Regular followers will remember that straw is always an issue for us. Not much barley is grown around here, plenty of sheep, but little pastureland. Our current supplier, Andrew Davis at Pen-y-Bont, has contacts in the Cotswolds, and trips off there regularly to top up.

The weather this last year has upset the farming calendar and the Cotswolds are belatedly drilling for the spring crop, so they can’t waste time loading Andrew’s lorry. We have had to use hay to feed the Donks, the downside of which is to put weight on them.

We normally have 20+ small bales, which are weighty and difficult to handle, but they stack five high, and we can easily measure usage 5/8 of a bale a day. As they are not available, we’ve bought in a medium bale, which is the equivalent of twelve or so small bales. Andrew loads it with a “Manitou” and a bale sized set of teeth on the front. But we don’t have one of those,

So we have to disect layers and carry them individually into the container. Twenty plus to’s-and-fro’s later and we’re all stocked up!