Our newest babies

Our 12 ducklings and 6 goslings have just arrived and are settling in well, they just happen to be very cute too!
We also managed to borrow a tiller so the last veggie patch is nearly finished, then we need to get weeding the first ones we planted!

A very British Garden party

Some of our many English friends over here threw a 'Very British Garden Party' to celebrate the jubilee today. Yes we know it's a week late but it was very cold and wet last weekend so we thought the queen wouldn't mind a belated one. She joined us in a lovely blue number and we ate pavlova, cupcakes, scones, sausage rolls, trifle, Eaton pudding, strawberries, egg sandwiches, marmite sandwiches, battenburg and a BBQ. We had an Aunt Sally sponge throwing game and sack races which bemused the Canadians!

Harriet drenching the poor Beefeater

Mmmmmm yummy!

Think the queen shrunk a bit on the flight across!

Harriet always finds the babies

Sack races

David has been saving all the rabbit pelts for me to try my hand at making leather. It finally got warm enough so I've had a go. I must say it is easier than I thought and I'm going to need a lot of pelts for my bedspread but it is fun. One problem is Max really likes them and sneaks them off the side for a quick chew if we turn our backs!

After the pelts came out of the pickle, at this stage I was ready to give up as they smelt and didn't look at all pretty.

A couple of days later, a lot of work and a hair brush and I have beautiful fur.

The boys have finished school for the year, they have exams each morning this week and are hoping to start work next week. Harriet has 9 more days left and counting!

This week we get our day old geese and ducklings ready for fattening up. 

After our stuck in the mud incident we have been collecting wood from a much more convenient site close to a main road so our pile is steadily growing.

Stuck in the mud!

David decided we'd be organised this year and get our wood for winter now so it dries over the summer. He purchased a licence from the forestry commission which gives us the right to take any wood left on certain sites where harvesting was done a year or so ago. So armed with map of all the sites we could collect from, bug spray and a chain saw we've been driving down lots of muddy trails well off the beaten track in the Harvey area and filling out truck with tree trunks. One site has been elusive to us and so tonight we tried for the third time to find it. That's when we came over the brow of the hill into the mud. We were well stuck!
Thankfully we had our cell phones with us and if you stood in a certain position could get a little signal. We phoned our friends the Warringtons who live not too far away and have a big truck to come and rescue us. This was just before 9pm...not much longer before dark.

This is us riding in their truck to get to our stuck truck!

Well and truly in the mud.We attached the trucks together ours moved slightly, then Keiths got stuck too, after about half an hour of 'fun' we gave it one last chance. Everything got hooked up, we used a snow shovel to dig the worst of the mound which was then stopping our truck moving, Keith prayed then an amazing thing happened, Keith drove forward our truck released like a champagne cork from the mud flew up in the air and landed on the road! Praise God. All in all we were out 2 1/2 hours and came home with a very muddy truck and a twig which Sue put in the back so we wouldn't leave empty handed!
We've marked that road on the map a no go road!