Friday 17 May 2013

Nothing happenig as such :)

Well since my last blog....not a lot going on lol....though that depends on peoples perspective of course.
Home life has settled back into a routine even with someone else living with us again lol. I think when we got this house we some how knew that even with Kim being disabled our lives will never be our own .....and we wouldnt change that....well most of the time :)
Kim since leaving working for the NHS jumped into so many things since then

Breeding and showing rabbits
playing genetics with 3 new breeds of rabbits
Started a stud of guinea pigs up with her mum
goes to rabbit shows
goes to guinea pig shows
goes to craft fairs
started card crafting
started stamp crafting
made candles
made soap
does craft work shops at home
bakes sour dough bread each day
about to start 4 workshops a week

then on top of that she wants to do material craft workshops and sour dough baking workshops.

How does that effect me....i'm loosing space every where lol....first the garage became hers, then my gardening shed and today i lost my gym. I do have a space in the garage (its called a work bench) and my fishing shed is also the garden shed lol.

Les is back with us again as he has a major operation coming up to correct the work done to his back. His not a problem as he sits upstairs a lot of the time...its when his working on both his cars or going out to work at 6:30 that you know his about lol. Once his operation is done he will stay with us then he will be sorting a place to stay permently.

Chris and Gemma come over most weekends so that we can see Skye as well....well she is maturing in leaps and bounds such an intelligent little girl :) she has certainly changed the lives of her mum and dad lol (definetly for the better).

Michael i think i mentioned has a job now, working for a new Suzuki car dealership and he has a new car (i have yet to see it though) but at least he is working...even if he is still trying to think of money making projects....(selling medical equipement??)

Karley is lovely as ever (cough**) she certainly brings a grin to our faces...even if she does dissapear off with Kim most of the time lol. Her and her mum Julie have been coming over every other friday doing card craft workshops with Kim, Gemma and Laura which has certainly been nice.

Animal wise we have had a few ups and downs :( we lost our last hive of bee's so am waiting for 2 new queens and workers next month so fingers crossed we will be back into honey production for next year :)
Both dogs caused us a few worries especially Megan who developed a mass on her mammery gland had to have it all removed especially as we thought it was cancer :( luckily touch wood results came back negative. As for Hamish he ended up with a skin complaint which meant he ended up on steroids. Cleared up his skin problem lovely....the only problem is we have noticed his bark has got a lot deeper.....
Guinea pigs have taken over two sheds both at kims and her mums lol, some interesting colours and lots of people asking for stock which is nice.
The rabbits have carried on progressing nicely....the Siberians in both lilac and brown, the Hulstlanders we have decided to let go for more room and we even have another 2 breeds lol
If you want to read all about our rabbitry follow the link as it explains all :) http://taraxstud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/welcome.html

Anyway thats it for now at least until next month :)

Monday 1 April 2013

Short and Sweet...

Well the blogs are going to be shorter but hopefully a little more frequent as i have another blog up and running just for Tarax Stud :) I need to check with Kim if she has a blog for her cavies other wise that's going to have to be on here.
I will carry on with home stuff, work, family etc. you know....all the boring stuff lol but we will see what direction this is going to take me....i have some ideas but need the time to keep doing it lol
Anyway a very ubber quick run down of the last month...
Les eldest son has to have another op on his spine looks as though all metal work etc. needs to be taken out and to start all over again...
Chris, Gemma & Skye doing fine...Skye moving forward in leaps and bounds but that's understandable with having parents such as Chris and gem :)
Karley doing ok at topman and her netball :)
Michael's got a new job works for Suzuki auto and has bought himself a new car...(not seen it yet lol)
Kim's getting on with her business although has diverted slightly in to scrap booking with some good ideas in where she wants to take that side of the business (details at a later date)
As for me....work is so so...funding has dried up so may not have a job from July though just heard this week we are putting in a bid for Canvey schools from july :)
I'm off work at the moment as I'm doing jury service....well hopefully spent 2 days last week at the courts only to be sent home....but i still have to go back next week to find out if i am going to be picked for an actual case....fingers crossed :)
 I'm reading a new book on my kindle....not something i would of picked but so far its interesting....as soon as i read it i will comment :)
Music wise i joined Napster and last fm on facebook and downloaded the new Justin timberlake album...again when i have listened to it i will make my comments :)

That's it quick short and sweet which gives me the incentive and direction to take this blog a different route....so lets see what i do next....tc people

Friday 22 February 2013

Teach me not to back up!!!!

