Where are all the horses?

 Having broken the no equine rule here at Rock HQ, the question you do not ever want to be asked, especially after having just "run" 3 miles, half cross country, in the dark in the remnants of hurricane Gonzalez, is, "Where are all the horses?"
Chester, here pictured at 5.30pm was in his stable, or had been, I let him out to have a stretch and feed at a fresh bale, the others, save for Misty were on Oak Bank or the runway. At least that's where I thought they all were. 10pm saw Chester looking in through the living room window and begging an apple. With hindsight this was his way of grassing on his herd who were in the process of legging it as he crunched a windfall.

When my beautiful and oh so patient wife went out to put Chester back in his stall she found the gate to the runway wide open and unlike some cheap supermarket Lasagne's, a distinct lack of ponies. Hence question, "Where are all the horses?"
Answer, in the process of over the hill and far away, in the dark, windswept hill. As they were not hungry they were in  a playful mood and so began the lets run away from the headtorch that swears game. Finally they were persuaded to return to the yard and a bright orange bucket of allure coaxed them over the threshold and behind the gate.
The open gate was not as a result of another visit from the PGOOR, more a product of my own stupidity as I had not shut it properly when very helpfully fetching firewood earlier.

Automatic for the people

 Today yours truly had to travel to the furthest reaches of the Red Kite empire in the east and as Ruby was booked in the garage for a bit of tweeking they promised me the use of a courtesy car. Signs that all was not well were instantly apparent when Steve (really) the book the courtesy man looked at the list of cars to be booked out, gave a sharp intake of breath (the way only those holding your fate in their hands can) and exhaled "Nissan Pathfinder to Honda Jazz....hmmmm......interesting" thus giving the game away that courtesy car was going to be entirely unlike Ruby and totally blew his cover by saying "Ha...next thing you'll be telling me you can't drive an automatic"
My look of horror obviously fuelled his beaming smile when he delivered the coup de grace, "Well, you have limited options so I'm sure you'll catch on quick"
He led me past all the shiny super cars to a not so super car which looked like the type children collect found in chocolate eggs and was if similar stature. Driving lesson was all of "Don't try turning the key without the brake pedal pressed down" and "If you like we could amputate your left leg"
I tried to block out the funny man's comments and instead focused on the job in hand, launching Jazz into moving traffic. Sensing my disquiet Steve crouched down by the drivers door and with as much sincerity as he could muster said "Yes...I've often thought how tough it is on the driver of a car they they have never encountered before leave our forecourt and face that" He stared into the middle distance (Like Kilgore from Apocalypse Now) while the five lanes of traffic converging onto the 5 and half exits of Steels roundabout managed 157 near misses a second. He patted me reassuringly on the shoulder, "Good luck" and left me too it. Never ever having driven an automatic car this was going to be an eventful trip.

 Instantly I forgot everything about starting the car and after nearly bending the key in the ignition I remembered to press the brake pedal. We started moving, I wedged my left leg in the passenger door to stop me pressing the non existent clutch pedal, and somehow we survived 3.6 miles which was when I forgot there was no clutch and almost stood the car on its bonnet as I hit the brakes in an effort to change down the gear box. Apologies to the shock wave I sent through the traffic behind me. Apart from that all was well. The top picture is my view from the car park after 189 miles of nearly stress free motoring. I cannot comment on the stress I caused others.

The bottom two pictures were sent by he who cannot be named who had a much more interesting view from his car park.

Treasure hunting

Finally yours truly got some free time to head off treasure hunting today, I have known since the start of June of the approximate location of hidden treasure on the ridge, the location given on the interweb in a nerdy but compelling game of geocaching. Since finding out about it and now having mastered the GPS technology I just had to join in. Hence yours truly spending twenty minutes of his life looking at this pile of rocks on Hergest Ridge

to find this box of old tat. No gems, no gold, nothing precious save for the satisfaction of finding it, a box that has been there for some years, last found earlier this month according to the log book. According to the rules of the game I was entitled to take the swordless plastic medieval knight or the broken bottle opener, provided I leave something in return, which I did, but what I left remains a closely guarded secret until its found but rest assured its worth about as much as the plastic tat and broken bottle opener combined. If I continue the game, and there is another treasure trove within 3k of this one, I leave the bottle opener in that and take something else and so on. Some of this tat is on a mission to get places, other bits have been on exciting adventures around the world already. But not in this box.

But there is Gold in them there hills

and the reward on the return journey was

massive. These pics taken on a mobile phone

don't do justice to the natural beauty of our back yard.

Naturally theres a Berner in the picture somewhere, you can just make out Elf in the sunlight.

And here's the sun setting over Gladestry.

