Some may remember that over a year ago (maybe more) a fourth goose, called April, came to join the flock at The Gables.  Foster parents Sammy and Richard were caring for her in their back garden but she grew too large and noisy and needed company and a pond.  April fitted in straight away and her foster parents have visited her several times.  Yesterday Sammy emailed me with a heartfelt request.  A friend had unexpectedly passed away leaving a smallholding with four dogs, two alpacas, several chickens and two pet Soay sheep.  The sheep needed a good and forever loving home………so, dear Sammy thought of us!  Jeremy agreed that the ewes could come and live here and Sammy and her friend Zeeta came over this afternoon to check out the Jacob sheep and discuss how we might get the Soays from Riseley to Colmworth.   Over a cup of tea and a chat and a chocolate chip cookie we asked if our visitors would help us move the hens and ducks to their temporary shelters.  Luckily they agreed and we spent the next hour chasing chooks from the orchard to the garden and into the polytunnel.  We ended up carrying most of them, protesting and squawking and trying to flap their way out of our arms.  But finally all the chooks were safely indoors and happily scratching in the straw.  Then it was time to drive the ducks to the field shelter and they were easier to move except that several decided to stretch their wings and fly about above our heads.  Luckily they all landed in the right place and soon they were tucked up for the night and happily swimming in the bowls of water we had set up for them.  Then it was the turn of the geese.  They had to be enticed out of the pond and brought back to the duck run where they will remain for the next month.   Let’s hope that these strict measures will prevent the spread of bird flu.  I couldn’t bear to lose any of the birds.