Post zoomie treat for our donkeys with Chris

Hello, I missed you all last week, but myself and my boys were busy packing up for a short break to enjoy some time together with my biggest little farmer approaching school age. I could go on and tell you how emotional all of that is, but there's just too much to say about the farm and that's why I'm here so I'll get on with it and start with a thank you. So, a huge thank you goes out to our super team, including Sarah, Ethan and Susannah, who have not only been working really hard over the last couple of weeks, but also helped us to host no fewer than 80 children at the farm last week. They helped with everything from cleaning to hosting and animal feeding on one of our busiest weeks with visitors to date, we couldn't have done it without them.

Honestly, it wasn't a typo, we really had over 80 visitors in, all wanting to feed animals, meet lambs and hear stories as we hosted a local school over two days. Though these are far bigger numbers than we normally like to host, especially at this time of year, our animals and team did us proud. The animals were their usual happy selves and our team, well, they really helped us to share the CaenhillCC energy, they should be super proud of themselves. We've had fantastic feedback and the children had an experience they'll all be talking about for a long time to come.

As if having 40 children to entertain as part of the first stage of school visits wasn't enough, Midnight finally gave birth. Her three little lambs finally made their appearance on Wednesday 2 March as the visiting children and their support workers watched on. It wasn't as straightforward as we would have hoped with so many spectators, but Chris jumped into action and with the support of Super Sarah all three were safely delivered. Not only did Sarah do a great job at assisting for the first time, I hear Midnight was a total star and was completely unphased by the audience. She also made a fantastic start at looking after three, but it's a lot for one sheep to take on, so with little Midday getting a bit left behind with the feeds she's been taken on by Chris and is now being bottle fed.

We also had a second set of triplets arriving in the same week, twins for St. David's Day and another little arrival, as well as probably a few more that I have forgotten. I'll be catching up with all the little ones as soon as I can though, especially as we don't have many sheep left to lamb. In a way it's a shame because new little lambs are just the sweetest, but it does mean Chris can have a break from midwife duty and hopefully his checks of the field will be getting easier. We don't quite yet know if Bumblebee will join any of our sheep in our maternity area just yet, she was a few weeks behind the main flock, but we'd really love to see a baby Bumblebee appear.

Bottle feeding Dotty-Do with Farmer Casey

It's certainly been a lambing season of highs and lows and while Midnight stole the limelight over the last couple of weeks, we certainly haven't forgotten our little Loki. I'm sad to write that after a shaky start, but some promising signs, little Loki passed away early last week. Chris did all that he possibly could to help Loki, from getting up through the night for feeds to making him the warmest bed, but in the end he arrived too early to make it. While we're sad, this is unfortunately part of farming but Loki still made quite an impact in his short life and was very much loved by all who met him. He will be missed.

We haven't forgotten our other animals outside of the sheep and lambs, they're just taking a lot of our time at the moment, but we do have some newcomers who you'll be seeing a lot more of over the coming weeks, some pigs. You might have already seen our three girls, Domino, Pickle and Winnie who joined us last weekend, but if you haven't, don't worry, there is loads more to come. They've been brought into the project to support our education and wellbeing work where they will stay as their forever home and Chris will be spending lots of time with them over the coming weeks getting them ready for their role at the farm. I haven't met them yet, which I'm really sad about, but hopefully I'll get to the farm this week to find out more about our fab three and get some photos to share with you.

Keep a lookout for more pig footage next week, more of Dotty-Do's friendship with Midday and of course Super Sarah's run to raise funds for us next weekend. Best of luck Sarah, you are amazing. If you'd like to get behind Sarah and help her run that bit faster there's still time.

There's so much more to talk about because there really is so much that goes on behind the scenes at the farm but I'll leave it here for this week. If you'd like to hear about anything in particular that I could cover in a future blog, leave a comment and let me know. If you'd like all the news first and get exclusive content, why not join us as a Patreon. Our Patreons met our pigs first, get full donkey zoomie videos and so much more to come. If you'd like a little bit of farm for a special message or occasion don't forget that we have merchandise and love creating special shoutouts for you.

Thinking of everyone out there, keep safe.

Kara, Casey, Dexter and Teddy