More piggin gremlins!

Our quest for sausage was put on hold this weekend as we just had too many jobs and too little hours to do them in. Normal service should be resumed next weekend and in amongst the mayhem time has been tabled for a pig feed run and a journey across county to fetch some pigs. This plan relies heavily on my ability to fix Trixie the trailer, last used to get the sugar beet the Morgana and Guinevere are tucking into, who's door has mysteriously fallen off and is nothing to do with the goats who have now assumed squatters rights. It also relies on the Farmer not having sold all the pigs.

Further gremlins have infested Rock HQ and the scanner has refused to do what it is supposed to so there is no way we can scan the pics of Rock HQ from 40 years back and put them on line. So for the time being our scanner is a paperweight on the desk.

Wolves II

Thanks to some gremlins the video clip of Apollo summonsing the god of frightened ponies failed to work, so here he is telling the Berners he's not going to fall into their trap.

Wolves!

A glorious say weather wise here at Rock HQ, the sort of day it takes a lot to spoil, and the fact my right shin feels like its broken after a close encounter with a log that flew off the chopping block at mach 2 has done nothing to diminish the sense of well being from completing today's tasks. Much got done, logs chopped, obviously, and all our critters got new beds and TLC.Time out was spent taking Apollo around the Bonsai Mountain for a leg stretch. Both of us are unfit, but unlike me he is not carrying fifty pounds of excess fat around. Part of our training is a fast circumference of the hill.

Well I say fast, we started well, he fizzing with excitement at the prospect of pastures new. When he realised that we were actually working he, much like a naughty child, dug his hooves in and refused to move. Finally persuaded he dragged his feet in a massive sulk until he caught whiff of the wild ponies on the ridge. That perked him up but as they were nowhere to be seen his head went down and we were back to sulks ville. We had several large dogs with us who could not understand why we were taking so long and came back several times to offer encouragement.

Apollo who is a natural herd animal thought this was an attack from Wolves and summonsed the small god of threatened ponies to our assistance. He waited expectantly. Nothing happened. The Berners watched him watching them. Eventually hunger overcame herd instincts and as long as I went first my little pony was a happy chap and fell in behind without further ado. Back in time for tea and medals he watched from his stall munching through his fresh hay listening to Geishas's Marillion CD as I lugged masses of chopped logs around the place. One of us was doing something right.

Manpower

One thing you establish very quickly when setting out on a venture like smallholding is that if you want the day off you have to work twice as hard. So today we wanted to go and see my parents who live up north, to do this we had to do the days smallholding tasks before we went, and then do the evening rounds when we got back. This gave us a twelve hour window to drive 350 miles, it would have been less but we have a sat nav with a sense of humor, do some shopping for Peanut (our as yet unborn offspring is called Peanut) and have lunch, open Christmas prezzies with my parents, sister and brother in law, catch up on whats going on, come back, calling in on Tracey's mum for a cuppa, home in time for supper and do the usual rounds with the usual suspects.
To be able to enjoy this long awaited day off my day started with wrestling a 25kg sack of coal up the bonsai mountain to the lair of the technohermit. Now Mad Keith has been in the habit of phoning us at 7am, usually with a request of resupply, we have learned to interpret what he means, "I got no bread" means "Have you a spare loaf", alternatively "Are you going anywhere?" translates to "Can you get me some shopping" and "When can you get me some coal" means "Brass monkeys have moved in, please help" So as yesterday's alarm call coincided with the telephone call requesting resupply of fossil fuels. I got him a sack when I was at work, but the snow meant Hazel was not going to get up to him. I left it at the bottom of the track hoping he would be tempted to use his newly acquired sledge to haul it up to his cave but first light this morning while walking the Berners I saw the sack where I left it. I pondered whether or not to leave it, long enough for Rocky to pee over it, helpful, cheers, decision made, I would take it up to him. Curiously, once I managed to get it to his lodgings, narrowly avoiding giving myself a double hernia from the effort, he was not out and about enjoying the cold morning air, but snoring. Loudly. I was tempted to drop the coal and leave him to it, but some payback was required for all the morning calls, and most importantly, I couldn't afford him to think that the "Coal Fairies" had been in the night and then me be out of pocket. A loud "Good morning Mad" (we are on first name terms) roused sleeping beauty. Once I established for the confused veteran of the hill that I was meaning him no harm and merely dropping off his coal he put the machete away and muttered something about it being too early for deliveries. I made good my escape and vowed never to surprise an armed sleeping maniac with loud noises ever again.
And so another day is over at Rock HQ, a very long but exciting one. I say over, nearly, the boys need rounding up and putting in their stables and the boy Berners need a bit of supper and light exercise. Exciting because we are now almost prepared for Peanut's arrival, he/she will have somewhere to sleep now at least, and we saw lots of our family, and then to top it, in the post there was a letter. A hand we did not recognise. Enclosed were several photos of Rock HQ from the 1970's, the cottage has changed beyond all recognition. So a big thank you to the sender. The pics will be posted tomorrow. Meanwhile above is one of Spotty being mental with a stick. For a change.

