in order to begin the preparing-piggies-for-show process. It's no easy task to move 7 ducklings and their mother; first they have to be safely cornered and then gently scooped up one by one and placed in a large box- with mum attacking the marauding hands with her beak for all she's worth. However, I've had a bit of practice by now, and luckily managed to do this pretty quickly, successfully transferring the family to the New Pond. Dolly spent a bit of time showing the little ones the perimeters of the pen but very soon they were all happily ducking and diving on the pond.

Having let the other Poultry Palace residents 'out' for the day I returned to the barn to check that Polly had found her way back to her nest. But when I looked, there was no bird. Just a few broken eggs. My first thought was that Polly had, like Dolly, managed to get her brood off the hay stack and out into the world when no-one was looking. But I was puzzled by that because, in order to keep them all safe from the dogs, I had put a broody pen around the bottom of the hay. So I looked around on the floor of the pen and, sure enough, tucked in the hay, by the water container was a little cluster of yellow and brown fluff! Not so little either. Nine tiny ducklings all huddled together to keep warm - on their own - no sign of Polly..... So I went out to the Poultry Palace pen and did a beak count and sure enough, there she was, with all her mates having a jolly good old gossip. Thinking she'd return to her brood later I left her to it.

But did she return? Did she heck. Later in the day it dawned on me that all that early morning quacking was, in fact, Polly trying her hardest to encourage her brood to follow her out of the barn and down to the pond. But the poor little things - with no wings and not enough strength to jump over the pen, or even push under or through - couldn't possibly follow. So I reckon after an hour or so of trying she, and they, gave up. And now they're little orphans. I alternately switched the lights on and off during the remainder of the day to encourage them to eat - in the light - and sleep - in the dark and put a hot water bottle covered in hessian under a patch of their hay bedding for the night. Let's hope the little things survive the next couple of days. If they do we'll move them to the stalls (when the piggies are gone) for the first month, after which they'll be strong enough to join the others. If they all survive, of course, we'll have rather a lot of ducks..... but that's a 'problem' for another day....

What a life!

Conchita returns to the flock

Just four weeks after hatching her brood, Conchita has today returned to her little flock in the top corner of the Church field. I think she was much relieved; I put her in the chicken removal vehicle - aka the cat basket - at opening up time this morning and transported her down to her mates and, as soon as the door was opened, she flew out, shaking her feathers in a terrible paddy; there was nothing but clucks and chuckles with them for the first 15 minutes or so - perhaps she was telling them all about the joys of broodyhood and how exciting it was being shut in with little chicks all day and night. As for Merlin, well ... he was most delighted to have her back. If she gave another thought to her chicks, she showed no sign of it, going about her business, bossing everyone about as usual. And the chicks? They seemed quite contented all day long, going about their usual affairs. They didn't seem quite so happy though when it came to shutting up time - extra early for them tonight - rushing around in their little house frantically wondering where to go and what to do for the best. Clearly, they're used to Conchita telling them exactly what to do. After alternately cowering in the corner and dashing madly up and down, they did eventually settle. Poor little things. Usually they sleep in a box with her so they will probably miss her cosy warm feathers for a night or two.

You'll see from the picture that she has luxurious, dense feathering. This is because her breed, the Cochin (she is a lavender Cochin) originate in Asia so needed the warm feathering to withstand harsh winters. They were brought over to England by the Victorians who prized them for their meat as much as their manners. If Conchita is anything to go by, they are very calm and gentle birds who never fuss or get excited but do like to be at the top of the pecking order. She's usually the last out of the Chicken House in the mornings and invariably the first to go to roost in the evenings and, when it rains, she'll mostly be found sitting inside looking out on the world - probably because her feathers weigh very heavy when they are wet! Anyway, she's been an excellent broody this year and raised 3 handsome chicks. Unfortunately, the fourth one was suffocated by those same feathers a week or so ago - but we cannot blame Conchita for that. Let's just hope that at least 2 of the remaining chicks are hens! It is doubtful though. More likely to be 3 cockerels - but it's far too early to tell yet.

