Party Time

Sadly no party took place this year but you can be sure we'll be back with a pizza/paella party for next summer for all our chums.

2006 pizza party (sorry Debs!!) Debbie Burns and Clare just came back from a ranch holiday and had learned roping skills using real calves....so they drew the short straw to show us how it's done. Cow head provided by Alan Duke, body of cow, Evans Quarter Horses! Fun, fun, fun!

2007 summer party at Evans QH was superb! The weather was dry and sunny, our chums were all in good form and we had a fancy dress party with a bottle of champagne for the best dressed. Theme - cowboys and indians! At least no one came dressed in a turban as threatened. Video below, everyone had their pizzas and puddings and drizzles! All are Evans QH foal buyers.

Amanda has the video camera.

Ashley Watts was chosen as the winner as he came as the Milky Bar Kid and bribed the judge, Heather Lloyd, with milky bars...what a cheat! Heather Lloyd was over from Africa where she was working as a missionary at a childrens' orphanage. She is the lady on the end in purple....sadly she died suddenly at the beginning of 2008. A great lady and very sadly missed.

Everyone who attended has bought foals from us and older imported horses and we have all become great friends as a result! Heather came as a special guest as she is over from Africa for a time; she helps run the Maforga Christian Mission in Mozambique which is an orphanage, and they do great great work. We raised money doing Man V Horse for the cause...not sure what she made of us lot though...!

Thanks so much to everyone for making our party special...the pizza oven was singing! and they were cooked in about 3 minutes with home made chocolate and lemon pies for afters. No one rushed off home or to the loo so seemed ok!

Thanks so much to Amanda for these pics - my camera was out of action for th day.

2006 party notes.....

We had our summer party last and had a new feature .... a wood oven! It came from Orchard Ovens and we were inspired the last couple of trips to Corsica where we had pizzas cooked in this way.

We were watching them stoking the fire (in St. Florent, Corsica) last June. All authentic.

Look, they're putting more oak on the fire and then...... a coco cola box! No nice olive wood, just an old box! Talk about authentic. But they were superb. Cooked in about 2 and a half minutes.

It was a mad panic to get it finished in time and we had a couple of trial runs with it, so on the day we were sick of the sight of pizzas! But it worked really well, and everyone enjoyed themselves - and I only dropped one pizza!! Spot spent ages with her toppings and I cracked the peel on the side of the door, resulting in half of it going on the floor much to the delight of Billy!

They took around 2 - 3 minutes to cook and we were very pleased with the results, but there is room for improvement, so we'll do it all again before the end of the year for those chums who couldn't make it, and those who want another pizza!

Some pics of the making of the oven...I am a good bricky and got my bricks nice and level - even managed a builders cleft or so Graham tells me! This was a new thing for Graham, who is a chartered civil engineer and used to designing reinforced concrete and steel bridges!

Enough chit chat - here's what happened.

It started on the left with party booked and about 3 weeks to build this in between running the farm and both working full time...ever got the feeling you've bitten off more than you can chew????