Spider at three months old

We have been cubbing again with Frog, Harry and Dove. We have got a new girl called Amy helping us part time with the horses as poor Georgia had a fall whilst she was working in a flat yard during the Summer and has hurt her knee rather badly. Amy seemed to get on well with Dove, and although Dove had a few stubborn moments, she seemed to enjoy herself. It was a great morning and the hounds worked really well. The Bicester supporters are very friendly and have made us feel most welcome.

Amy is going to be helping us break in the youngsters next week. We bought Spider in for a bit of handling yesterday and she was a real handful. She is rather feisty and has 'attitude' in abundance. The sooner we start handling and breaking in the others, the better...

Doug is very excited because he has finished the eco-shower and toilet at the Shepherd Hut. He has used an Australian design for heating water, called a 'hot water donkey' which he used for shearers when there was no electricity. He made a miniature version out of an empty calor gas bottle to hold the water and a cut away dustbin to light the fire in. It looks a bit 'Heath Robinson' but works really well -we tried it out last night and it was fantastic, it only took 20 minutes to heat up and used very little wood, the shower was just the right pressure and there was something rather satisfying about using water that you had heated up yourself - small carbon footprint and all that!