Parting is such sweet sorrow

The morning that Karl left the Rock finally dawned. Along with the usual hurried routine with the animals we had to say goodbye to a good friend who had lived with us since 10-2-08.

He had done an extraordinary amount of work, we calculated that he has spent what would have been to us the equivalent of a whole 12 months worth of weekends on projects we had planned at the Rock.

Amongst other things he has cleared the ground, trees and fencing for a stable block, kennel block and goat house. Built the kennels, a huge building 12 foot by 24 foot, two 8 by 8 goat houses, demolished a static caravan, cleared the wreckage from the caravan to a skip, prevented a flood, put the dining room chairs together, cleared the workshop, put stairs in the workshop, cleaned out and polished a car, sold the car for us, built a retaining wall to stop a dirt bank falling, chopped wood, sawed wood, put the 8 metres of concrete down for all the out buildings, spread 40 tons of gravel around the place, cleared a car parking plot and turning space at the bottom of the lane and helped look for missing sheep in a hill fire.

He also fed the beasts when we were late back from work, tidied the house, did the washing up, sometimes he cooked us dinner and lit the fire. The gardens been dug and covered with a liberal helping of manure from Williams backside. Karl collected the eggs, was the principle goat minder for Geisha's trip to the Rock, helped in the slaughter of the lambs and was my left hand when we butchered the carcasses.

He did all this with good humour, never once losing his temper despite my provoking him often, usually my humour was at his expense. All this work has made our lives and the animals lives so much easier and definitely for the beasts more comfortable. Karl is one of those good sorts who gets on with everyone. He was good company and Tracey, Beth and I found him very easy to live with. We think he enjoyed living here even if we did give him back breaking tasks everyday for a pittance of money. The dogs loved having him here to play with and you could see he loved the dogs. It was quite odd returning to the Rock to find he had left, hes on a mission to Thailand to find true love. Hopefully not with a lady boy but hey, Karl, whatever floats your boat.

He has left his wellingtons so we hope he will return before the Bernese Mountain Dogs destroy another pair!

Thanks Karl, you are a star. Keep shining.