Mary had a little lamb, and then, another and another ...!

" Misfortunes always come in threes! "

Here I'm again telling you once again of another of my stories; on my normal basic day,one of my chores is to go for a walk with the  5 hounds. When I was coming back from the main field (where the horses are), I suddenly noticed that Mary (one of our sheep) was on the floor beside the round pen totally flat out and looking like she was having contractions, so I decided to put the dogs inside the house.

I rushed into one of the stables, and prepared it for her imminent birth, with fresh straw,food,water and an infra red light in the ceiling.

As always when Sue is not here ,all these things happen, she was flying the whole day. At the beginning I was sitting down next to Mary because she was not able to make any movement, so ,there I was giving her some food and surrounded by ducks,hens,geese, what a picture!

It took me ages to be able to put the animals away because they were more interested in Mary than in the food,which I was bringing into the pen. So there I was with dogs barking inside the house,chasing all the poultry that we have, and of course Mary calling me!

It is at this point of the story when my "fluent spanish" is coming out!

After a long fight  with them, I managed to put all the hens in the pen and Mary inside the stable , once in there I was praying for the lambs to come alright and healthy, but things are never easy at nearly heaven so Mary decided to keep us waiting for 4 nights until she was ready this morning to give birth to 3 little beautiful monkeys! Sorry I mean lambs

ps: Im sure the now, more new stories will come from me, very very soon, no doubt about it!

Thanks Mary!

Lucia

"Here we go again! "

Every time Sue is going to England, I think to myself  : "ok I'm going to be relax and having a shorts holidays"

but like always never happens that way.

Very early in the morning around 7:00, I heard  Teddy crying for going outside, so I decided to put him out, when I was going to feed the horses I thought ,the horses had been playing with  Miracle's rug  again but  my surprise was that I found a little baby sheep between all the horses, so I run as fast as I could and the poor animal was totally frozen, so I took my jacket off and put it around him, immediately I brought him inside the house, in fact inside the bed, so I must say sorry to Sue about the dirty bedding but it was worthy believe me! hahaha!

I put the radiator on and took  some towels from the wardrobe and I try to warm him out, god knows for how long he has been in there without the b...... mum!.

So I decided to go to the vet in Chalus and they gave a  special milk for him and the normal milk.

 
 
 Once I was feeding him, I said to  myself ok it's time to finish feeding the rest of the animals, but when I was going to put Luna outside, I saw the same sheep hitting another white spot in the far field and I said "oh no! " she was hitting another little sheep, so I took a stick because Romeo ( the castrated male) was facing me again in the middle of the field. I was running towards Lili ( she's the bad mum!) and I hold the baby and I started running towards home with her, in this case it was a beautiful girl, and for my bad luck the baby made this particular noyse thatsheep do ...and Romeo came like a mad thing against me,so I was running as fast as my legs were permitting me.now I got a couple of beautiful reasons to be happy!

I'm keeping an eye on the sheep because you never know what is coming next in here!

Lucia Andrade

" Luna of Nearly Heaven"

Luna 02/03/09

by Lucia Andrade

I thought that today, it would be a day like any other but I was wrong, after a long and intense day, while my boss was night flying, I decided to accommodate all the  animals including horses, ducks, chickens and sheep into their pens slightly before the proper time.

While I was putting the chickens and ducks away, I looked towards the sheep field and  I noticed that one of the sheep was inside the pen when normally she always lives outside in the fields, that's when doubt entered my mind.

I saw that she was  having contractions, then I decided to come closer and tried to help her, but she started attacking me and like any human being if an animal is facing you, you tend to take a few steps back ("anyway that's what I do" ). After a few minutes I tried again without success.

After that  I decided not to mess around if she was going against me but to  my surprise " Romeo"( a castrated male sheep)  was there trying to  stop me,and also trying to mate with her ......."Males! ".
He was very focused on me so, I  decided to go for some food and try to put him out of my way ! 

It was getting darker and darker and there I was, scared with no one to help me with the poor little sheep who was still suffering.
Finally the sheep realised that she was needing my help so she let me go near her, I was with a pair of gloves, a torch and my jacket, after a long 15 minutes I managed to bring the little baby lamb into this world.

 " Romeo still around! " 

 

   Now my only problem was trying to bring them inside one of our stables, in which I put some fresh straw, an infra red lamp and food for the mum, it was cold outside and with the baby in one hand and the torch in the other on,  I tried my best to bring them over, it was quite difficult because I had to pass under the metal fence and then try to make the mum follow me.

At the end both were inside the stable and there I was sharing her first minutes of life, now I can say that  I have got another "Miracle" called "Luna"

  Luna = Moon

Lucia Andrade ( sorry about my english)

Well Behaved Dogs are Welcome

Well behaved dogs are welcome at Nearlyheaven please contact either Sue or Lucia for details..

