Hi everyone. I'm in Derbyshire now but back along I wrote this blog about my experiences working in Devon following on from International Donkey Week...

After the long winter months there had been so much to do in preparation for Donkey Week and the busy summer months ahead. I have to say that I really didn’t appreciate how much work went into preparing for Donkey Week. For the two weeks prior, we were busy painting, pressure washing, grooming, preparing information boards and making sure all the donkeys had name collars on (not an easy task when the donkeys think the collars are great for dragging each other round with).

As the donkeys began going out into the fields we had been moving electric fences around which was really time consuming. I can’t imagine the amount of organising that went on behind the scenes. All this work was worth it though because Donkey Week is one of the highlights of the year and such a great event.

The weather hadn't been very kind to us and had not helped our preparations. Rain stopped nearly all the jobs like painting and grooming. Whilst we thought it was virtually impossible to get everything done, we managed, by dodging the showers.

So then Donkey Week arrived. I had been looking forward to this since my arrival at Trow Farm back in January of this year. Previously I had only been as a visitor for the day. Now I was involved in it.

The routine work of mucking out, feeding and general care of the donkeys still had to go on, Donkey Week or not, but when there was time, the staff were able to get out and about, look around the other farms and meet the Donkey Weekers.

Wednesday was our day, along with Slade House Farm but I did manage to nip across to listen to Dr Svendsen's welcome talk and it was so lovely that friends from the Derbyshire Centre won a trophy for their fundraising efforts. Congratulations to Mary & Arnold. I then had enough time to rush back to get ready for our visitors to Trow Farm.

I really enjoyed meeting the people who visit The Donkey Sanctuary as they all have stories to tell. Two lady Donkey Weekers came to see their donkeys Baby and Ellen.

I spotted a couple of other Derbyshire Centre volunteers and managed to have a catch up with them. It was lovely to see familiar faces and to chat about friends at the Derbyshire Centre.

Trow Farm was particularly busy that week and so sadly I didn’t have the chance to get to many farms. I did get to go to Woods Farm though and thought it looked lovely with all the balloons that were hung from the barns. The Donkey Weekers were able to join in with donkey grooming and walking and it was great to see everyone enjoying themselves and that the rain didn’t put people off. The heavens opened while they were out walking!!

While at Woods Farm I caught up with an old friend called Goldie. Goldie is a pony that was with us at the Derbyshire Centre about 2 years ago and we still miss him dreadfully. He came in with a donkey called Mary who was very ill and who sadly died within two weeks. The Derbyshire Centre is not really big enough to care for horses and ponies and because Goldie was fit and well for his age he came to Devon where he is clearly thriving. I took a photo of him because I know the team at the Derbyshire Centre will be delighted.

So another very successful Donkey Week! I managed to get some great ideas that we could adapt for the Derbyshire Centre’s smaller event in September.

Working in Sidmouth has been a great experience for me and I have learned so much about The Donkey Sanctuary as a whole. Firstly I have realised just how big it is and learned what all the different departments do. I have experienced how to look after much larger groups of donkeys. Everything is on such a bigger scale; weighing, dung sampling and mucking out, etc. Strip grazing is also a relatively new experience to me and whilst we do strip grazing at the Derbyshire Centre it isn’t something we do a lot of. I have to say that I am not very good at getting the electric fence in a straight line, need to practise that.

I would like to thank Alan Brown (farm manager at Trow Farm) and the team for having me and everyone else who has made this opportunity happen for me. Thank you.

See you at our open days in July, August and/or September!