Xmas is coming

Another beautiful day in the garden today -  difficult to think it will be December soon!

One sign that Winter is coming is that the three horses left the field this week as it is getting too wet underfoot and cold at night.  Warm stables were sounding very attractive!  We will miss them.

13 duckings - growing up, now rampaging around the gardens!

The 'rescued' ducklings have come on leaps and bounds since my last diary note, they have been let out to play in the gardens this week. They are quite adventurous and have explored the entire garden swimming on both ponds - normally duckings are a bit slower at getting off the top pond! This lot are a bit cheeky, probably being a large crowd makes them brave!

I did have to follow them out on to the car-park yesterday, just to see what they were looking at.  We all got herded back into the garden quite quickly, but not before I had caught glimpse of Christmas preparations.  Lights are going up and being tested and I can see that the shop has lots of Christmas stuff out.

Outside the gift shop

There is a late night shopping evening tonight 17th Nov (gift shop only) and all the lights are going to be switched on next week with a Christmas "light up" evening when all the craft units will be open and there will be lots of Christmas food and other things.  Worcestershire's own "Green Santa" is coming along to help one of our regular visitors Rachel Johnston to switch on the lights.  Rachel is a wonderful lady who is often comes here from Worcester with her carers to watch us on the pond, she is in a wheel chair, so can sometime not come on the grass, she seems to enjoy our antics though!  There will be music, chestnuts and other christmassy type things I am told!



  

Late arrivals

I could not believe my eyes today as I spied little 'dots' on the bottom pond -- 15 new ducklings fresh off the island with a very diligent mum (but let's face it how can you control 15 babies on your own?).

The garden was pretty busy today therefore it was not long before they created quite a stir and were being fed by the children.  They did get cold quite quickly though, so Mum rounded them up onto the side and sat on them to warm them up.  Fairly soon  humans arrived and tried to catch them all -- they managed to catch all but 3, and of course Mum who was far too quick!

The ducklings are very late arrivals in the season and, without some help developing, will not get their feathers in time for the frosts - even I know enough to accept that the humans are being 'cruel to be kind' by putting the youngsters into a heated pen and feeding them up.  This way they should all have a very good chance of survival.  It is still possible that they will catch the Mum and the other 3 and put them in too -- if she is not too quick.  The pen is in the garden next to the pond so the ducklings can be watched over by all of us.

Loads of people here yesterday and today - some are here for children's pottery classes, some are just starting shopping for Christmas (stock now out) and many just enjoying the mild weather in the garden.   We love it - we are getting plenty of duck food!

Floss the Chestnut horse has been popping her head over the fence a bit today too.  She is feeling much better now after having a big tooth out last week - what a whopper it was, took a long time to sort out!  She is getting ready to go to her winter stable soon - when the weather changes.