For Mangalitza read 'Mudlark'

After three days of almost constant rain - on one of which alone the total normally recorded for a month fell - the sun finally came out today. Briefly.
Mangel and his mates are now wallowing in a quagmire of what, in this part of the world, is known as 'slarmy' mud. This tends to be one of the driest parts of the country but the two towns nearest to us, Horncastle and Louth, made the national news and weather reports for the record amounts of rain that fell on Thursday last.
We are very much hoping for a drier week ahead though as Wurzel and Pepper have a long anticipated appointment next weekend at Heckington Show - one of the major agricultural events in the County.
Mangalitzas have an historic connection with Lincolnshire and the invitation arrived from the Chairman of the Show Committee as soon as word got out that Mangel and Wurzel had arrived at the Rectoryreserve.
There used to be a breed known as the (white or blonde) Linconshire Curly Coat but unfortunately it 'died out' in 1972, due in no small part to the pressures on agricultural production following the 2nd World War. However, in the early 1900's some of the breed had been exported to Austria and The Balkans to augment their stocks of Mangalitzas (also curly coated) which were under threat of extinction. During the 1920's Lincolnshire Curly Coats won many of the top awards at the Budapest show and achieved the Gold Medal in 1925. Before too long, crossbred Lincolistas were absorbed into the native Mangalitza stock in Hungary and Austria. Those in the west are usually 'swallow bellied' like Mangel and Wurzel; further east a single blonde colour (like Pepper) predominates whereas in parts of Hungary and the balknas a red tinge (like Ginger) is apparent. Their meat was held in high esteem and at one time they were even traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange! Today they are in short supply and are listed by the Society for the Conservation of Endangered Livestock Breeders of Austria. In 2003 there were just 39 boars and 106 sows spread across 46 breeders.
In 2006, for the very first time, a small number of these were imported to the UK: thanks to the enthusiasm of Tony York (http://www.pigparadise.com/) and his colleagues who planned, researched and then travelled across Europe to find some whose pedigrees traced back to the original Lincolnshire Curly Coat. No mean feat. DNA samples of these have been preserved. The hope is that the UK breed may be moved closer to the original Curly Coat. Meanwhile, there are now approximately 30 of the breed in the UK and Rectoryreserve is proud to have its herd in the midst of the Wolds in the county where the Curly Coats originated.
And that is why they are 'special guests' at Heckington Show next weekend. Perhaps it won't matter too much if they are a little muddy.....

More flyers?

We've introduced a number of the creatures who share the Rectoryreserve but have yet to mention the main reason why we moved here from the sub-urban sprawl of the South-East nearly a decade ago.
And that reason was to indulge a passion in carriage driving - or 'flying with horses' as it is sometimes known. This was personified by the acquisition of Mr Ritz and Maxim's, or Ritz and Max as they prefer to be called.
We moved here at the beginning of August and Ritz and Max came to join us at the end of September. That was a lot quicker than we had planned. But we found them a lot faster than we had anticipated. We were not ready!

Their arrival is not easily forgotten. They were coming up from the far South of the country and were due to arrive late morning. Soon after breakfast our nearest neighbour, who is about half a mile away, rang to ask if we could help her extricate a fox which had got trapped in one of her (barbed wire) fences. So off went the husband leaving me to finish preparing the makeshift stable in the barn (although stable fitments were on order these were scheduled to arrive somewhat later) prior to the horses' arrival. So I was somewhat flustered when a young chap arrived in the yard and said he had a delivery. I told him to leave it in the back porch. "Doubt if it'll fit" said he. "Well leave it outside the door then" said I. "Not a good idea, doubt it'll stay there long" said he. "What the hell is it, then?" said I. "Horses and carriage". "But you're not supposed to get here for another couple of hours; we're not ready for you yet!"
Happily, he was a chap with a sense of humour and when I explained about the absent husband's mission, he promptly went off to help. When they both returned, we agreed the best thing was to unload and turn the horses out in the little walled garden - full of interesting plants and shrubs to eat, which luckily distracted the horses sufficiently to stop them stepping over the little picket fence to explore further afield - and go and have a cup of tea and 'unpack' the rest of the delivery.
Thus it was that a couple of hours later, Wilf having left on his long journey home, we were to be found holding two strange horses, trying to work out which was which (they are half-brothers and almost identical to the unfamiliar eye) and wondering what on earth to do next. Though we'd had a horse at livery for a couple of years, this was our first experience of keeping horses at home. They obviously sensed our confusion and couldn't have behaved better. Eventually we turned them out in what we call the Rectory Field. It's a decent field now but at the time it was just a rough 2 acres of 5ft high straggly grass and (lots of) weed with slightly dodgy fencing in part. They didn't care though - after their journey they were happy to go anywhere with grass and were soon almost submerged in greenery.

Things got better from then onwards - but more of that, and them, another day. The pictures show them relaxing in the Church Field and competing in a carriage driving competition.