Don't you just hate that....spent an hour doing my blog only to LOOSE IT and have to START AGAIN ARGGHH!

sorry lol its worse when you cant remember everything you wrote as well!! well i did think of closing the blog down as i don't write on it much but i need to keep things sane sometimes...and let off steam as well lol so will keep plugging away at it (save) Anyway lets start and try and catch up :) i did think what with the time gap from the last blog that i would have a short novel in the pipe line...but looking at my list i don't think so (phew i hear you all say) but lets see what flows from the pen as they say :) (save)
December
Well December was a good month...very busy but a nice busy...(depending on how you looked at it lol) Kim had officially retired from work to work from home and to make sure she had enough time to make and bake stuff for the Xmas hampers we give out to the family :) well that was the idea but we didn't quite get everything made. Christmas cakes, Christmas puds, short bread, truffles and mincemeat parmias (which were bloody lovely by the way)
she made candles and soaps as well but didn't get time to do the fudges (so looking forward to the sea salt fudge lol). I did my bit and made ginger bread vodka which went down very well (literally) :)
Christmas day had the family come round which we do every 2 years. Gemma, Chris & Skye popped in which was lovely then Kim's mum and dad and the rest of the children came round for dinner. We even ended up with another guest as Kim found out that 1 of Les's house mates had no where to go for Xmas so was was promptly picked up and whisked over. A lovely day.
Turkey was so succulent the bones pulled out as we tried to turn it over lol
 
Table all set :)
 
January


well Christmas was out the way and gave us time to relax a bit, the bees obviously very quiet :) though i did manage to speak to the Maldon beekeepers president to sort out a replacement nucleus for us unfortunately we wont get this until June which means our honey production is going to be slow this year....the plus side is that the chickens are laying like mad lol, easily 8 plus eggs a day....just have to sell them :)
The rabbits have been fine with Kim's lops producing lots of choc tort babies at the moment
Which we are fine with as its the chocolate and lilac varieties we wont in the shed mainly (as well as the black otters lol) but i finally got some Siberians in my part of the shed having 2 lilacs born this month :) hopefully i have another doe ready to give birth later in February so may have a couple more :)
The only others we have are of some F1's which are to help with our Glavcots :)


February
This month was a mixture of good and sad :( a very special lady, my gran Mae Mae as everyone called her passed away...she was 96 which was a fantastic age. Having died in Ireland means the funeral tends to be done rather quickly usually a couple of days so it was a mad rush to sort out getting over there. My son Michael came with me and i met my brother over there; the funeral went really well with a wake after to celebrate her life :) and i got to chat and meet old family members which made it even more special. When i got back, unfortunately i came back to not great news with family members on Kim's side being ill which needs to be monitored over the rest of the the year :( i also find out I'm doing jury service in march and then get a call the same evening i have to go to court as a witness to do with the burglary next door lol.
The other main thing for February was Kim's cavy shed finally being finished and what a great job Bill has done for her :)


If you visit this link you can see the shed being made from start to finish https://sites.google.com/site/kaimykcavies/kims-shed
The only other things to mention is we got ourselves some new toys....Kim's kindle has played up a little so when i saw my brothers kindle fire i mentioned to Kim how good it was so she got us both one (its brilliant by the way) Chris ended up with Kim's old one and i gave mine to Kim's dad. Well worth while getting one as i can read my books, listen to music on my headphones and check face book at the same time on the same device lol. Lastly where Kim's business is at the moment we had to go to the Guild of Essex Craftsmen to a meal and to pick up a certificate for Kim :) the next day we sorted out the garage....which as you can see will not fit a car in...
and Kim's craft room to allow even more room for even more stock...lovely lol
Though i cant complain really as it does help her immensely :). Anyway that's it for now...we have some rabbit shows in March to go to, some news of another new rabbit in the shed (and even more guinea pigs...) but i will save that all for later lol so until then guys...l8rs

