October almost gone!

Just in time to comment on October before "welcoming" November! Quite a lot of B&B guests to keep us busy and weather not bad on the whole. The main news centres on Cadno - no, not sold yet - but completed his six weeks schooling creditably, very complimentary remarks from all who saw him work. This picture shows him being ridden in the school by a (very competent) 10 year old girl.

Since then he has been shod for the first time today and taken out to join the Vale of Clettwr at their meet at Synod Inn. He thoroughly enjoyed following for an hour or so and took the road work in his stride also - there were lots of firsts on this outing and we are very proud of how he behaved.

Winter can now begin, I have Nigella's latest book Kitchen from the library to browse through - she is the only cookery writer to make me regularly laugh out loud with her no nonsense approach and real love of eating, definitely the Queen of Comfort Food! If you don't believe me try the Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding, we just have and feel very happy!

Clocks go back tonight so brighter mornings for a while but the other end of the day not so good, never mind it's surprising how soon the days lengthen again once we get into January - and of course we have Christmas to lighten the gloom!

Welcome September

July and August passed largely in grey drizzle and yet again the hanging baskets, having lost the will to live, had to be taken down early. However there were two newsworthy items in July, first - the sale of 2yr old Nantgwinau Cadog, closely followed by second - his sire Geler Sparc winning the Welsh Cob Stallion Championship at the Royal Welsh Show! As can be seen in this photo Cadog has settled in well at his new home in Stockport, we look forward to hearing how he develops.






On 1st September 4yr old Nantgwinau Cadno Coch went off to "boarding school" near Newquay to be broken to ride and learn how to behave under different circumstances. It seems very strange without him in the paddock behind the house, always ready with a comment whenever he caught sight of us - usually "isn't it time for tea/breakfast/anything?" He will be advertised for sale again in a few weeks, anyone interested can view him while being schooled by appointment only.






There has been tremendous swallow activity around the house during the past week, the youngsters honing their flying skills at great speed - sometimes unfortunately crashing into the windows and two of them taking a wrong turn through the half door into the kitchen! They must be very close now to starting their journey to Africa, hopefully to return next April. The other excitement in the last few days has been spotting the International Space Station flying overhead, amazing to see this very bright object travelling so quickly across the night sky, only in view for about 5 minutes but well worth standing out in the cold for!

Where did April go?

The wet conditions of March stretched on until Easter Sunday then suddenly changed to sunny days, cold nights, and a brisk wind. Consequently the mud once more quickly became concrete and the grass stopped growing! It was nearly the end of the month before some showers and a slight increase in temperature brought some improvement, but here we are in the second week of May still dishing out hay & hard feeds to all the horses.

20 Years at Pantycelyn!
April 6th was the twentieth anniversary of our move to Pantycelyn and as usual we celebrated with fish& chips from Lloyds in Lampeter - this is because it was the first meal that we had in a very bare & rather cold house, surrounded by boxes waiting to be unpacked! Fairly soon the dining room became a very useful dog-pound and log store - Megan & Floss adapted quickly!

Here is a picture of how the house looked at that time, rather bleak compared with nowadays.



Coming up to date April 22 saw the return of "our" swallows, and the necessity to keep the garage doors shut until they have settled to repairing their old nests in the barn - much diving about and twittering!


So now we are in May, just the other side of an extraordinary General Election and still coping with very unpredictable weather - Global Warming is oddly cold at times!

Nantgwinau Magic & Nantgwinau Rebecca

The old saying about waiting hours for one bus and then two or three come along at once can sometimes apply to horses! Last week, on successive days, came news out of the blue about Nantgwinau Magic (Nebo Magic x Rhandir Farwel Haf) and Nantgwinau Rebecca (Derwen Desert Express x Nantgwinau Rosina) from their new owners. It is always a great pleasure to catch up with the lives of Cobs that we have bred and we look forward to hearing more about both of them in due course. Magic is now 15 yrs old, doubtless very different from the 6 month old foal who left here so long ago, and has only been at his new home in Bournemouth for a few days - we hope that he and Sharon will have a lot of fun together. Rebecca is now 7 yrs old, full sister to our beautiful black Rachel, and has apparently done very well at in-hand showing during 2009 - including 3rd in the barren mare class at the Welsh National Show. Ridden classes are the target for 2010 so we hope for even more success for her with Kelly.


February was quite busy with B&B guests but cold & dry so the signs of spring were very slow, no chance of daffodils out for St David on 1st March, and the ground like concrete! March very soon turned concrete into mud once more unfortunately and having now switched to Summer Time we are told to expect snow this week - Happy Easter everyone!!

Signs of Spring?

Fog and frost this morning - but yesterday the day started with the sight of the sun rising over the Cambrians before 8 a.m. which means that the days are really getting longer at last. Later on our way to the village we spotted snowdrops starting their annual display on the bank by Capel y Groes, and then some lambs in a nearby farm. Having already seen daffodil shoots and primrose plants on the move at home we are beginning to feel quite spring-like!

The Big Thaw

Very pleased to see the end of January, the last post finished rather too optimistically and we had to cope with 8 days of frozen water pipes! The problem proved to be under the road in front of the house, so we just had to wait for the thaw - it was a very great relief to see the fields turning green once more. Now of course we have mud instead of snow & frost but at least we are warmer!
February has brought quite a few B&B bookings including several house hunters so maybe there is an upturn in the market - last year unusually there were none at all.

One of the plus sides of winter horse feeding is being more aware of the bird life around, as well as the odd fox and many rabbits of course. Lately we have seen - and heard! - several large skeins of geese, I think the largest was nearly a hundred birds. Other regulars are ravens passing overhead with their dry "craaak" call, magpies and crows watching from the trees hoping for leftovers, and the much bolder blackbirds & robins hopping about quite close to the feed dishes! Other odd sightings have been: the moon setting in the west just as the sun was rising in the east; and one evening the western sky was a dirty yellow colour while in the east a green moon was rising - very spooky!

Shopping and the Big Freeze

Our first shopping expedition of the year was successful yesterday, albeit somewhat stressful because of the snowy conditions. We had to travel the first one and a half miles down our unsalted lane in first gear until we reached the relatively clear B4337 to Llanwnnen. The A470 into Lampeter was quite good but what a mess on the pavements in town - very pleased to have worn our wellies for this trip! Having restocked for ourselves and the animals we came cautiously home, heaved a big sigh of relief and felt much happier with life - big mistake! This morning we awoke to find that the coldest night of the year had done it's worst and that the mains water was frozen again (see Feb 09). Trying to keep 5 water tanks topped up for the horses is bad enough when constantly having to clear them of ice, but no water available is a real hassle. So tomorrow will hopefully bring 2 men and a machine to re-lay part of the water pipe in a deeper trench!

Still three weeks of January left and more snow and frost forecast - very pretty but the novelty has worn off!

Happy New Year!

Oops - more snow! 2010 started off well on Friday with frost but a cheerful sunny morning, however by about 4pm the snow was settling and carried on into the evening. Not a great depth but not in a hurry to thaw, and the roads treacherously icy. As the forecast is for more cold weather for the rest of the week it looks as though we shall be teetering over frozen fields carrying hay etc for some time to come - ah, the joys of horse-keeping in winter!

Best wishes for 2010 to all our readers!