August - the Story so Far.

Year to date, we have had 35 campervans and motorhomes visit Frugaldom for overnight stops, each leaving their £5 in the box or paying via our PayPal QR code at a cost of 15p per transaction to ourselves. Several of our lovely visitors stayed for a couple of nights or else left a small donation in the honesty boxes, which is always a huge help when animal feed costs so much.

Willowby, Lemony and Blue

Towards the end of July, the first of the rescued foals, who are now 5-year-olds, went off in a hired horsebox after a 2-hour training session, initially heading for Darcy's Equine Assisted Therapy Centre in Strathaven. However, there was a slught deviation to that plan in that Blue shoud have gone with him but got left behind as he was too upset about being shut in the horsebox. 

BB Dobin in the horsebox

The driver then decided he wanted to take baby Dobbin home with him, as he had really 'fallen for the little fellow', or words to that effect. So now we have 3 youngsters left at Frugaldom and none has made it to Darcy's so far. However, baby Dobbin WILL still be goung to Darcy;s, hopefully this week. More on that soon - we now need to find an extra £315 to cover the costs of services provided by Nutmeg Equine Transport so I have launched a flash fundraiser to help cover these extra costs. 

If you can help out at all, you can find the Frugaldom fundraising page here.

The wildlife visits have been frequent and eventful, with what we think is now 9 badgers in Clan MacBrock. The youngest cub is a real cheeky character, always making a mess and causing chaos on te deckings by tipping up bowls and overturning the feeder boxes.

Badgers by the gate

The fox cub has now met the badgers after a brief altercation that was, luckily, caught on camera. You can see this and many more brief video clips on the Frugaldom YouTube channel.

Vincent Van Goat remains alone since the sad demise of his friend, Goatis Redding. We are open to rehoming a goaty companion for him, nanny or wether, but we need the goat to be tagged and registered accordngly with an approporiate movement licence issued.

The Sand Pit

Our August targets included moving ponies to Darcy's, making a sandpit suitable for Vincemt Van Goat and Ginger rolling in and getting the pond area improved. All of the above are underway, with the sand pit now completed, at a total cost of £115, and one side of the feeder pond partially fenced at a cost, so far, of around £40. The pond, itself, is being gradually cleared of duckweed, thanks to willing members donning waders and playing in the mud. The pond is alive with newts and frogs so great care is being taken while working painstakingly around these. 

We are currently awaiting the delivery of wooden boards for completing windbreak fencing around Vincent's house and finishing a bit more fencing. We were lucky enugh to source several loads of wood/tree chippings, which have been laid out around the orchard wildlife garden as temporary paths, The raised beds finally got refilled with top soil for planting some vegetables and this week will see the arrival of Harvey's next Ecoarts creation - The Four Horses of Frugaldom: Truth, Honesty, Integrity and Respect. All going well, these should be installed in a corner between the pony track nearest Vincent Van Goat's run.

More news soon - it takes sunshine to recharge the batteries for laptop and mobiles,