Thursday 6 December 2012

Oct/Nov :)

Well its coming to the end of 2012 and as with the last couple of years it has been interesting, busy, sad, funny and as ever...hectic :) most i wouldnt change as there have been some great moments lol. The last 2 months have seen some new changes at 'The Warren' the main one being Kim and her mum joining together to form a stud partnership with their guinea pigs. Kims stock were in the rabbitry but i realised they needed to move else where...so i lost the potting shed :) Kims Dad helped get it ready
Insulation and boarding up first. Then everything was painted which made a big difference straight away with the lighting :)
the difference in temperature was noticable straight away.

The next job was to do the doors, this was to be done by a friend of ours who Kim and Kay have met through the hobby; Bill (both him and his wife breed and show guinea pigs) makes hutch blocks, carry boxes and tables and has been asked by Kim to build her hutch blocks, he also offered to sort out the doors on the front of the shed which were originally big heavy cumbersome sliding doors....and as of now are light easy to use swing doors :) (which helps Kim brilliantly). The Hutches are due to be built later in December so she will have all her guinea pigs in their new homes for the New Year :)
We have been to a few shows where the rabbits are concerned, the best was London Championships of which we took  some mini lops, some Golden Glavcots and some Hulstlanders, Kims mum came with us on the second day to see what it was like with a big show....what a brilliant 2 days and we did ok  with all our rabbits which was a boon :)
This is Daren a very good friend of ours who was judging the Mini lops in the main show

 These are the Swiss fox being judged on the Rare varieties table
 The Glavcots being judged
 This is a swartzgrannen which is an unstandardised rabbit in the UK (possibly a new rabbit in our stud for the future?)
 some other breeds include the Hare
 Other animals were judged at the show as well including Guinea Pigs, Rats, hamsters and mice etc.
 What made the show even better was that it was an agricultural show so there were other things going on such as weird looking ducks
and Pygmy goats to name but a few :)
 
All in all a brilliant time for us. November we went to a few more shows, but for me it was a Rare Varieties Stock show that was to be held in Colchester that was the important one :) We had some very good and old friends come to stay Karen and Jenny from Yorkshire, Peter from Swindon and Judy from Devon a brilliant but tiring weekend lol.
 The Best Rare Variety was a lovely Perlfee of Botany Stud
 Steve Armstrong judging on the day

Another of my favourite people Trina Cook (showing off her new white coat :) ) she was judging fancy and lops.
 
So for the showing side of things we are stopping until the New year as we have Kims Craft Fairs to look at now, that she is a work at home person :) and she wants to promote her business as it will be part of our income to the household. On that side of things our produce has done quite well, all our eggs sell out and we are down to 6 jars of honey due to doorstop sales. The chickens have slowed down considerably on egg production but that is to be expected this time of year, the bee's are my main worry as they have not produced a great deal for themselves to get through the winter so i will have to make up some syrup solution for them or aquire some bakers fondant (probably the later). Hopefully the bee's will kickstart off ok in the spring as our next nucleus of bee's will not be ready until june of next year so honey production will probably be quite low this time :(
 
Other news is more to do with family, evryone seems ok lol just gearing up for xmas really, but i'll save that for the next newsletter :) until then l8rs 


Saturday 6 October 2012

Explanation....

