This may well be my last post for this year. Between work, Un po di, the animals, wwoofers, organising pre-christmas drinks and a New Year's Eve party I can't see me getting onto the blog much. We'll see.
Speaking of Un po' di, our new business for those who haven't heard, things are going well. Martha's Pantry in Wellington have ordered a few to sell and also want to serve it (once we get the DHB's approval). And we had a woman come up to the market last week and ask what Un po' di means (A little bit of...) because she had been writing about it on her blog. So, we have our first review and it's a damn fine one, I must say! Check it out at www.penneylaneonline.com, scroll down a bit and you should see it. We were pretty impressed :)
There have also been a few changes to the zoo. The goats have gone to a new home in Masterton and I hope they're doing ok. I do miss Sid a bit but they jumped into the vege garden a few too many times so they had to go. At least they aren't being eaten. One guy called up from Auckland wondering how far away we were. Apparently 7 hours is too far for a feed. But the people who took them seemed nice. They needed some land cleared.
In place of the goats we have 2 new kune kune piglets. 2 little 3 month old boys. Both ginger and oh so cute. But they are sneaky cheekies as well. They took off the first day we got them (I was in Napier so Marty had to search on his own). One was found by Graeme and Barbara's and Rosie saw the other one in her garden but couldn't catch it. So one was missing for a few days. Yesterday Colin turned up and asked if the zoo had, by any chance, lost one of its members. Yes, in fact, we had. So little piggy was returned to his brother (there was a lot of squealing between the truck and the pen they are in) and both sat down to a feast of scraps. Little lost piggy was starving! Their names are Pybus and Porcellus although we're not quite sure which is which yet. They are very similar.
Brother has been sent to Napier to learn a few things. I saw an ad on Trademe for a beginners horse that said she may swap for a young or troubled horse so I called her up and she is a dream come true! We organised to take Brother up on a Tuesday morning so we borrowed Hamish and Vicki's float and had a practice run on Monday. We've never floated Brother, only trucked and it's quite a different experience for them so we thought we should be on the safe side. So on Monday Brother lead me up the ramp of the float, no worries. Sweet! I mentioned that having a horse that didn't go on floats is one of the most frustrating things in the world... I jinxed it again. So Tuesday morning rolled around and we decided to leave a bit early so we could spend some time with this girl and have a chat. Off we tottered into the paddock, put Brother's leg bandages on and lead him towards the float. Brother planted his little feet firmly in the ground and wouldn't move. It started raining but was still about 100 degrees and it took Marty, Hamish, Vicki and I 2 and a half hours to get him on the bloody float. Grrr... By that time I was an hour and a half late for work so I had to leave Marty to take him up there on his own. Apparently when they arrived Marty assumed Brother would bolt out of the float backwards as soon as he opened the back door so he set up a little contraption so that he would have hold of a rope so Brother wouldn't take off. But Brother had other ideas. He now didn't want to get out of the float. At least he didn't want to back out of it. So he kept trying to turn around. It took a while to unload him as well! Ridiculous horse! But this girl has done wonders with him. There's a possibility that he still has a sore shoulder but we'll wait and see. But she's also give me the courage to jump on him and really push both myself and Brother. We cantered and jumped a little jump the other day (I don't think he'd ever been jumped before then) so it's a big step!
Anyway, we are off now to build a pig pen in the paddock until little piggies get a bit more used to their surroundings. And amazingly the sun has come out! Haven't seen the sun much recently.
Ok, I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and wonderful New Year. See you in 2010.
Kerry x
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