Disney & Pixar

Disney and Pixar are our first pygmy goat twins to be born at Hill Top. They were born on the 20th of January, 2015. We purchased our first pgymy goats, Bracken and her twins Sasha and Brando, in 2010. Now we have our own little herd of seven, plus the twins. Pygmy goats originated in the Cameroon Valley of West Africa. They became popular in the 1950s. They are extremely friendly and make excellent pets. You can learn all about pygmy goats at www.pygmygoatclub.org.uk  where you can find all the information you need.

Narnia - our beautiful snowy owl.

You will recall that one of my last blogs in 2011 showed Narnia, the small, grey, fluffy baby snowy owl, who was running around in the house. Well Narnia has turned into a beautiful, beautiful snowy owl, who is absolutely besotted with Ross. These pictures say it all!

Kolo

Last July Ross bought his first ever little dog, a cockapoo puppy, who he named Kolo. I was bitten by a Red Setter when I was a teenager and was very reluctant to have a dog, although I grew up with family labradors when I was a child. Roy's parent owned kennels, so he was very happy to have a dog.However, after much nagging and persuasion from Ross, we took the plunge! Gosh, I have to say that Kolo has turned out to be a wonderful addition to our family here at Hill Top. Having a puppy is just like having a child. She is full of fun and has fitted into a regular routine. She is always so happy to see everyone and loves helping with the animal feeding routines in the evening. We are so lucky to have so much land and she enjoys running around the lake, exploring the fields and loves to watch the pygmy goats. How could anyone not love this little dog!!

We're back and blogging again!

It occurred to me that the blog has not been written for a long time and that it was time to start again. So much has happened since I last wrote, but I thought it would be good to start with a beautiful picture of the lake on this cold frosty morning. The geese are swimming around in a small patch which is the only part of the lake which is not frozen.

The geese returned in December last year - very early as they haven't arrived until the end of January or beginning of February over the last couple of years, but we are very happy to see and hear them again. Two have been on the island and will no doubt be preparing to make their nest some time soon.

The moor hens are busy dashing around and the ducks too. 

It's good to be back and sharing Hill Top Tails with you. I'll update you again tomorrow.

www.hilltopholidays.co.uk

Keep warm! Kaye

Narnia

Hello! Two week's ago Ross and Roy went up to Bristol to pick up the new addition to Hill Top. He is named Narnia and is a beautiful baby snowy owl. He was just two week's old when we bought him and is now four week's old. He was a ball of fluff when we picked him up, but is now losing his fluff, and his feathers are beginning to come through. Narnia is absolutely gorgeous. Ross is hand rearing him and as he is on his school holidays he is able to spend a lot of time bonding with him. He is very tame and even passing a ball backwards and forwards. He is a real joy to watch and is changing every single day. We hope you enjoy the pictures. More Hill Top Tails tomorrow!

The Finished Thing!

Hello! Following on from my previous blog, I'm now posting some pictures of the finished lake. It has been a brilliant experience from start to finish. It was such a muddy mess to start with and we just really couldn't imagine how lovely it would be when it was finished, but believe me it has been fascinating to watch it change every single day. The Canadian Geese are lovely and we have been so lucky to keep them all. It looks so perfect, as if it has been there for ages! Hope you've enjoyed the pictures, we'll post a few more over the next couple of days. All the animals are good. Rossi has been flying Mars this evening and the pgymy goats are enjoying being out in the sunshine, in the field again.


More Hill Top Tails tomorrow. Goodnight!

SHE IS BACK!

Hello everyone! We are sorry that we haven't written our blog for such a long while, but as you will see things have been really busy here at Hill Top. In January we started digging our conservation lake.

It was finished and had filled up by the end of February - it was just amazing how quickly it filled, but we had drained the field into the lake and before we knew it the landscape had changed for the better! But the most exciting thing of all, was that as soon as the lake had filled we had a pair of Canadian Geese come to live on Owl Island (named after the island in Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin, and very appropriate as the two owls fly around it every evening).

Even better than that, six week's ago they had five little goslings. It's just wonderful to watch them every day. They are really growing now and are even getting brave going out onto the lake on their own. We hope you like the attached pictures of the lake being constructed. Tomorrow I will show you picutres of the completed lake and the geese. Thank you for reading - it's great to be back!

Mars - Flying beautifully again!

Hi everyone! We hope you are all enjoying your summer holidays. We have been really busy here at Hill Top. Following the event the with fire engines, Mars was not a happy Harris Hawk and it has taken him quite a while to want to fly again. However, he is fully back to normal now and flying beautifully. He's such a beautiful bird and it's a real joy to watch Rossi flying him.
Back more tomorrow with more Hill Top Tails. Take care till then.

Anyone for Camping?

Hello and welcome back! Hasn't the weather been great - we have been busy here, but thought it was time I posted you another blog! Our oldest son Dave is going camping with his girlfriend Jess and they are taking Greg and Jess's sister Jo. They had a trial run at putting the tent up, which had us in hysterics, but once they had managed to get the tent up (which was no easy task), the next mission was to get it back in the bag! Dave, Jess and Greg were determined to get the tent back into the bag it came in! Greg as usual had to include his unicycle and he was struggling not to tip over backwards with the weight! Perhaps you can pick up some tips, just in case you go camping! Greg really looks the part.