Back! (and so quickly? wow i hear you all say...) well i needed to get back or i would have another senior moment and forget what i was supposed to be doing :)....anyway where were we...oh yes exciting things were starting to happen. After the rabbit show and picking up our new car i think we thought we would have a quieter weekend next time around...Ha! and double Ha! nooo such luck; I'm not sure where abouts i put that we were expecting another grand daughter in September, well we were and Gemma (the mum) was due in Hospital for a C section on the 10th which gave all the family time for a big get together for Kim's mum and dads 50th wedding anniversary on the 8th.
 It was a lovely evening

 Myself and my son Michael (yes he actually came lol)
Kim even got on the dance floor for some wheelchair dancing....except because i forgot to put her stabilisers on and she was dancing with my daughters boy friend and got carried away....her wheelchair tipped over backwards.....she was fine and laughing but its put poor Alex from dancing at the moment lol. Our Grandaughter had decided she did not want to go to the party and poor Gemma went into labour the same day and Skye was born weighing 7lb.
Well that was certainly a hectic weekend 'so thats it then' i hear you say....lol nope :) since then we have had more guinea pigs turn up in the shed (not my idea...)

which meant Kim and her mum wanted to go onto the next stage....showing lol. They took a couple of gp's to kent and came 2nd in both of their classes which was good considering it was their 1st time..
The other peice of news concerned us as rabbit breeders...out of the blue i had an e-mail from a freelance writer wanting to write a piece on rare breed rabbits and how to find them, they used a lot of the wording from our old web site, i sent a few pictures of some of our breeds and hopefully we will see another write up about us and rare breed rabbits soon (will post a link as soon as the pet magazine is printed).
Lastly the explanation of the Ha! caught ya! lol
The last weekend of the month was my birthday....(thank you :) ...what? emm 43...47? okay...52 well anyway on the friday kim and myself were standing in the hall way when next doors house alarm went off about lunch time...well we often have alarms go off by accident and i always stick my head out the door and walk around next doors property just in case....and in this case it was a good idea as 2 men came running around from the side of the property...swore when they saw me then they ran off down the road. I called the Police straight away and luckily though stupidly the burglers had parked their car in the carpark of the nursery opposite who saw the men run in and jump into a car and speed off....not before the nursery people took the make and number plate of the car....the car was stopped 20 mins later and the occupents arrested unfortunetly one item had been stolen but not recovered :( we are hoping with my description and the make and number of the car, results in them going to court. They had broken in but whether it was the alarm or seeing the owners dog that made them panic we wont know at least nothing else was taken or the dog was not hurt.
The next day i did it again and was successfull in helping to corner and catch.....a chicken.....what? chickens can be quite dangerous at times? we had someone knock at the door earlier that day asking if we had lost any of our chickens (which we had not) but i went armed with a box and a fishing net and after battling brambles, nettles all in the dark i captured our new addition to our flock :) so an eventful weekend to finish the month of september off lol. Anyway b4 you go i found a couple of pictures of our new grandaughter Skye....here she is with Nanny Kim at the hospital :)
 and here she is with me at 3 weeks old :)
 

Next month have us going to the 2 day London Championships show so will take pictures etc. for that, Kims going to do a little mentoring with a very nice & polite young man who has just got into rabbits and wants to know about showing and stockmanship of mini lops.....I also have the bee's to sort out b4 winter sets in, so we will see how it all goes :) until then my friends l8rs

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Ha! caught ya!

Wow I just realised how much the title of this particular blog actually means..., I meant it as 'I bet you all thought i was not going to write anything for at least another month or so' comment, which was the original idea but 2 pieces of news for september has it meaning something else as well :) confused? good, you will just have to wait until the rest of the news has been discussed lol.
So what have i to chat about this time :)......bloody loads and its all so different (grin) so like the stories lets begin at the start...of the month.
The first bit of news for September is that it was our wedding anniversary....which i forgot!!!! i never forget!!! so a lot of making up to do (we went out for a meal so dont worry and i got her a coffee machine lol) so just got out of that one but what else also helped was we decided to aquire a new car for Kim (ok so i get to drive it a lot as well!) the thoughts behind it was because of the past few winters we have had here.