Home improvements

Today we celebrated what should have been celebrated yesterday, 8 years at Rock HQ, which have passed all to quickly bit certainly not without event. Jobs have been lost, won, lost again, tribunals won, businesses set up and flurished, two new humans have arrived, countless birds have been fed to foxes, cows have entertained us near and now far (as Hetty still creates havoc over the hills and far away) our flockers have expanded and now contracted, the no horse rule has been broken and now there are equines owned by us on three seperate farms, buildings have been put up, concrete laid, gardens destroyed by goats and bernese Mountain Dogs, numerous pigs have filled Mr Whirlpool, Techno has left us (not because of my cooking but because of flushing toilets and central heating) and after all that attention has finally turned to home improvements. Today the window/conservatory project has concluded, our wooden windows have been replaced by dayglo white non maintenance working double glazed efforts guaranteed to last loner than yours truly. Plans are now afoot to expand the living area now the living area we have is more habitable.
Havoc was caused in the cottage tonight by the unexpected arrival of a large amphibian sat on my trainer. Froggy hitched a ride as I walked back inside from the Zombie infested darkness, thankfully the torrential rain kept them away, and when we (me and frog, not zombie) got indoors felt that a quick bounce around the room with a detour under the sofa was the order of the day. Comments raised varied from arrrr to high pitched screams when froggy jumped at householders. Finally the rampaging beast was cornered, caught and released back to the zombies.

Heidi strikes again

Beneath a photo that has no relevance to the tale other than it depicts the sofa in question its time to recount Heidi's latest escapade. Heidi is Rock HQ's pet spook, poltergeist, ghost, whatever, and so called due to her (its) panache for hiding items. Never malicious, and perhaps the missing items absence might be explained by yours truly's inadequacy at remembering, except the missing items reappear, usually where they were supposed to be and blatant by their sudden presence. Having studied, and still studying, memory processes and the like I know the majority of tricks used to recall so again I can be quite sure Heidi is real, especially given the latest stunt.
Lets ignore the simple ones like missing keys suddenly appearing centre stage of an empty table after the house has been turned upside down looking for them (pre mobile toddler so doubting Thomas read on) a passport not where it should have been, but then was some days later, or the bizarre situation where we went without coffee for two days as we had none and then the coffee caddy was full, instead focus on the latest.
The TV remote, often missing, often found, gone for days at a time, found in toy boxes, down sofas and once in a suitcase on holiday as the apprentice thought we would need it on holiday. TV remote had been missing for weeks, so long in fact that I was on the point of buying a replacement. Again.
New copy of Outdoor Fitness magazine arrives and as ever yours truly reads the best bits and sticks magazine anywhere handy. In this case on back of sofa. 24 hours pass. Sudden recollection of article in magazine, must read it, where is magazine. Everyone has gone to bed, I stand alone in living room trying to remember what I did with magazine, my beautiful and oh so patient wife who follows me clearing my detritus out of the way had not placed in corner in pile of current magazines. Deep thought recalls placing it on sofa, so it must have fallen down the back, quick shove to one side reveals new magazine front cover side up between wall and sofa. There placed on top was the TV remote. Aha you cry, toddler placed it there, no, no toddler present, and anyway toddlers love pressing remote buttons so its presence is identified as rapidly as the changing channels or increasing volume. Then it must have been on the back of the sofa and the magazine dislodged it and in some anomaly of physics landed on top of magazine. That explanation has some credibility save for the fact the sofa had been moved the day before to accommodate window fitters and their chaos. So lacking possible explanations we have to seek impossible ones (cheers Holmes) and that's Heidi.
And anyway who's reality is this anyway, mine.
Exactly.

Your late!

Apollo the wonder foal waiting for his rations which were a bit late this morning.

Language Barrier

Seeing Misty lying down like a doormat in front of Chester reminded me of a case conference I attended where a huge Glaswegian parent burst in and demanded to know which b*****d called his son a F in doormat (insert Glaswegian style swearing here). There was stunned silence for a moment or two and then the teacher very bravely offered, erm... I might have said his functions were dormant.

Don't pick it!

 It takes a lot to turn the stomach of yours truly, previous lives have seen me present at post mortems, suicides, some messy, others just sad, but today Daffodil, our very pet Ryeland, almost made me lose my post ride fruit smoothie. Some weeks ago Daffodil arrived in the yard with a wound to the front drivers side leg, it looked like she had got caught in a length of wire, a deep cut and lots of blood. V E T gave us a long lasting antibiotic and a painkiller and some time in med bay saw Daffy perk up mightily and get more mobile. Two days ago we put her out with the rest of the flockers but she could not keep up (not in the eating stakes, she wins that race everytime) so today we caught hold of her and had a looksee. Her leg was clean, cool, looked ok but there was a large scabby bit which was loose so I gave it a quick tug. It came off revealing a nice clean healed leg. Looked perfect apart from another scab just behind it, that looked a bit moist but loose so I gently prised it back. It was at this point the smell became apparent, then the yellow goo, and wiht a sound almost like a pop a golf ball sized dollop of Doffodil fell onto the floor. She snorted, I heaved, we both gathered our senses and I got a closer look at the leg. It was raw but clean and no blood, the ball of goo had been sitting in the wound preventing proper healing. I waited until my beautiful and oh so patient wife came out to find out where I was (holding a sheep) who then proffered the magic blue spray which is antiseptic and will prevent further goo building up. The pic above was taken less than five minutes after Daff was released and she is happily munching away which demonstrates the hardiness of Ryelands as well as their greed. Me, if I had a lump of goo that big fall off me, I would want lots of TLC and dinner brought to me in front of the TV.

 Tonight's sunset.

Another epic!