IT IS a tale which could have been written with the message of Easter in mind.

Two recent arrivals have heralded the coming of spring at an educational farm following an arson attack which devastated the centre's food supplies on Christmas Day 2005.

Good Friday saw the birth of two infant geese at the Out of Town Centre in Beaulieu - joining eight lambs born at the farm during March.

Proud parents - plus assorted cousins, uncles and aunts - saw the two new arrivals take their first tentative steps into the world over the bank holiday.

The goslings took to their new surroundings like ducks - or indeed geese - to water.

The goslings hatched early on Friday - much to the delight of farmer Elaine Stawinoga, who runs the centre.

Hundreds of Hampshire schoolchildren will now be able to view the chicks and the spring lambs when they return from the Easter holidays today.

The spring lambs are being fed with straw and hay donated from farmers in the New Forest following the arson fire, which destroyed much of the centre's winter feed stocks.

Ms Stawinoga told the Daily Echo that the farmyard geese had been sitting on their nest on Friday when she heard a cheeping noise.

She said: "I heard little voices like baby geese and I thought, ' we have got babies.'"

As is the tradition at the farm, the geese and lambs will not be named.

The geese will take around three months before they are fully grown.

Ms Stawinoga said: "They swim right from day one. When the children get back they will be the farm's newest attraction.

"At the moment, the lambs are being kept under cover but they will be going out into the paddock soon. They are being fed with the hay and straw which was donated after the fire.

"The donations have brought new life to the farm."

Around 700 bales of hay and straw were destroyed in the suspected arson attack.

The feed and bedding was intended for the pigs, goats, cattle and sheep at the centre which is visited by hundreds of Hampshire schoolchildren every year.

Smallholders rallied round the farm, which is run by the Countryside education Trust, to replace the feed which was destroyed in the fire.