I know it doesnt seem much snow compared to some areas around the country or world even


 but with the ice as well as the snow, and now the area we live is a little out the way; journeys to and
from the house are a little shall we say....exciting :) well for me it is as it reminds me of my youth going down the road sideways etc. but for Kim its not great, so we had discussed the possibility of trading in her Mazda 5 for an all wheel drive of some sort. In an ideal world (and lots of money) i would love the Range Rover, BMW X series or the Audi Q series....but trade in for a 10 plate Mazda dont give you much to play with. When buying things i am a stickler for checking stuff especially on the internet, which is how we found our new car, many of the car magazines gave this the top awards for a AWD cross over vehicle, which had us popping over to our local KIA dealer and choosing a new toy
(This is Kim posing by the one she wanted....she wouldn't do a swimsuit job across the bonnet for some reason???)

So here is Kims Essex girl car....which i really like....and considering the cost (you could buy 3 of these for a range rover) has so many extras....which Kim likes to point out....a lot....

Well as soon as we got the car it was straight out to purchase the next thing on the list of things that happened in September (note i said list....yep i did one this time lol) and that was off to pick up some thing for the rabbit shed.....'not more rabbits?' i hear you cry!! 'you said no more rabbits??' yes your correct...no more rabbits...which meant Kim could diverse slightly into...guinea pigs! yes you heard correct, we are now doing guinea pigs....well not me actually (phew) as there not my cup of tea, but Kim and her mum have joined voices...err forces i mean and are breeding and showing together as a daughter and mother team under the name Kaimyk Cavies Kim does Rex's and something else and her mum does other ones (i dont know!! i'm a bloke i switch off when its not something i'm into that much) you can see their stock on their face book page https://www.facebook.com/KaimykCavies or their web page https://sites.google.com/site/kaimykcavies/  i will leave you guys to look at so i dont need to put up any pictures....what?? :)

Ok next on the list was that Kim and myself went to our first rabbit show to show our own rabbits...in 6 years, it was the Kent County rabbit club which is about an hour away and we showed some of our under 5 month rabbits :) well it was a lovely reintroduction back into the 'Fancy' i stewarded on the fur and rex table whilst Kim stewarded (from her chair i might add) the lop table. Kim did really well coping with the show all day (which meant gearing up for london champs show would be ok and our rabbits didn't do to bad either with my glavcots getting best under five fur and 3rd in the challange (dont worry its rabbit show talk lol) then to top it all the lovely people of the rabbit club had us a cake made to say welcome back to the 'Fancy' after our 6 year break....well it caused a few tears lol but it definetly made us feel very welcome :).

The following weekend turned out to be a very hectic weekend but in the loveliest way possible :) it all started a few weeks before when....naaa i'll tell you a bit later...in the next blog....September part II or 'Ha your nicked!.....or 'gotcha!!'.....or 'my life wiv anuver bird'...or...well you get the gist  either way your gonna have to all wait :) l8rs!!

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Bi-monthly?

Sorry everyone when i get caught up in other things i forget the important ones sometime lol, the trouble is i have not written a list (as i usually do) of all the important things that have happened each month....(smack wrist!!) I will try and remember what i can so please except my senior moments if i forget things...i am sure people will remind me later lol. So July...
My mum came over from Ireland which meant we had lots of visitors so that was good....drink, barb-q's and chatting were the order of the day :)
With the school summer holidays i had a chance to do all the jobs i wanted especially with the animals and jobs around the house and garden....which i sort of nearly finished. The first was to clean out the chicken coop and run and aquire new chickens....which we did :)
These are our morans which lay a lovely dark chocolate coloured egg.
These are our Jasmins, they look a littel plain but they lay lovely light blue eggs...quite striking :)
Lastly one of the new brahmas, we bought 3 including a striking sussex colour which unfortunetly died last month. Just as i thought we had enough birds i mentioned to kim the breeder had young buff orpingtons and we ended up with 2 more lol.
August was a crappy month weather wise with the odd sunny day thrown in, with Kims leaving date from working with the NHS looming up we looked at ideas for income...we even purchased a market stall to sell our wares from such as home produced honey, fresh eggs, bagged hay and bespoke crafts
We have signs out the front of the house which look a lot more tasteful than i realised lol
and thats it nothing else for the summer hols :) September is a little different which i will do later...another grandchild, a Wedding anniversary, our 1st rabbit show, guinea pigs and a new car lol l8rs people :)