" Thanks for your messages on Miracle's Birthday"

Here I am again, this time I would like to thank you all for the support and the kind things that you have said about me, specially to Sue
My story begins at the end of February 2007 when I began to be in contact with Sue.  She was having some difficulties with one of her members of staff.  The person  wasn’t doing ” things correctly” and Sue was feeling disappointed. Consequently I decided to do everything that I could in order to help Sue. She had and still continues to have a lot of patience with me because like everyone I have my faults and different habits!  Spanish ones!
When I arrived at NearlyHeaven the only words I spoke were, “Hello" and "Thanks”!  I was so nervous that I wasn’t able to speak to Sue as I would have liked to.  However, thanks to her I feel that my personality has changed and in fact, I now feel like a different person.
The only thing I can say to her is that I will be eternally thankful to her for opening the doors of her house to me.   She has become like my second mother and I will always be by her side because everything I am is because of her.
Once again, thank you very much Sue and do you know what?  I am proud to be in a place like this but the most important thing for me is to be surrounded by people like you.
Thank you for filling my life with smiles
Love,
Your Difficult One

Lucia

"Happy Birthday Miracle " you have survived against all the odds!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !

 

I am going to tell you the history of my Miracle a little Thoroughbred foal,he was born one year ago today  and poor thing, he did not imagine that he was coming into a  world full of joy and pain, the pain immediately arrived when Cassie his mother became really ill after his birth and we could not do anything to maintain her life without her suffering terribly.Cassie" or to use her registered name "Greenham Gal" was the proud mother of nine foals, some of whom are now top international 3 day eventers in the UK.

"Cassie" had been "barren" for numerous years and three different veterinary surgeons had told us that she was unable to have any more foals.

She proved us wrong and secretly became pregnant at the ripe old age of 23 years.

During the previous 11 months she had been boarding at the next door farm with lots of other female horses, however she had a secret, she was pregnant by her grandson who was only 2 years old at the date of this" immaculate conception".

Poor "Cassie" she had a very difficult birth but her eyes lit up at the sight of her new born foal.Sue immediately named him "Miracle" and he certainly has lived up to his name.

From the birth Cassie had virtually no milk and she was very uncomfortable and looked so very sad.

 I think that she knew that something was wrong with her because of the look in her eyes, I made her the promise that I would look after her foal.

 This was truly painful for me, because I never have been so close and attached to a horse like I had been with Cassie.

She was constantly sick and in need of huge doses of antibiotics and she was not improving.She loved her baby so very much and tried to show him that she loved him even when she was really ill.

 

 

 She knew that we were helping her and that something serious was wrong with her.

 Her face told us the story. Three weeks after Miracle was born , it happened, one day she went to heaven and left us  with a very special memory of her ,a gorgeous colt.

Poor "Miracle" he cried and cried for his mother and it truly broke our hearts.

 

At this dreadful  time I decided that I would look after "Miracle "as if he was my baby,therefore I began feeding him first every 30 minutes day and night, and then increasing the time after that  to every three hours day and night .At first he sucked from  a syringe then he was able to drink from a bottle and finally from  the bucket, consequently it gave me very little  freedom!

However it was wonderfully satisfying to help him stay alive!

 

 

It was very difficult to let him behave like a horse because he was my baby and he was following me everywhere, he now believed that I was his mother and that he was a human,in fact, he was trying to come with me inside the caravan, washing room, or even trying to come up the stairs with me hahaha !

He had a silly trick of taking the zip of my coat in his teeth and opening and closing this zip all the time ( it was a toy to him)

 

 

  

 When Sue said to me that I should let him go with the other horses, I was very sad because I didn’t want him to be treated badly by them ,so we decided to put him firstly with Woody who was his 18 year old half brother who just adored foals, at the beginning he was looking for me and calling for me constantly like a crazy thing, “Oh my  poor baby”.

I had to  let him become  a horse because if I did not let him go, later it would  be very painful for him if he was rejected by the other horses in the herd.

Now, he is still  the baby of  the herd, they love ,play and protect him as their own  it’s a pleasure to see him playing and galloping around  with his older relatives!

 

 

  

 When he was turned out with all the other horses,most days, he was getting  himself into trouble  with them and also with me ,so I had to try to sort out his problems for him, I must be honest some days  it was easy to help him  but other times it was very complicated for me.

 

 

 

 

I feel very proud of him I adore and I love him  with all my soul, I’m very happy  to have helped rear a baby like him,  thanks for being in my life MIRACLE!

Congratulations my boy!

You are truly my "Miracle"

 

LUCIA ANDRADE

Feeds and email subscriptions

Hi everyone. Just a brief post to let you all know that Sue's blogs have now had the subscription services re-enabled and that it is possible to sign up for the updates to arrive automatically via email. All you need to do is to enter your email address in the box on the right of the website and then reply to the confirmation email that the site sends you, then sit back and wait for the updates to automatically find you.

