Well its been a while since the website was updated, mainly because in the run up to Christmas we were busy every weekend with our 'Pop Up' Christmas Shop. Both Lulu and I thoroughly enjoyed our dabble in retail, but could not believe just how much of a tie it was. All the weekends throughout December as well as Thursday evenings were taken up by the 'Pop Up'. What we both particularly loved about running the Christmas Shop was meeting such a diverse crowd of truly lovely people. We estimate that we must have had nearly 500 people through the shed doors which was many more than we had anticipated. With the little stove burning away combined with our abundance of twinkling fairy lights, the shed really did come into its own, not only was it very magical but it appeared to be quite conducive for a bit of retail therapy. Its unlikely that we will repeat it next year in the same format, simply because of the time commitment. No doubt we will have a cup of coffee sometime in the next few months to explore an alternative because it really was great fun.
Well Christmas has now come and gone, the sheep Hazel and Hyacinth are beginning to look as though they could be in lamb which is great - they are due to lamb on 12th March. Alice is looking very porky indeed even though we have not yet found a boar for her. She is still loving life and spends her days trotting backwards and forwards between us and our neighbours looking for carrots and other veggies.
We made a trip to Thrapston market's Fur and Feather sale yesterday to buy some more Point of Lay hens. It was surprisingly quiet there, but we managed to buy 11 more for between £7 and £8 each which is about the going rate. We introduced them to their new friends and have left them shut up in the coop all day today so that they know exactly where their home is. If you let them roam around immediately, it is always incredibly hard work trying to get them back into the coop at night to roost. We have an awful lot of foxes lurking around at the moment, so we definitely don't want to take any risks.
Looking back over 2013, overall it wasn't too bad a year at all, and as we do every year we are now looking forward to a fresh start in 2014 and improving on whatever we did last year! So cheers to you all and Happy New Year from us all.
(By the way, if you are wondering why we have posted up a picture of our Christmas tree, it is simply because we felt it was the best tree ever and having taken it down today it has left our home looking very bare indeed.)