Pip the Psycho

We were gardening this evening, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, well most of them were. There is one particularly annoying male Chaffinch that I swear follows me around and just goes Peep Peep Peep all the time, never changing tempo, never altering pitch, always the same Peep Peep Peep Peep like a birdsong version of Chinese water torture, the sound burning into my brain as I attend to my chores, slowly driving me mental, but I digress, and all was good in our world, apart from the aforementioned Chaffinch serenade.

With the garden fenced off and the poultry shut away during the daytime the garden is starting to look like someone actually cares for it. Four of the eleven raised beds now contain plants we want to keep rather than weeds. In between the plants like peas, cauliflowers and sprouts we have planted sweetcorn, the plan being that the smaller plants bulk out and cover the lower parts of the beds and the sweetcorn grows through and upwards thus giving us two crops from the same space. We also have courgettes planted out, onions are in beds and pumpkins. I hate pumpkin but we planted them and they have grown huge so hopefully we will get some big pumpkins in the autumn. God knows what we will do with them. The greenhouses have now been cleared out a bit giving the tomatoes room, the grape is going a bit mad so needs cutting back before it takes over and puts everything in the shade and the fig has grown back despite amateur and vicious pruning by yours truly.

Anyway while we were potting on some cucumbers above the earsplitting Chaffinch crescendo Tracey and I heard another unusual sound. A crunching, bone breaking type sound.

Now Pip our psychotic collie, who looks like a miniature German Shepherd was sat under the fruit trees on the bank playing with a new toy.

Now she seldom sits still for more than two seconds so we don't have many good pictures of her so she hasn't been featured on these pages very often. Pictures we do have are usually blurred as she moves at the crucial moment, or we have a brilliant sharp picture of her tail as she runs off camera. So as she was sat still rather than annoying someone or one of her kennel mates I took the opportunity to get some video of her. She is as you can see engrossed with her new plaything.

What, I wondered, is captivating this mad mongrel?

What is keeping her so occupied that she has forgotten her primary role in life is to bother every other living thing?

What is so interesting she had to carry it off the common, bring it into our garden and sit in the shade of a tree and crunch up with such gusto?

It is a sheep skull.

She has worse habits.