Strange Horse Play at Rock HQ

It’s been a great weekend, one which has confirmed all that we hoped for when we moved to Rock HQ. Four days off from our paid jobs allowed us to really get into some of the jobs that needed doing. It might have looked to the casual observer that I was just carrying around buckets of horse pooh but I was in smallholders heaven. The sun was shining on our hill, for it is our hill, it might be classed as common land on your ordnance survey map but it’s ours, the blue sky contrasting against the green of the gorse bushes and the browns of the dead bracken, countless birds were singing their hearts out and I was moving a ton of shit one bucket at a time from one end of the small holding to the other.


But I was happy.


It was the first time since September last year I had been able to do any sort of gardening, getting the vegetable beds ready for sowing.

The seeds have arrived, not from our usual supplier, a guy called Kevin who lives on the Orkney Islands, a thoroughly decent chap who sold great seeds for pennies. Unfortunately he found running a business got in the way of smallholding so he had to give it up. I can empathize with that, working gets in the way of doing what I want to do, being at Rock HQ and looking after our animals and garden. Luckily for me though, unlike Kevin, I have a business plan to enable me to give up full time paid work and stay on the ranch. I’m going to win the lottery, it might not be the soundest of business plans but it’s a start.

We have spent some quality time with the boys, William and Trevor. They are both in temporary accommodation in the pig sty and barn until their custom built stables are finished so they get a bit mucky and lonely down the far end of our plot. This coupled with the fact that they are shedding their winter coats they look a right shabby pair. So huge amounts of TLC and grooming turned the scruffy oiks into presentable ponies who could see from under well trimmed manes, they wouldn’t win prizes but they were certainly a smart pair as we turned them out in the field. This attempt to civilize the boys lasted around 37 seconds once they were free to roam Willow Rise. Trevor immediately rolled over and over in the moss, bracken, and horse dung returning to his original shabby state.

Once thoroughly coated in foliage and excrement he obviously fancied a shag and tried to mount William, who at 14.2 hands (Trevor is 33 inches high), and also being male took exception to the surprise rear attack from something that resembled a four legged compost heap. A sharp kick in the family jewels quelled the shitland’s ardor and allowed William to escape to the mud of the bottom paddock where he rolled; presumably thinking the mud would take away the perfume of the horse shampoo that had enticed his stable mate into trying to mate with him.

Trevor recovered from the death blow to the goolies and sought comfort from Rocky the Bernese Mountain Dog and I left them to it as they careered around the field happily trying to mount each other. Being both male and of different species I don’t anticipate any real complications from any accidental union, its spring and they are both frustrated. Funny as it was to watch I had to go as I had jobs to do, and I didnt want them to get any ideas and turn their attention to me. Trevor managed to take me by surprise a few days ago sneaking up on me as I was bent over cleaning out the water buckets. Luckily my Wranglers saved me from any serious violation and Trevor found there was a line between pony and owner which must never be crossed.


Victor the Muscovy Drake and one of his wives Victoria fell victim to the fox sometime during Sunday daytime. They never take unhealthy poultry, always the fit, fat tasty ones. Usually ones we have had our eyes on, or have plans for, such as crosses between Black Rocks and Sussex Whites, good layers crossed with good eaters. All these offspring were eaten by the fox before we got a chance to see if it was a successful match. As Boris the Bastard was coq au vin we couldn’t repeat the experiment. Or the time the fox killed all the ducks leaving us with seven drakes.

I was beginning to wonder if the SAS were taking our poultry one week when we lost seven members of the flock. We are on the edge of a training area so if they were on escape and evasion exercises it might have been a possibility. The snow last November put paid to that theory when we found the tracks of five different foxes patrolling our two acres.


Victor’s second wife was found later in the day highly traumatized in the field opposite the house. Field is a bit of a misnomer really, swamp is more accurate. So under the watchful eye my beautiful wife I was directed towards the post traumatically stressed duck. There are, I soon found out, a certain number of advantages to being a duck whilst negotiating a swamp, namely weight, webbed feet and an ability to fly. The secret of crossing boggy ground is never to put your entire weight on any footstep so I raced across the marshy ground wishing I had done my bootlaces up, wishing I was lighter and hoping against hope that the duck would just sit and wait until I caught up with her. As I got within arms length she took to the air and flew to the other end of the swamp. Cursing I loudly followed, she flew back. This continued until I exhausted my entire swearing vocabulary and she got bored and flew back to Rock HQ to a tasty bowl of mixed poultry grain held out for her by Tracey. Muttering I splashed back to the style observing that Tracey’s brains had triumphed over my brawn once again.


Whilst all this was going on Faith the Gordon Setter must have seen what I was doing and got the wrong end of the stick because as I climbed out from swampland I could see her playing with a new chewy toy. It had a peculiar squeak and was highly animated. We realized that none of her chewy toys are coated in feathers and squawk like they are being murdered. Faith was in fact trying to eat the Winniecot Hen, my shout sent her and all the other dogs running for cover, the poor hen saved only seconds from death was placed carefully in the recovery ward along with the traumatized Muscovy.

Both are doing well.

A quick update. The Rock four are still missing despite further attempts to find them. It looks likely that they will end up pie filling which is really annoying as I wanted to see what a Ryeland Suffolk cross looked like, and more importantly tasted like.

Egg thieves abound, Rocky was caught with one in his muzzle a day ago, Pip the collie was guilty of three thefts over the weekend and one of the Black Rock Hens was found up to her beak in yolk on Sunday so she was served up as dinner on Monday. She was delicious, the breast meat was excellent, the leg meat was as tender as my old boots but tasted fantastic.

We are suffering death by Berner at the moment, there being five Bernese Mountain Dogs in residence at the Rock. Not quite as bad as a friend of mine, JJ, who had 26 setters at one time, not all in the house at the same time though. So only five but a its lot of canine for a small cottage. Each dog weighs at least 45kg and dogs that size and power can sit pretty much where they want which is why there is not much room on the sofa at the moment.

We made some money selling the scrap metal from the caravan, after the cost of the skip was deducted from the total for the metal we made eighty eight pounds. Not bad for six hours work from three of us, that’s about four pound an hour. Perhaps not such a good return, maybe sticking to the original win the lottery plan is better.

Lambing is going well, we have two so far, Hercules and Bonny, three more ewes are waiting to pop. There is a lot to tell there but it will have to wait as I seem to have set the chimney on fire and anyway it seems the dogs want this chair back.

I know my place.