Romanian animals play a key role on the farm.

Romanian animals are essential on the farm. Each animal is exceptionally well cared for, as each is needed. I have read that Romanians are famous for neglecting their animals - according to guide books and books on Romania... this could not be further from the truth in my experience.

Grandma is here making sure the calf gets the right amount of milk. Granny looks after her cows well. In the middle of winter, the cows are only given warm water. The hay is hand cut and dried on the farm so we are certain it is of the best quality. The calf is a funny little thing - only last week did it decide to go for a walk on its own around the farm - it ended up causing all sorts of trouble as it got stuck in the kitchen and could not find its way out.

The cats on the farm are one of the most important Romanian animals we have. The cats are there to keep the mice down - they go hunting across the farm and into the woods beyond. At their peak numbers of nine, they are everywhere.

Then on top of this, the cats all love to have kittens. We generally keep one or two kittens a year, while the rest of the animals go off to friends and family. We also have a great seed and corn merchant in town who loves to take our cats.

When I first arrived here, we had a really rare cat - known affectionately as the nose-less cat - as it had a really flat face - without a normal cat's nose. It is funny what Romanian animals are found on this farm!

The bees are everywhere in Romania. If you wander around the hay meadows in summer, you can't help but hear their buzzing. The bees are essential on our farm, as we have lots of different fruit trees such as apple trees and plum trees, all of which need the bees.

Romanians also believe eating raw, organic honey is a great way of avoiding illness - so we loads of honey!

Irina once did a rather dangerous experiment as a child with the bees! She decided it would be fun to close all the little doors on the hives so that the bees could not get in or out... oddly the bees failed to see her sense of adventure and so stung her badly.

When you travel across Romania, be sure to look out for the multi-coloured mobile bee hives set out on lorry trailers. I have often wondered why each door is a different colour and if this is for the bee keepers pleasure or if bees really do like to know their door is a yellow, blue or a green door.

One of the most famous of Romanian animals is of course the Dog. In Romania, dogs are everywhere. In the cities they are generally looked after and fed by people in the blocks of flats. Every street has its own dog. Our dogs were all once strays.

While we have had all our dogs operated on, so they cannot reproduce, some other families have not. So every Summer we wake up to barking puppies which have been left at our gate in the night.

We take exceptional care of all our Romanian animals, especially the dogs and they are well fed on milk from the cow, soaked in bread, table scraps and of course dog biscuits. Oddly enough the dog biscuits are their least favourite food!

We also take the dogs every day for long walks in the woods. Our dogs love to run and pick up the scent of the fast running deer. However if they ever came across the smell of a real danger such as wild bear or wild pig, you can rest assured they would run home and leave me to deal with it!

These are the troublesome birds on the farm. The turkeys won't eat just corn - they need a very special diet. Also the Romanians don't eat turkey for Christmas - we all eat fresh organic pork - which we take from our friends and family.

Geese are from the next farm along as we have no running water here and the geese needs lots of care. They tend to make a terrible mess of the grass and my granny - at the age of 80 has decided that looking after all my Romanian animals such as my crazy dog, chasing the calf from the kitchen and finding homes for the puppies and kittens in more than a big enough job for her!

As well as all the Romanian animals I have shown you, on the road you will see donkeys pulling carts near the seaside, and in other parts of the country you will still see lots of oxen or horse drawn carts, piled high with dried grass or freshly cut logs.

The woods in Autumn become a very dangerous place as the bears and their cubs come down from the mountains. In the last few years we have had an ever increaing number of wild bears - I have seen 2 this summer alone, as the government has decided that it wants to redistribute the bears across Romania, away from the towns and cities. The problem of this is that areas which were safe and bear free are now places where you need to watch every step, check every footprint and poo and not go wandering about in the dark.

The other animal living near us is the wild pig. I have heard them in the forst, but never seen them as they are very dangerous if disturbed! However I do see their diggings in the fields and so I know they are here.

Above us, we have the wild buzzards - these are wonderful to see and admire but you have to watch them carefully as they have a nasty habit of swooping into your chicken run and taking a few chickens with them.

Another wonderful Romanian animal is the deer. These are in all the woods around my granny's house. When we walk in the woods it is rare not to see one racing off into the distance, often followed, without success, by my two farm dogs.

The final animal I would like to mention is the stork. High up on many posts in most villages is a storks nest. Every Spring and Summer we watch the stork bring up their young. Even in Romania, this is a sign of birth and good luck.

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