Tuesday 31 July 2012

June post :)

Time flies when your having fun...not! time still flies even when your not having fun which explained June adequately i think, rain...rain and just to be interesting...more rain OK the garden has never looked so good we have had plants sprouting up and flowering which they never did the last 2 summers the strangest being walnut tree's...and even stranger is the places they have been growing from. Hanging baskets....the back lawn 2 of the raised beds and 2 flower pots? so who ever you are that's planting them you can stop now i have enough walnut tree's thank you!
2 highlights of the month was that we received our new queen for our hive, she came with her entourage of 6 workers and had a lovely yellow disc attached to her back with the number 99 on it...which has been great the few times we have checked the hive as we can spot her straight away :) which with my eye sight has been a boon lol.
The other thing that happened in June was the acquisition of some more rabbits....yes more! well since we got the glavcots and the brown siberian 'sibs' we have fallen for this lovely breed, now ok there is an ulterior motive for them but i will  chat about that another time but here are the pictures :)
these are lilac siberians a wonderful colour, this is the doe Vivienne

and this is the buck Trevor, both of these were aquired through the help of a lovely lady Laurel Benson who informed us that a breeder in Ireland was given up his rabbits due to ill health, well i did have to travel to Grimsby to pick them up from another breeder who brought them over which was great.
This last doe is from Lauren who we have named Lillie, so these are our latest ...and last...additions the the rabbitry...honest...no i mean it....
The last thing that happened in june was my mum came over for a couple of weeks, now straight away i have to thank someone who actually ended up looking after her and having her stay with her own family longer than with me is my ex wife julie and her partner colin....i know i know 'your ex wife' your saying but we have always got on really well even when we parted, my son and daughter stayed with her she met colin i met kim and we get on really well you should of been here for my sons 21st birthday a few years back totally unreal my wife...my ex wife..her partner my ex mother in law my current mother in law, my mum, my wife kims ex husband and his partner, my brother and his family and kims brothers and their families??? and we are all pictured together having a great time lol.....dont know why lol but pretty proud that we all get on ok :) anyway hopefully that explains my ex looking after my mum...it helped us out as Kim and I were both working so mum would of been by her self more often than not if she had stayed the whole time. Anyway it was a great couple of weeks with a barb-b to finish with my brother andy and his wife and 2 girls coming over and staying over night :) so although June was a wash out in many ways it ended up finishing ok :) so that was June i will start on july as soon as possible so until then l8rs .