The blog subscription feed has also been enabled and clicking the "Subscribe to this blog's feed" link (above the email subscription box on the right) will put a link on your browser toolbar which allows you to easily navigate directly to any of the blog subjects (click the picture below for the full size image).

Happy reading

Submit Questions

We are always delighted to receive your articles and comments

If you wish to send us questions or comments please view below:

1. If you have any questions or concerns about flying in France, for publication on my blog please submit using  this info@nearlyheaven.com ( question for blog)

2. General enquiries not for publication will be receive on the same e-mail address ( request private answer)

3. Please comments on existing articles through the blog under the heading “ post a comment”.

4.  If you have any problems  we can post the articles for you

Farm Sanctuary

Farm Sanctuary

 As all of the animals at NearlyHeaven are so happy, we decided to share that joy with some new additions.
We started our Farm Sanctuary in the summer of 2008 and it was an instant success with our guests—especially the children, many of whom have never enjoyed the opportunity of seeing farm animals close-up.
Many of our animals were rescued or re-homed when their owners moved away. 

They include sheep,

    Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs

ducks, rabbits, pheasants, quail, pigeons & hens.

 

We find that children love to help with the animals and enjoy such activities as grooming the ponies,  feeding the hens and collecting eggs.
There are additional pictures of the farm animals in our 'photo gallery'

welcome

I am a British Flying Instructor, Ground Examiner and Flight Examiner operating in France.

My training facility, NearlyHeaven, is authorised by both the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the French  Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC) to conduct flight training, in English, for the JAR (FCL) Private Pilot’s Licence.
 
To be clear, the training syllabus is identical to that followed by UK clubs and the JAR licence carries equal privileges in all JAA (Join Airworthiness Authority) countries, which essentially covers Europe.

The main difference is that flying is cheaper here, the weather is more reliable, and the facilities available to private flyers are generally superior to those in the UK.
The aircraft are in top class condition and we have full time mechanics on site.
I give one to one training and generally each student you would fly about three hours per day with me. I am a great believer that my students should be relaxed and confident during their flight training, this enables them to forge ahead with their training.
Given the weather conditions and the wonderful unrestricted airspace in this part of France a PPL can be completed in approximately four weeks.

Training is primarily conducted from Limoges International Airport (Bellegarde) and is provided in association with the Aero-Club de Limoges. The benefits of training at an International airport are second to none ,the circuits are not busy , the experience of flying in a professional environment provides a solid base for the students understanding of  Radio Telephony and formal circuit procedures. this grounding allows the  future pilot to feel comfortable flying into any airport in the world.

 The training would be conducted  in a modern Robin DR 400/140 and there are also various higher-performance aircraft available.

The annual club membership is 153 euros which also covers membership of the Fédération Française Aéronautique who provide the legally-required ‘Public Liability’ insurance cover.

There are no landing charges at Limoges for ‘ home based’ aircraft and charges at other airfields are generally modest compared with the UK.

All ground examinations can be taken with me here in France. It is advantageous if you have studied the ground subjects prior to arrival ( a PPL training pack from Flightstore or other aviation stockists)
It is advisable to have a current JAR medical prior to arriving in France. see link below for list of doctors in your area.
http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=49&pagetype=65&appid=21

I also offer self-catering accommodation about 20 minutes drive from Limoges Airport,
See web site www.nearlyheaven.com
Further information is available on the Nearlyheaven website/NH blog.

If you would like to discuss the various options, do give me a call—evening is best on good flying days.

Telephone (France) 0033 555481750
Telephone (Skypein) 0207 193 8229 (Calls via Skype at UK rates)
Mobile 0033 689713603 
Skype ID nearlyheaven (free pc-to-pc calls)
email info@nearlyheaven.com (preferred contact method)

 
 

Kobi is shattered...............

Just to say that Kobi has had another wonderful 'away day' with his family and favourite Spanish human who speaks to him with that beautiful, soft Spanish accent.  We arrive at La Chataigneraie and Kobi does not even glance back at us when we hand him over and leave, he is far too interested in what fun and play are in store for him with Teddy, his brother, although  I am not so sure that the older members of his family, his parents and aunts and uncles are too thrilled with another silly, bouncy, and unruly pup coming back to disturb their peace.  They seem to be very tolerant of him though and just look rather aloof and disinterested with his youthful exhuberance.  When we return to collect him, he is happy to leave but would, I am sure be just as happy to stay for more play.  It is incredible to see the difference between the full of energy Kobi we arrive with and the totally 'doggo' Kobi on the journey home.  He needs a long rest when he gets back and by the look of the twitching tail and legs, he is busy dreaming about his wonderful fun day with his doggy family and the lovely Spanish senorita!  I wish our 'exciting' day at Mr Bricolage was as memorable!

Space is at a premium with five Vizsla's.

Unusual sleeping habits

.

  

     

 Zack and Teddy sharing!     .

   Blanchette!

   

 

   Teddy after exercise.

Leko  in his normal  sleeping position

    Teddy waiting his turn for the chair