Living through the second bleak ‘pandemic year’ in succession hasn’t been easy, although it was great to have some respite during the warmer months when most of our customers were able to travel again and brought their cats to the cattery for us to look after. We’ve had some fabulous guests, ranging from friendly domestic shorthairs and regal Siamese to fluffy Ragdolls and their opposite numbers, the Orientals with very little fur, but playfulness in abundance. We even have regular visits from a cute little black and white cat who has her own Instagram account with many followers.
We’ve worked hard on the gift shop – George has made some gorgeous wooden bread boards and decorative plaques and Annie’s been decorating shopping bags using her professional embroidery machine. We’re sourcing gifts from ever wider locations, with costume jewellery and eco friendly soap dishes from America being some of our latest acquisitions. We’re gaining a good understanding of the things our customers like and have built up a core of regular shoppers who come back time and time again for our quirky, well priced gifts. Thank you!
George has built a smart wooden drink and snack kiosk and we plan to develop and improve the area around the car park over the next few months to allow customers, walkers and cyclists to visit the shop and enjoy a piece of cake and a drink. Once again we’ve had great success selling our traditional holly wreaths (from the kiosk) and have exciting plans next Christmas to offer evergreen wreaths as well.
Hannah has all her vegetable seeds, ready to sow to provide food for next year. We also hope to offer bedding plants and planters from late Spring onwards.
With the now yearly advent of bird flu, the hens are over wintering in the poly tunnel to keep them safe. Sadly, we lost our bachelor group of cockerels to a fox which came one morning and scaled the fence, which we had always believed to be fox proof. It was a sad day, and we could only be thankful that our ducks escaped, even the one with angel wing who cannot fly.
On November 5th we put our Ryeland ram, Archie, into the field with the four Ryeland ewes and he seemed keen to do the job he’d been brought in to do so we’re hoping for lambs in the Spring. Tiny Hugo and Cammo, the Ouessant wethers, are living happily in the sheep poly tunnel with Benji the VBN wether, until Archie returns from his stint with the ewes.
We managed to get another mobile field shelter for the ponies in the top part of the field – the windiest spot – and they’ve taken to it well, rarely returning to their other mobile shelter lower down the field. Nelly is rugged up when it rains, but the mini Shetlands, Betsy and Dilly, have grown enormously thick coats that keep them cosy in all weathers, even snow.
Of course, there has been much more happening than I’ve got time to write about, but I hope you enjoy this little selection of photographs that give a flavour of the past year at Foxglove Farm. Happy New Year to you All from Annie, Hannah, Tony, George and all the animals xx
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Happy New Year Everyone, from Annie, Hannah, Tony, George and Tim (who has no idea he’s going to end up on the Blog, wearing the glasses that George made for him to celebrate the arrival of 2022) xxx
Foxglove Farm 
So pleased you had a good year despite the difficulties. X
LikeLiked by 1 person