Back again

The return of the snow tidied the place up again but was only welcomed by the Berners who played excitedly and generally annoyed all the other residents of Rock HQ with their enthusiasm for the white stuff.

The rest of us took shelter as it came down thick and fast. Nemo pleaded to be picked up after hiding under Trixie but as I was lugging buckets of feed around it was every cat for himself. I stupidly failed to heed the accuracy of the forecast and had left Vic parked on the lane in front of Hazel. Four by fours were definitely going to be the order of the day and I reversed Vic through the three inches of snow to the turning circle. All went well for the first twenty yards when Vic lost his footing a slid rather than drove and despite my knowing, and often saying, braking on ice has no effect I nearly pushed the pedal through the floor and have to admit to shutting my eyes as Vic and the dry stone wall looked like they were about to be united.

Fortune smiled on us and we stopped just short of catastrophe. Eventually cars were where they should be and life and limb spared. The rain brought hope that this is just a temporary weather event and the sunshine that's supposed to be here tomorrow means plans for the weekend should still take place.

Out of Gas!

In the summer we changed cars, out when our old dear friend Rene, replaced by Hazel Honda, a four by four wanna be that seems to get through the worst of the snow, and Fifi was changed for Vic, an uber solid Volvo estate that has, so far survived a rear end shunt and the attentions of a reckless pony who got a smacked bottom for attempting suicide by Volvo. The best thing about these two is that they run on LPG. As there are dozens of LPG suppliers around, and if should they need to they run equally as well on petrol, they have two tanks, one gas one petrol, it seemed a no brainer. So for the last six months we have enjoyed half price motoring (and as most petrol round here is now over £1.33 a litre its a good job we did swithc to gas) , we get cheaper road tax as we are now classed as green warriors and the government like to reward us for our virtue so all is well.
Not quite.
Vic seems to have gone off the idea of gas and has refused for the last six weeks to switch over from petrol to gas, even going so far as to tell me he had no gas when I knew full well he had a tank full. Hazel has been used more due to the snow but the last 1000 miles have had to be petrol as no gas deliveries have been sent to our area. The last two garages I called at I managed to get 4p and 17p and when I chanced the third just told me to go away with a nice LCD digital display on the pump. This was after I had broken the cap off the filling point because it pretended to be stuck fast. The application of brute force persuaded it to unstick but in three pieces across the forecourt.
Vic has been booked in for surgery at a clinic that specialises in gas Volvo's next week but in a strange twist, he started running on gas just as I got home today, a case of Volvo heal thyself. I'm not convinced it will be a long term fix so whether he likes it or not he's going to be done.

SOS!

Regular readers of these tales will know that here at Rock HQ we have a number of large dogs. Six of our own, one we foster, all big beautiful Bernese Mountain Dogs. One of the best things about Berners is that although they are a giant breed, they are not the biggest of dogs. Big enough, but you are able to leave things out on the worktops, safe in the knowledge that the cats will run off with it rather than the dogs. They do counter surf from time to time, Reba is the worst, or best, depending on your viewpoint. But on the whole you are unlikely to find a Berner trying to get through the cat flap with your supper.
A colleague has a dog, a Dog de Bordeaux, I think that's how its spelled, an enormous thing that looks like Scooby Doo as its crossed with something like a Great Dane. Anyway she decided to cook a pack of our now famous sausages for a family supper, laying the sausage out in the frying pan, mouth watering smells soon wafted from the kitchen. The family waited hungrily, watching TV. The phone rang and she went to answer it asking her son to keep a eye on the sausages while she dealt with the call. Annoyingly she found him sat on the sofa watching TV on her return and asked him why he was not watching the sausage as asked. He huffed, like most teenagers, what sausages. The ones in the pan. The pans empty. She checked. There on the cooker was an empty frying pan. Right next to a very tall dog trying desperately not to make eye contact.Guilty!

Pigs, a tribute

The temptation to finish off the last pack of sausage is massive. But they are part of a food hamper type thing for my folks as part of their yet to be delivered Christmas present (problems caused by snow meant lack of festive journey Manchester way) and so we will have to wait for the next batch of potential sausage to arrive. Laverne and Shirley, above, put all their effort into creating the best sausages we have had since we began keeping pigs three and a half years ago. People have been falling over themselves, literally, to get their hands on my sausage. At work I was faced with the dilemma of people actually fighting to get to the last pack in the team fridge. Eventually the tussle was won by a very committed vegetarian wearing gloves in case she contaminated herself who was told not to bother coming home by her meat eating boyfriend unless she had a pack of my pork based product. Tributes have been coming in thick and fast, best ever, cannot believe them, outstanding sausage and so on.
So very quickly our "years supply" has been whittled down to just 9 pork sausages at the back of the freezer labelled hands off. What makes ours so special, well the ingredients are fed apples, veg, non chemical laden grains and are free range. They are happy pigs and the resulting pork just tastes amazing. So how are we going to manage in a sausage drought? Well we have a cunning plan. Watch this space. Meanwhile a tribute to pigs.

Ahem.

Thanks pigs.

Disaster on the baby bunyip front. Very hard frost. Inexperienced mum.
Cold babies.
All dead by morning.
Cruel world sometimes.
Poor bunyips.