A Duck's Diary from the Jinney Ring Craft Centre

Just some of the stuff that I see here!



Sunday 29 April 2012

"School" Ducklings and a Hand-Fasting Ceremony!


News just in from Hanbury First School - the Reception class have now hatched 4 of the 7 eggs they were incubating for us and have a clutch of gorgeous ducklings.....


In true Hanbury School style they have named them all, they are Sonny, Cher, Elvis and Ringo!  Me thinks that the names may be influenced by someone a bit older this year !  (Last year we had Rosie and Jim - who are both still doing very well in the garden here).  Apologies for the pictures being rotated -- could not get my beak sorted to change them round - just thought you could move your head as they are lovely photos.....

The children will look after the ducklings for a while and we are likely to have them back with us in the garden at the end of May -- just lucky for them they are not here today with the wind blowing a gale!

Talking of gales - a small marquee/tent was put up in the garden on Friday so we knew something was going  on on the weekend.  It turned out to be a pagan "hand-fasting" ceremony.  Ella and Steve wanted to formally make lasting vows and celebrate their engagement here, so organised a ceremony which would have been in the gardens if the weather had been better.  All was not lost though, the conservatory was cleared out of furniture and the ceremony was held there instead.  It was a lovely ceremony with some brilliant costumes and heartfelt words.  Here are a few pictures:


The Priestess calling on the Elements to bless the Hand fasting
Ella and Steve are now "Handfasted" (engaged)
Proof that they have made their vows.

Friends participated in the ceremony
The menu for the evening was especially designed to have a medieval theme and had "pottage" and a "three-bird roast" included (not too keen on this last one myself!), as well as harvest mead to drink.
The whole thing was really lovely as well as great fun!.

There is plenty of planning afoot at the moment with a very busy couple summer planned -  lots of discussion this week about the forthcoming wedding fayre (27th May) and the jubilee events - not only are the gardeners working (against the weather) to create a patriotic theme but there is a High Tea planned (3rd June) and Hanbury Village has a barn dance and beacon all going on here on the 4th June.

Sunday 22 April 2012

Children Children everywhere.....!


I overhead a discussion amongst the staff today that the Jinney Ring had it's first ever low grade review on Trip Advisor with the reviewer saying that we are not good for 'a family day out' -- they should have been here this weekend - we have have children doing all sorts of things and there are lots of them.


Firstly there was a pottery birthday party in the courses room for Georgia and her 11 friends - looks like they were concentrating hard on their art above, then today children are being invited to make crowns and do some more pottery in one of the craft units to celebrate St Georges Day. We are seeing lots of lovely crowns in the garden.

Luke giving us his best "King" face!

Mollie and her mum - she worked really hard on her lovely crown
This afternoon there is another children's party here too - a chocolate party run by the Chocolate Deli - we see lots of these children come out smiling with very brown faces, and it is not paint!

Apart from the children it has been a busy week with the arrival of some more ducklings -  these ones were rescued by a kind lady in Inkberrow who found them on the road where their mother had been killed by a car.  The ducklings are all Mallards and are tiny - they have now been safely housed with our other duckling and he/she is happy to have the company. They are in the garden pen but spending a lot of time under the lamp at present as the weather is a bit chilly still.  We have lots more eggs about to go in the incubator next week so should have some mixed and white ducklings in about a month.  The crows are sadly still about so are taking a most of the eggs before we can sit on them!

Nancy - 84 pots in and very tired!
Nancy the potter has also had a busy weekend, she has been throwing a huge number of pots!  Nancy committed to throw 100 pots in one day (yesterday) and finally got there quite late in the evening, she is happy though as she raised quite a lot of money for her daughter's charity work in Africa. (Dig Deep)  http://www.jinneyring.co.uk/acatalog/The-Big-Throw-.html 

Despite the fact that Nancy was doing all this work in a unit at the front of the site we know all about what she is doing, as we have been spending a lot of the time in the car park lately and have also been venturing out onto the road as well -- for some reason, we keep getting shooed back into the gardens and signs have gone up 'warning' people to be careful about us -- I don't really get this, we are just interested in what is going on -- and if we stop the traffic in the process, is it a big problem???

We are just interested!

Sunday 15 April 2012

Look out Sandals Villas!

A bit of a bleak time this week sadly, the two new ducklings, who arrived a week or so ago, went out into the pen (inside a small fully wired cage) but sadly some very nasty creature got into the area in the night and managed to kill the yellow duckling through the cage.  We were all very sad about this and Mick, the Site Manager, has been tracking the culprit down to stop it coming back again.


