Oaklands Dorcas

Another new addition, Oaklands Dorcas, was purchased last weekend from the Livingstones - she is Anah's daughter from last summer and we saw her when we collected Challenge in July and were very taken with her, so when Challenge went home at the end of September, we looked at her again and decided to buy her. She is 16 months old and will live with the other cows, going to the bull next summer and having her first calf when she is three years old.

She was rather shy about having her photo taken, trying to hide behind one of the bigger cows!

New cats

Due to the loss of Tiggy in July at the grand old age of 18, we felt we needed another cat to discourage mice around the house and farm. We didn't really fancy a kitten, especially with all the dogs around, so we went down to our local cat rescue centre and two cats straight away chose us as their new owners.

Marty (bottom photo)is a semi-longhaired grey and white cat, with a very cuddly, loveable nature and he climbed all over Matthew as if to say take me now.

Stevie (a girl!) is a short haired grey and white cat and loves to be stroked but does not like being picked up - obviously something has happened in her past, but we hope she will settle down. She can certainly purr when she wants!

They have both settled in marvellously, with Stevie (pictured top) very much boss of the dogs, although I think due to failing eyesight with age that Lottie is slightly oblivious to their presence. Marty looks at the dogs with mild curiosity, but does run if challenged. Stevie had a slight touch of cat flu which apparently happens a lot in re-homed cats, but they are both now micro-chipped and vaccinated and fully settled in.

Scottish adventure

Following the cancellation of Hutton, Fizz and Sonny were rapidly re-routed to Turnberry horse Trials in Ayrshire. Overnight stabling was arranged and Rachel and I packed our woollies!

The journey took just under four hours and we went to the event location first and walked the courses. Then we set off to find our accommodation (stables for the horses, sleeping in the lorry for us!). Sonny was really funny, he was scared stiff of the strange stables and wouldn't go in for ages, but Fizz strutted in and made himself right at home. It was a really cold night but we had a giggle as we were wrapped fully-clothed in our sleeping bags!

Both horses did moderate dressage tests, so for Sonny, who was competing in a BE90 regional final with the chance of qualifying for the final at Badminton Horse Trials in 2010, that put any hopes of that out of the window. He redeemed himself slightly with a double clear show jumpimg and cross country, although amazingly after all our time penalties in the past, we had 3 time penalties for going TOO FAST - perhaps the time spent trying to train him to gallop better has had a result.

Fizz was also relatively naughty in his dressage, but his judge must have been wearing rose-tinted spectacles as she LOVED him and he still had a good score. He also jumped clear show jumping and cross country (see photo), jumping superbly through several tricky combination fences including a double of angled hedges. However, Rachel nursed him round due to him feeling a leg in the run up to the event, and he picked up a few time penalties which put him out of the placings.

Westmorland County Show

We took Roscoe and our friends' Highland pony, Jethro and were pleasantly surprised at how dry the field was after all the rain recently.

Roscoe excelled himself with a 4th place in his coloured in-hand class and also a 4th in the in-hand veteran class from 18 entries. Jethro was slightly inattentive in his working hunter and had a refusal and a pole down, but having annoyed his jockey he thought he'd better be good in the Mountain and Moorland ridden class and went beautifully to take 5th place in a strong class of welsh cobs, fells and dales and where he was one of only two highland ponies.

Our new jacob sheep

At the end of August, we bought four Jacob gimmer lambs. We have named them Jewel, Jazz, Juno and Jinx. They will run after me for feed but will not yet be stroked and definitely, now they are out in the field, try their best not to be caught! They are out with six home-bred gimmer lambs and hopefully this group will be big enought to tup with Jerome, the young Charollais tup. The photo shows them in the shed when they first came.

Where did the summer go?

Last time I wrote at the beginning of August, the weather was wet and it just got wetter for the next month. Keswick show went ahead on Bank Holiday Monday, but the field was a terrible mess afterwards. Several more local shows were cancelled and the Hutton International eventing fixture for 12th/13th september was also cancelled. We did however manage to get to Westmorland county Show, and to a couple of horse trials in late September.
Kev and I then had a week away from it all in Portugal, and whilst the weather was mainly very hot and sunny, there was the most amazing rain on our second last night - it bounced of the pavements, but thankfully we were in a restaurant at the time!
Back home now, and lots of jobs to catch up on! The trees are changing rapidly, with some glorious autumn colours at the moment, but it is a shock when the clocks go back at how quickly it gets dark.