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