In the meanwhile the other duckling has been coming out during the day and is then taken in again at night just in case!  The new duckling has fortunately got a bit a company in the pen, during the day, as the miniature "Silver Appleyard"  female ducks have been having a bit of a rough time in the open garden (during the mating season), so have asked to come into the pen for a rest, (yes, really)!  You can see one above where her head is recovering.  She is pictured with the new duckling, who is growing fast, they seem to be getting on just fine - let's hope it turns out to be a female, we have a few too many males at the moment!

The other bit of surprising news is that the remaining eggs in the incubator have not hatched out and therefore ducklings that we normally see now are just not around. This, alongside the fact that the crows are stealing our eggs before we get chance to sit on them, is causing some consternation.  I hear that there are now plans a foot to set some more eggs in the incubator next week so, webbed feet crossed ,we will see a new brood soon.   Also this week we had a new duck house arrive on the pond -- this one is on stilts and sits on the water -- to stop the crows walking in -- it is a deluxe villa (Sandals watch out!) and we have all been fighting about it - but as you can see from the egg in it, it has already found a new tenant!


We have had one grown up new addition this week too, a new female white duck arrived with tales of the fox absconding with her companions from her old home - she was a bit traumatized but has settled in here fine now, her owners thought it would be kinder to have her join our crowd.

As it has been Easter holidays we have had plenty of children visiting us this week and plenty of corn too.  There have been Mosaic and Pottery classes on site for the them.  There has also been plenty going on in the gardens getting ready for the red white and blue theme for the diamond jubilee and the Olympics later in the year - rumour has it that the glass blower has been making something new for it too!
 

Saturday 7 April 2012

2012 New arrivals

3 days old
The first of this year's brood have arrived -- 2 early hatchers appeared from the incubator this week, both are from white ducks but as you can see have mixed parentage!  The dark duckling has a lot of yellow on his/her underside so will be an interesting mix as it grows up.  They were out in the garden yesterday under lights to keep them warm but as they are only 3 days old they are being well looked after and have not come out today as it is a bit wet and miserable, we hope to see them again soon.

Yesterday we had the West Midlands Search and Rescue team here with their Ambulance and life boat - they talked to lots of people to show what they do, covering both land and water rescues.    They are a charity so always need funds to ensure that they can keep their equipment up to specification to react when needed (they helped out when Upton got flooded I heard them say).http://www.wmsar.org.uk/cms/index.php

There have been a lot of people around so far this Easter weekend - some of the visitors are new to the centre and have come to the Vintage Steam Gathering that is on down the road on the B4090 Droitwich road Junction on the way here.  We are expecting a busy day tomorrow too and the restaurant team have carvery lunch on until 4pm.

Monday 2 April 2012

Go Walkies ....

We had another glorious day in the gardens yesterday and there were loads of people here .... and dogs!

A lot of the dogs were pretty well trained, which is just as well as they are off to become guide dogs themselves at some point but there were also some "characters" out as well, so we received a fair amount of "attention" at times -- fortunately they were all on leads so nothing serious.  The dogs took their handlers off on one of 3 walks from the Jinney Ring gardens - the longest was 6.75 miles and is the new Hanbury Circular Walk.   The shortest was about half a mile and then there was one about 3 miles long - something for everyone.  They all looked pretty tired when they got back but raised nearly £400 for the charity.

Big Dog !

Pretty tired out!
Generally we managed to have a very pleasant day and of course had plenty of corn given to us despite the dogs trying to steal our show, we will of course be quite happy to see them again next year!  Guide dog pups Lola (who we met a month or so ago) and Marley a regular visitor here for events both came along too, we will have them trained up soon but at the moment they do want to play!

We managed a snooze every now and again!
Bit of light hearted levity at lunchtime today -- an unexpected visit from the Bromsgrove "Red Hat" ladies -- great to see them - they always seem happy and full of fun, we love having them here...


Also today in the gardens we had our first Bride and Groom of the year -- they are eating as we "quack".  Donna and Khalil got married in Pershore this afternoon and are having a private party here this evening, they look lovely, if a little chilly at this point (below) - gosh how the weather has changed since yesterday.  Not only is their wedding day today but it is also it is Donna's 30th Birthday -- quite a celebration.

Donna and Khalil



The restaurant all ready for the wedding breakfast