chicks

This morning one of our chickens who has been missing for a month arrived home with 8 little fluffy chicks, mum chicken is very proud of herself.

swim

Frank Chalmers, the man who tried to swim accross the pentland firth 2 years ago, he left from the rocky shores of South Ronladsay and was to land on the rocky shores of the mainland of caithness, he swam for 7 hours and the at the last miniute the tide changed and took Frank further away from from the coast of scotland so he didnt quite make it as to qualify for the guiness book of records you had to go from shore line to shore line.Frank stayed with us for a month in our mobile home, with a camera crew filming his everey move. A dvd was produced about Franks trip called Crossing Hells Mouth, this is also to be shown on the 3rd August on TV on BBC4.Frank returned again last week to try the swim again, this time he was within 1 mile of the scottish mainland before the tides changed again and carried him further out to sea. Frank is going to try again 1 more time this week providing the weather and tides are good. You can see a clip of Frank on You Tube.or buy the DVD from Meerkat productions.

North Ronaldsay lamb

monday 19th july, today our little North Ronaldsay Tads had a little baby girl, called Maria, jasmine who was on holiday staying in the caravan named her.Maria is very small but very cute.

Animals

All the animals are doing very well, the bigger of the ducklings have now moved up to the big pond, to be with the adult ducks, they are enjoying swimming in the big ponds.
The ducklings in the shed have now moved to the paddock outside the cottage and are loving been spoilt with titbits by everyone that is staying in the cottage.

The sheep are waiting to be sheared, after all the rain we have to wait for their wool to dry, hopefully it will be soon as they are very warm.All the lambs are growing very fast and some of them are huge.

Eddie and Bertie the foals from last year are now in training for the shows, they have to learn to walk properly on a lead rope,get used to having their feet checked, and generally behave(which is difficult when you are just 1 year old)Claire and Grace are busy every night brushing the boys to get their coats looking nice.
The first show they will be going to is 11th august (Hope Show) and then on the 14th August is the big county show. Prince Erland (the foal) is getting very big, hes a real cheeky monkey.