Our lovely orphan Annie has settled down well after losing her mum a week ago and is now running towards us when we go with her bottle at mealtimes. We no longer need to catch her to feed her breakfast and supper and she will enjoy taking her milk from whoever holds the bottle so we will be looking for some new young shepherds – I wonder if she’s likely to meet some new friends thoughout the next few months. I think so!
Our recent blog entries have been about the ‘oldest’ and this time we have some sad news about our oldest ewe, Angharad, who suddenly passed away on Thursday 7th June 2007. She was a lovely, gentle tempered sheep and excellent mum over the 13 years she has been with us and we will all miss her, especially her ‘best friend’ John, our gardener. Sadder still is that Angharad was the last of our ewes to give birth this year and she leaves us with a three week old lamb, Annie, to bring up without a mum. Annie is a reluctant lamb to take to the bottle but after four days of perseverance she readily sucked her way through a good breakfast of lamb milk formula this morning. She seems to have put her loss behind her and is beginning to accept Phil and I as new parents! I’m sure that she will have lots of admirers over the summer school holiday and no doubt many offers to feed her breakfast, lunch and supper! Ahhhh….
We have today waved off our ‘longest visiting party’! 25 years ago we welcomed a group of families from the Midlands who had organised a cricket team and came on a regular ‘Whitsun week tour’ to play friendly matches against local cricket clubs in Pembrokeshire. The ‘Poole family’ very kindly based themselves at East Jordeston arriving with three generations in tow. Some members of the ‘clan’ have visited annually (or more often) every year since. They have watched our two children grow from babies through to ‘flying the nest’ and now firm friends, we have encouraged each other through the happy and the sad times.
During all of these years, they have seen the evolution of East Jordeston from the working farm it was to what we are proud to offer today and it is guests like this who make our business so rewarding and enjoyable. A very big thank you to June, family and friends and long may the visits continue!
