Tag: stable

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Hellebores

Survived the frosts and strong winds very well, full of buds and flowers, alongside Cornus, Primrose’s and Pulmonaria. Cleaned the stable, discarded all the straw and cleaned the floor with Hibiscrub, most of the cobwebs and dust removed from the walls and ceiling, drinker washed out, the chaff mixed with dirt had gathered in the corners so they needed to be scraped several times. Looks a lot better, needed to be done before the warm weather settles, maybe it will help William’s itchy patches, he had a dilute Hibiscrub wash followed by an application of Sudocrem. A very warm and sunny day with light winds so shorts and polo shirt instead of fleeces.

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Stable Camera

At night the donkeys often wander around and can doze standing up, they sleep for about six hours a day, not always when it’s dark. The stable is large enough for them to both lie down, and now they’re settled in they don’t stand guard in the doorway, although their ears twitch constantly. The straw feeder is filled up a couple of times a day in the winter when they’re not grazing out in the paddock. Collected more bricks for the driveway and went to the tip with a couple of dumpy bags of hedge trimmings. A sunny start to the day with heavy rain later.

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Stable Clean

All the straw has been taken out and put in the gateways to help with the mud in the winter, it gets trodden in and disappears over the course of a year so no straw goes on the compost heap. The floor has been washed with a few buckets of disinfectant solution and the top of the kickboards get very dusty so have been cleaned, the cobwebs appear overnight and then gather dust as well. Donkeys are particular about the water they drink so William and Toby often prefer to drink from a bucket outside rather than from the water trough in the stable. A hot day, a few gusts of wind would have helped dry the floor. Picked runner beans and tomatoes.

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Swallows

A pair are building a nest in the tack room, they tried 3 or 4 different places and have settled on a middle beam at the gable end. The tack room door is closed overnight so they gain access to their nest by flying up into the roof of the stable next door, and squeezing through a small gap, the donkeys wander in and out of their stable all night so the door is never closed. Tolerant of people walking around they fly overhead and only veer away from the entrance if you look at them directly. No mess so far! Must get a wildlife camera. A cloudy start to the day, ended with hot sun.