Saturday 30 April 2011

The Royal Wedding

Our next event was the Royal Wedding at the end of April.
All the donkeys dressed up in their best red, white and blue ribbons to celebrate.
Here are Sinead (in blue) and Jake and Jasper ready for donkey rides.......
And here's Charlie in red.
Wellington in blue

Charlie in White

Jake says its SOOO tiring

Jake and Jasper in red and blue

Toby in Blue

Donk looking great in red

and Noah in blue and white.

Friday 29 April 2011

Eli's first day at work

At the end of April Eli, our newest donkey, had his first day in the village being patted by all the visitors.
He says....
Well I went down the cobbles with the other donkeys and ate some hay. It was boring really but then lots of people turned up and they patted me which was really nice. Some of them had dogs and I had fun scaring them by staring, silly things! I teased Maria's cat too and she got in a grump and went to sleep on top of the fountain. It was a fun day out.We stayed until it got boring again them we went back to the stables for more hay.Here we are at work....




Monday 18 April 2011

Palm Sunday 2011

This year Welly, JakeyTed and our new donkey Eli went to All Saints Church in Clovelly for the palm Sunday blessing and parade down the cobbles. Charlie and Noah went to Torrington and did a tour of the churches there.

Welly says..............
On Palm Sunday Jake and Eli came with me to the curchyard where we eat lots of good grass around the gravestones. They came out and put the big Cope on me ( they say its and honour and keep on fussing over it falling off ). Then two ladies took hold of jake and Eli and Sue led me down the steps into the church. I've been lots of times so I don't mind but Jake's only been once and Eli never has....but they followed me perfectly. We stood in the isle while the vicar said the blessing over us for us to carry back to the others. Then we paraded around the pews three times while the humans did some singing. On the first round Jakey decided it was too noisey and shot out of the door dragging his lady behind him. However Eli was the perfect companion and was cool and calm.
Then we walked through the flowers in the Court gardens, along the 'long walk' and down the cobbled street to the New Inn where the humans started singing again and the elderly lady who lives opposite came out to listen to us.
Here are some pictures......

Sunday 10 April 2011

Baby Kiwi's Big Day Out

Our working year usually starts in March with going to the church for Palm Sunday. However, this year, Easter was incredibly late so Palm Sunday didn't happen until the middle of April ! That meant that our year started with Baby's Big Day Out.

Sue has been studying Parelli Natural Horsemanship and Baby Kiwi has been practicing all winter to go to the Parelli games which were to be held at Dutchy Agricultural College in Cornwall, in December. Then it SNOWED in December and we had a lovely white Christmas but.....as all the country lanes were snowed up the day was posponed until April.

The first hurdle was getting there on time.
Kiwi says.......................
The humans turned up really early and we wondered what was going on when they wheeled out the horsebox. They put some hay in it and Noah said we should go and eat it so we got in together. The humans said they were pleased. Then we rattled and shook for ages 'till I wondered if we'd ever stop...but we did and when  I looked out we were in a new place with lots of horses. I had never met horses before but Noah said it was OK because horses are usually scared of us and wouldn't cause us any trouble.Here I am doing my stuff..................




It was raining so we went into a BIG shed and stood around for ages while the horses ran around. When it was our turn Sue asked me to do lots of the things we had been doing at home as well as some new things. Then we stood around again, admired ourselves in some big mirrors then we did some more training with Noah following us around. After that we got to go back to the horsebox and eat some grass. I was a bit silly about going back in the horsebox but Noah did say it was OK eventually. We got home before dark and all the donkeys asked me where we had been. I was a bit tired but we had a big adventure and the next day I had to pose with my rosette for the humans to take a picture.