At last our 2 acre fox proof enclosure is finished and all our animals are in there.  The goats and pigs live in a pen within the enclosure in an effort to stop them eating all the other animals’ food and are let out during the day.  The peacocks regularly escape but seem happy to spend a large part of the day in it.  It is so reassuring to feel that at last they are all safe from the foxes.  All guests are able to go in there when ever they wish, though children need to be accompanied; both visitors and animals seem to be really enjoying themselves.  We have just bought some more ducks which are still very nervous, keeping to the ponds at all times.  The alpacas will be going away for 2 weeks very soon as our female is to be mated and they are both due to be shorn.  How we will get them into a trailer could be interesting as they are much heavier than last time.

The weather has been staggeringly good for weeks with everyone looking very brown.  The grass too has started to go brown from lack of water so when it rained for the first time in weeks the other night it was very welcome.  The end of the month is set to be a little damper but not enough to spoil holidays.  Our new bore hole is standing up to the lack of rain with no problems.  Many people are reporting springs drying up so we are pleased our water is now from another source.

We are applying for a Green Tourism award and hope to get our assessment in a couple of months.   We hope that we will get a silver award which we can then gradually build up to a gold one.  With the help of our visitors we are becoming increasingly green and people are very positive about it.  The swimming pool solar panels continue to save a small fortune in oil and even in the winter they give us some heat.

Our vegetables after the late start are doing very well though needing a lot of watering.  Each year we use more and more in the ready meals so our food miles are often zero.  We are fighting a huge battle with slugs and often loosing.  We had hoped that they would not have survived the long cold winter but they clearly are tough.  We have a new poly tunnel this year so have doubled the amount of stuff that we can grow under cover.  We are experimenting with new fruit and vegetables and it will be interesting what does well.  All our outdoor flowers in tubs needed replacing this spring and are finally looking good.  Unfortunately the peacocks love the shoots of young geraniums so they have been slow to grow.