More Hill Top Tails tomorrow. Thank you for reading our blog. Goodnight.

Unicycle Mad!

Hello, welcome back to Hill Top Tails. You will be pleased to know that Mars has settled down again after his episode on Saturday! Our Greg is just Unicycle mad. He rides his unicycle absolutely everywhere and has done so, since he had it as a Birthday present,almost two years ago. He was so determined to learn to ride it. He practised constantly until he got the hang of it and hasn't stopped unicycling since. He goes miles on it and is even talking about doing a unicycle ride for charity. Whatever he does and whatever he is doing he uses his unicycle to do it. This evening he was collecting the broom to go and sweep out the pgymy goat area and I caught him on the video! I thought you might like to see it.

More Hill Top Tails tomorrow. Thank you for reading our blog.

Large Elephant Hawk Moth

Hello! Firstly, thank you to Dan Holdsworth for giving us the following information about the moth Rossi found: -

"That's a Large Elephant Hawk Moth; there's nothing else in the UK that looks at all like that species. They're not at all uncommon; the larval food plant is rose bay willow herb, and the caterpillars have a curious trick for dissuading predatory birds from attacking them. What they do is stand up on their back prolegs, open up a pair of large eyespots on the front end and sway about, looking very like a particularly convincing snake-mimic that looks even more snake-ish than a real snake does Most of the time a bird is going to be so disconcerted by this display that it leaves the harmless caterpillar alone."

Ross has been busy looking after his new baby canaries. He has been breeding canaries for some time now.They really are very pretty - they are crested canaries and at least two of them seem to have a crest coming. We'll try and take some photos for you later in the week.

Thought you might like to see one of our regular squirrels - they really are very clever - they even hang from the bird table upside down if there is a bird on the nuts! Perhaps we should set up some kind of a squirrel assault course to get to the nuts!

More Hill Top Tails tomorrow. Thank you for joining us.

Pink & Green Moth!

Hello again. It's just such a shock to have so much lovely weather, long may it continue.

We have had a really busy weekend here, so this morning it was nice to go down to the service at St.Anne's Church in Bucks Mills (just down the road). The service is held here fortnightly and whilst we only have a small congregation, the service is always special, and the Church is just so lovely inside. It's magic sitting in the Church on a Sunday morning that I know so many of my family have also shared over the many decades.

I need some help here - Ross has found a really pretty green and pink dead moth. Does anyone know what kind of moth it is? We would be really pleased to know, as we have never seen a moth like this. Hope someone knows.

Thank you for reading. More Hill Top Tails tomorrow.

Fire Engines at Hill Top

Welcome back to Hill Top Tails!

Well this evening has certainly been unusual. For those of you who have been following our stories about Rossi training Mars, his Harris Hawk, then something very different happened this evening.

At about 6 pm, as usual, Rossi took his Hawk out to fly him. Mars is off the creance now and so he was flying freely up into the trees and returning to Ross, but he went up into a tree and could not fly down. We realised that he was caught up in the tree. His jesse had got caught on a piece of snapped branch and his foot was trapped. Mars was about 25 to 30ft up in the tree with very thin branches and we had absolutely no way of getting him down. After trying everything possible for about an hour and a half we rang the RSPCA and asked for their advice. They suggested we ring the Fire Brigade, which we did, as in a couple of hours it would be dark. They were fantastic!

First of all the Fire & Rescue Unit arrived from Bideford, but they couldn't put their ladder up to the tree, as the branches were too thin. They called for the Fire Engine from Barnstaple which had a ladder platform. Within about half an hour or so both teams were at Hill Top working out a plan of how to rescue Mars. Ross (who is scared of heights) was so brave and went up into the platform with a Fireman. By now, Mars was hanging by his leg and Ross managed to grab both legs and release him, so after about half and hour or so, Mars was rescued. We want to say a big thank you to all the Firemen/woman who helped - they were great.

Greg was thrilled with the fire engines and took many photographs, as you can imagine, so here are a few for you to share with us.

Rossi is the happiest boy to have his Harris Hawk back.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped.

Join us for more Hill Top Tails tomorrow. This story will be a hard one to follow!

Pygmy Goats

Hello again! Today I thought you might like to see how the Pgymy Goats have grown in the last couple of months. They get so excited when Greg comes home from school, they can't wait to see him! They are really enjoying the big field now the weather is nicer and they love playing. The boys have put logs and tyres in the field and they have a large mound in the middle. They skip and jump around very playfully and you could watch them for hours, they are such fun. Pygmy goats make great pets, but you have to remember that they are herd animals and need company, so you should always keep at least two.

More Hill Top Tails tomorrow. Thank you for reading.

Beautiful Moths

Good evening!

Another glorious day. There are so many bunnies around, they really are lovely, great to have so many Peter Rabbits and Benjamin Bunnies running around at Hill Top.

With the nice evenings we are thinking about having another moth trapping night. Last time we had a super evening identifying the moths. I thought you might like to see a few more of the pictures we took last time.

Tomorrow I'll update you on the pygmy goats, Bracken, Brando and Sasha. You'll be surprised how much they have grown.

Hope you can join me tomorrow. Goodnight!