Thursday 7 June 2012

May part 3 ups and downs

OK here's the last part of the May newsletter :) as you have all more than likely read over my numerous blog posts life at the warren is very busy at times and the month of May has been no different lol. We have Kim's brother staying with us for a while which is always strange when we have someone else living with us.... not that its a problem in anyway its just that i seem to be consuming more alcohol than i used to...well you have to be sociable when you have guests (grin) anyway i digress :) as mentioned in the last blog we have come back into the rabbit fancy with the help of a very good friend Darren, Kim's mini lops are back in the shed with a new project in the pipe line chocolate harlequin's which she is very excited about. As seen in the pictures i have my rare breeds again so looking forward to promoting and working with them :) with more rabbits we obviously needed more hutch space so the last of our hutches arrived mid May and all stock moved to their new accommodations.
it all looks really nice now, although our old shed was brilliant considering we made it entirely from scraps of wood, this is so much easier for Kim...a myself obviously :). The mini lop bucks have the hutches to the right, the does to the left with my rare breeds at the bottom and around the corner. It has an alarm system (came with the shed) extractor fan, automatic pest control and is fully insulated which we noticed helped the rabbits considerably when we actually had some hot weather. So the shed is finished, just waiting for some stock i'm picking up in june for another project in the pipeline (another story...) and litters running on so we can start showing again :).
Our Good friend Darren came over one weekend and ended up watching a scene at the bottom of the garden which made him late getting home lol but he wanted to see the outcome..?? let me explain :)
we have 2 bee hives at the bottom of the garden, both are very different in personalities and production...its my fault as i need to keep a regular eye on them and after our last check and taking away some of the honey we left them to long. With the weather being bad the bee's needed to get out and about....and boy did they, we ended up with a swarm, now not having the space to put it anywhere we called a bee keeper to collect the swarm which he did and i helped him...all the while Kim & Daren sat watching the whole show :) the hive that was causing problems we decided to check and found.....14 queen cells at varying stages including some with queens emerging as we were watching!! Anyway to cut a long story short we sorted the hive leaving one virgin queen behind. The next day we checked the second hive which luckily was ok and only had a couple of queen cells, so that was it....or so we thought, we had another swarm turn up...which wasn't ours and that was duly taken away, the next couple of days Kim, Karl and myself got attacked in the garden where ever we were including the dogs....so on advice we sealed the hive up as we cannot have aggresive bee's in the garden especially with our neighbours and our grandchildren.
They have been persistant buggers and it took over a week b4 we were able to open and clean out the hive ready for next year. So everythings OK you ask me....haa! we checked the other hive to take the next lot of honey...and its queenless no eggs, no brood so we are back to square one lol so today i have ordered a new queen which should turn up tomorrow  and we can start all over again :) so thats part 3 bee problems, lots of rabbits and crappy weather lol but i'm sure June will be something else entirely so until then...l8rs bloggers


Tuesday 29 May 2012

May newsletter part 2 the rabbit side of 'The Warren' household :)

As usual cannot just have a quiet month at The Warren lol...you name it and it seems to happen, animals, people, weather etc. etc :)
So where to start?
Both of us are fine...well just about, Kim and myself decided to watch our health and fitness a little while ago to the point we had someone come over 1 hour a week to help Kim with her fitness and back and me to help with stamina and posture. This has been good except halfway through May she did her back in then when it sorted itself out it went again during the keepfit so we have put the fitness regime on hold for the moment.
Animal wise its been very busy as we went to a few rabbit shows which were fun the 1st was at the Essex Champs
always a show we have supported in the past. This time it was at a different venue which unfortunetly was smaller and a little cramped but still it was a good show, Kim chatted to lots of past friends
what was interesting about this show was that we had some german judges come over and did some judging to the euro standard and obviously saw our rabbits a lot differently in fact put up more of the rare breeds than the standard breeds with sallanders winning best pair and a swiss fox going best in show. The following week we went to the southern champs which was partly to see the show
but it was a nice excuse for Kim to see how the choc tort lops had advanced in type as seen above with a stunning mini of Stephanie Chambers :)
We hung around to see the end of the show but the main reason for going to the show was for me to pick up a stud of rare breed rabbits. I was contemplating starting with a new breed of rabbit and was seriously thinking of the deilenaar but saw an advert of a breeder forced to give up all her animals including a stud of Glolden Glavcots...knowing there were only 3 breeders in the country with these rabbits I did not want to see them lost so arranged to take the rabbits off the breeders hands. They are a lovely breed, delicate in bone timid yet friendly nature looking very similair to wild rabbits.

one litter even had a fostered english lop
I've also got a real character of a buck that came with the stud, a siberian which is used to help keep the colour within the breed
everyone has fallen in love with his personality one i will be keeping for a very long time his coat is lovely for a fur breed and his 5 years old :) other new additions include some Hulstlanders which i got from Harry Arnold and Trina Cook
These are a breed a did a long time back and are basically a blue eyed white rabbit

Lastly another breed of rabbit we did a long time ago...Hemp a perlfee from Botany stud :)
 Ok with so many pictures i am finishing this particular blog but I still have other pieces of information to add so i will make up a 3rd blog of the last few items....swarms....hutches and bad bee's lol so until then have a good week guys :)