Hanging around

This is the feral sheep who has chosen to live with us. Burgers as she is now known seems very happy to hang around with our flock and make use of the facilities at Rock HQ.

Leap of Faith

In case any one was worried that Faith would be slowed down by the huge cut on her side here are a couple of pics of her in action today.

Karma Police

They are real, the Karma Police, they do exist making sure any bad Karma is rewarded.

Faith our Setter has had a visit. Now animals tell you a lot by their behaviour, any deviance form normal behaviour is a sure sign that something is wrong. For instance Leviathan, one of this years ram lambs has been shaking his tail like a mad sheep, usually a sign that flies have visited and laid eggs on a poohy backside, the maggots if not got rid of quick will quickly opt out of consuming poohy wool to consume fresh lamb. Years ago Sheep had to be dipped in very very noxious WW1 type chemicals to prevent this, now we are allowed to wait and see, treating it when it happens. A much better idea all round. Anyway Leviathan was wrestled to the floor in a very manly fashion by yours truly and had his bottom examined for creepy crawlies. He was clear, no maggots, but he obviously had a bad case of runny tum, so bad in fact that the poor lad in his terror backfired and followed through. A stream of luminous green pooh streaked past my right shoulder and hit Fifi the focus parked minding her own business in the yard.

Back to Faith.

Normally when the kennel block door is opened she streaks out chased by the others, but as she is able to clear five bar gates as if they were not there she usually escapes and disappears into the bracken on the hill only returning when bored, hungry or called. Once she returned with a nine inch piece of fax tail in her jaws, a clear sign of the enmity that exists between fox and setter. Today she sat at my feet and refused to budge. Even when provoked by the rest of the magnificent seven she refused to provide them with their usual chase game. She sat quietly at my feet and accepted lots of fuss. Something was wrong. A quick check revealed a nasty tear in her right flank, a very bad cut, very neat, clean but obviously causing pain. Medical box out, quick squirt of magic blue spray and removed to the comfort of the stables she is fine. By the volume of the barking she is also bored.

Karma?

Fishkillers never prosper!

Casualties

When we moved to Rock HQ we had very few animals. Those we did have were transported here and have enjoyed a fresh lease of life on our Welsh Hill. I often joke that we only had a cat when we moved here, we actually had five dogs, two cats and five fish.

The fish survived the move, against all odds, transported in a bucket of pond water. Here they have enjoyed fresh water from a mountain spring and all the tadpoles they could eat. We even found Terry the Tench in the pond, a huge fish we inherited.

Unfortunately the fishes numbers have come up, the hot weather depleted the oxygen and despite me turning on the hose to aerate the water our dogs have been jumping in and out to cool off flattening the plant life into the water and further reducing the level. I decided to clear out all the plant life to allow the fish a chance to recover but as I pulled plant life out I found the fish had shuffled off their mortal coils and now swim in celestial pools, even big Terry had bought the big one. Perhaps the pigs were just too much competition. Poor fish.

Goat buster

I was asked again the other day, why do you keep goats?

The above picture shows Archie and Ambrose legging it after being caught vandalising the lemon tree (first year we had the tree we grew 13 use able lemons, 2nd year when we had goats we grew a few shattered twigs).

Bravo broke her tether today and fortunately for all concerned was caught in the vegetable garden before she ate anything other than cumprhey. She took refuge in the empty greenhouse thinking I wouldn't notice her, then tried to run out through the end glass wall in an attempt to evade capture.

Juliet forgot about her tether today and climbed into a small sycamore tree, fell, wrapped her tether around a branch and just managed not to hang herself by standing very upright until I arrived with the branch loppers to free her.

Geisha spilt a bucket of dog food across the yard while Maggie climbed into Fifi for a forensic examination of the rear luggage compartment in search of spilt animal feed.

I have been stung, brambled, bit, fought off horns and generally suffered at the hooves of our herd and in return ended up with zero milk. Again.

So I ask myself, why do I keep goats?

Poles apart

Tracey and I, it has to be said, seldom differ in opinion. There are times that we think so alike its uncanny, yet there are times when we are at complete opposites it adds credence to the idea that men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.

Take tonight for example.

We are lucky enough to work together (paid work not work at Rock HQ, we do that together too)and today we were in different buildings but independently reached the conclusion that tonight for dinner we would have a fish salad with new potatoes. Both of us popped out at lunch time and bought the necessary fishy item, me limited for choice bought two reduced price salmon steaks and my last 50p on some Jersey spuds (ours are not quite ready yet) while Tracey couldn't find any fish worth buying so brought some prawns and a new potatoes.

After doing the rounds tonight our combined ingredients made a feast although I suspect Mad Keith was disappointed with the menu choice as his roast potato fetish has not been satisfied this week.

However, this harmony in food choice was only part of the evening.

From time to time we get waifs and strays wandering into our yard, who can forget poorly sheep from last year? Well this chunky lamb arrived tonight having decided that our mangy flock of Ryelands are the in crowd. This stocky black faced ewe lamb made itself at home, tried to get milk off the goats, explored the conservatory and dealt with the attentions of the Rock HQ pack with aplomb.

The difference was mine and Tracey's reaction as we oooed and aaahed over the new arrival.
She saw it as a potential new pet, I saw it as a large pile of free burgers and a lovely sheepskin rug.

Poles apart!

In through the out door

Pigs are very intelligent creatures, for instance they learned not to bite me again after my reaction when they took a test bite. The daily barricade is more than a bit of a nuisance and so I have taken to climbing the fence and going in through the out door, their exit from the sty to the pen. This opening has got considerably smaller since the pigs arrival, and no dear reader its not another case of me gaining pounds and blaming shrinking clothes, the "doorway" is genuinely smaller as they have moved so much of the hill downhill, piling dirt and rocks against the frail structure we laughingly refer to as "the barn" which, as I recall, the estate agent referred to as a "useful space in need of some renovation".

Somehow this useful space has survived my DIY and three previous sets of piglets who have all made their own personal alterations as well as having shifted tons of dirt and piled it up against the sides of the "barn" reducing the opening from a four foot high two foot six wide portal to a minute opening fit for one pig. This is a very handy shack, it stored 100 bales of last years hay and it also served as a temporary stable for William until the Stable Sprite weaved his magic and produced the des rez he now occupies. It needs preserving, TLC even.

I think the piglets may have grand designs of their own on future housing having seen the results of their snout work today. Piling up the dirt has allowed them access to the back of the chicken shack, an equally robust building held together by years and years of paint. The temptation to remove parts of the roof served too much and this allowed access to the old dry stone wall that forms part of the old farm sty. This is currently being dismantled, just because they can. Once through that they will be able to catch a bus, go to the shops and do whatever piggies on the run do. Meanwhile I, being marginally more intelligent than a piglet, am copying the tactics of the medieval siege engineers and piling up stones the other side of the attempted breach. Whether this tactic works and will hold until November when the piggies get a one way ticket to the local abattoir remains to be seen.

Pig Club newsletter is ready for distribution once the gremlin in charge of pasting the pictures to the paper has been tamed. Meanwhile enjoy the video and the prospect of some very tasty pork and bacon.

As long as the defences hold!

101 uses of the RX4

Number 23 Goat adventure playground