Pompadour

Tuesday 15 February 2011

At work our stallion Tom went off last week to the National Stud at Pompadour, as they wanted him to be shown off to prospective customers at a couple of shows - if you like horses have a look at him, I think he is gorgeous. Here is a link to a video of him taken on Saturday which is on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhDPcB7THw

Work continues on the workshop and the concrete base is now down and we can get a better idea of the space. It looks huge, but I'm sure Neil will need every inch of space to work with the sometimes huge sections of wood he uses. In fact he has put a strategically placed window in the plan, so that the wood can be passed out of it if he needs to pass it through one of the woodworking machines.
Talking of machines the value of the right tool for the right job was bought home to us a few days ago when our dutch friend came over to sort out our fence lines. With a tractor with huge spikes on the front, another huge machine that mashes everything up and a chain saw they went around our entire field clearing and sawing and managed to transform the land and refence it in two days. It would have taken us months, and we now have a lot of wood to burn which is fantastic.
The recent sunny weather has fooled one of our hens into thinking it was Spring and time to go broody - so we had to find someone with some unrelated fertilised eggs to put under her. Some neighbours of Keith gave us some eggs and we ended up coming home with a lovely new hen too as they wanted to reduce their flock. It was good timing for us after having lost a few to the fox.
I'd love to breed some geese this year, so that is my next project. I'm going to have to use some electric fencing to fox the fox but the plan is to breed enough to supply a few friends for Christmas lunch.

12 comments:

  1. The stallion is beautiful, the lighting is a bit strange but I presume he is dark grey. What breed is he?

    My mother had geese and she said never again, they made such a mess. They happily walked over her verandah, messing as they went and if the door was open they would be in the house like a shot :)) Diane

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  2. He is KWPN (Dutch warmblood) cross Anglo Arab and he is mostly dark grey but with a fair few chestnut hairs in too, not quite a roan, but not quite gray either - but really striking in the flesh.
    You are right about the geese being messy, well they will be if they are anything like ducks - hence me wanting to get the fencing right!!!
    hope you are well, not long for you to go now xxx

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  3. Thanks for the info Roz, there are so many breeds in Europe that I never knew about in Africa. As you say he is very striking. I am still counting weeks at the moment but soon it will days :)) Diane xx

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  4. It will soon go Diane and it will be time to start digging the garden!! :0) xx

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  5. I can't get the link to work...probably something I've done or haven't as always!

    I had geese...very messy indeed but well worth it.
    I'd like to have them here, too, but the price of a pair is astronomical, so I'm waiting to see if a neighbour's fertilised goose eggs coincide with one of our ducks going broody....otherwise it's an incubator, but the only ones I can find for sale are big commercial thingies.

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  6. You need to copy and paste the link Helen if that helps - I'd love to see some photos of your place - I must check out your new blog to see if there are any, it sounds facinating. Is there such a thing as ebay in Costa Rica? Just thinking about your incubator xx

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  7. The local version of eBay is Mercado Libre...in which eBay is a major shareholder...ML runs right through Central and Latin America.
    It's where I found the big incubators!
    Also, faced with needing an oven and finding that the American style stuff generally on offer here just does not cut the mustard...can you imagine why the grill would be UNDER the oven....in what I thought was a plate warming rack until I got down on the floor to look at it properly, I found a 'proper' oven in ML for a fraction of the price of those in the upmarket shops..

    I'll do the copy and paste...I really am non intuitive when it comes to computing...

    I'll put up some pictures in the next post...

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  8. Thanks! I'll look forward to them xx

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  9. I got the link...isn't he a handsome boy!
    They're horse mad here, so I'll be showing his pics to friends.

    I've put up some pics taken by our Belgian friend...just a non touristy few of the walk into town.

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  10. Thats great - I'll take a look!xx

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  11. once you start with geese
    you'll fall in love with them! believe me

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  12. I hope so John, I will admit to being slightly wary of them having met an aggresive one once but I will learn to handle them I am sure!!

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