A Duck's Diary from the Jinney Ring Craft Centre

Just some of the stuff that I see here!



Sunday 30 June 2013

Birds of a different feather!



It is positively 'raucous' in the garden at the moment with the, now young adult, ducklings demanding food of everyone that comes into the garden - they have no manners at all and seem to think humans are just here to feed them!  The worrying thing is that there are more little ones coming through, some 'teenagers' on the water pen and now some new ducklings in the pen (above).  The ones above are 'interlopers' as they are new breeds, 3 'magpie' ducks (as their name suggests these will be black and white when fully grown) and 3 Cayuga ducks which will be blackish green.   There are two white ones keeping them company too and one of these seems to have a crest, which is great!  Four of these ducklings where incubated and hatched by the reception class at Hanbury School - they do a very good job and the children do love them so.

Sadly the little duckling with the bad feet (in the last entry) did not make it, he was doing well but fell over backwards in the night and could not right himself so got too cold, we were very sad about this but hopefully we have learnt a thing or too about fixing feet.

The Centre and garden have been pretty busy this week, lots of new visitors too.  Today there was a chocolate party going on, and in the week the Pottery had a Raku firing evening for their class, this is done in outside in a big dustbin, all pretty exciting!

One bit of very sad news though, we heard that Mary, one of the regular amateur artists from the Thursday Art Circle has just passed away - we will miss her very much.  

The Art Circle are going to be on TV soon - we have the team from Escape from the Country filming here on Tuesday and they have been asked to be in the background.  I expect we will see them out in the gardens too - especially my crested friend who is so photogenic!

Sunday 23 June 2013

A bit of a catchup - some happy some sad!

We have been a bit lax on the quacking front in the last couple of weeks, so this is by way of a catch up of what has been going on....

Firstly Joanne and Phil - a lovely small wedding in our own garden marquee.  This lovely couple have been visiting us regularly in the gardens for sometime now so we feel that they are family now.  They decided to make sure that their wedding day would be intimate and memorable, they had only close friends and family to the wedding and decided that the gardens here were worth the weather risk -- and it paid off.  The day was super with sunshine all day.  They arrived to the sounds of the live string trio playing in their own private area and small marquee.  It was all idyllic!

Phil and Joanne - On the Swing seat next to the Jinney Ring itself
 Food was served in the marquee form their own menu and the cake was especially made to their specifications.
JR Garden Marquee was just right for a small wedding.

BMW wedding car - had been in the paint shop!
Next up we had the first of two, now well established, pudding nights - this was very well attended and looking through the window everyone looked very happy indeed with the menu - unfortunately none for us!

News of the pond is a bit mixed --- We have another couple of broods of ducklings in the pen, one lot are now out on the pond with the newest ones still under the light to keep them warm.  Of the newest ones there are some speciality breeds, including a Magpie duck and a Cayuga.  We also hear that there are more to join them next week as Hanbury School have hatched some successfully too.  One little duck out of this hatch is a bit disabled and has been hatched with curled toes - (s)he has not made it to the garden yet as they are trying to straighten the toes so that he can walk (he is wearing cardboard shoes at the moment, not sure if it will work yet though!).  

The really sad news is that the big Pekin duck (Jim) has died this weekend - he has not been right since the fox attacked him a few weeks ago - it had already made away with his mate, so he was also lonely, we think. We think we have some of his offspring in the new batches of ducklings so he has left a legacy, but we are all very sad!

We also witnessed something else amiss this week - the Craft Centre sit on mower was stolen right from under our noses in the middle of the night, sadly we could not raise the alarm to get the humans to stop it.  The mower was wheeled up the field alongside the gardens and taken through the footpath gate - disgraceful behaviour, if we could have pecked their eyes out I would have done!  These are people who are not welcome to the gardens ever.  

In the field we have another 6 cows, they seem younger and are being shown the ropes by the others, this is well worth watching.  Talking of worth watching - The Jinney Ring, featuring yours truly and my duck colleagues were on TV again last week C4 "Compare Your Life" http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od/catchup/date/2013/06/13/ -- it is never dull here!

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Wedding, Pippins and Weather

Summer is always such a great time here in the gardens, we see so much going on and love the activity.

In the last couple of weeks it has been particularly busy with a big wedding on Bank Holiday Sunday and then a charity day on the Monday.

Rachel and Shane and their families have been visiting us a for while now and planning their marquee wedding.  In the two weeks leading up to the big day we were getting a bit concerned about the weather but crossing our webbed feet seemed to have worked and the day was gorgeous (but walking was hard!).

Shane, Rachel and Rachel's parent caught in between formal shots - Mum is never off guard though!
The bridal party arrived at about 4pm in two fantastic cars A Rolls Royce Phantom and Jaguar, (they had been married in their local church in Dudley).    Local Flutists - "Champagne Flutes" played beautifully outside in the gardens during their welcome drinks and canapes.There was also a chap drawing cartoon pictures of the guests - everyone seemed to like them too. They moved inside for dinner at about 6 o clock.  The sun was going down and was shinning into the marquee which was opened up so we could see the proceedings nicely - all very civilized with some lovely speeches at the end. Cake cutting and dancing followed
Champagne Flutes

It was a lovely day and better still they did not forget us - all of the bridesmaids had duck food for favours - so we got our wedding breakfast too!

Not quite as good as wedding cake but still appreciated!
The following day we had a lot more visitors - the local nursery Pippins (one of the JR charities for 2013) ran a fun day called "Laugh with Pippins" .  Magic Russ came along and did a great show for the kids, there were pony rides, bouncy castle and all sorts of garden games.  In the evening the laughing continued to comic Mick Martin, however this was not as well attended as the organizers had hoped.  




Half term followed and the rain came - by the time we saw the children that week they were a bit stir crazy and needed to run about --- we stayed on the water, until they brought out the corn!