The final frontier

Many times I have said that since we started smallholding you find yourself doing things you really hadn't expected.

I'm not talking about responding to emergency type things, like the pigs finally finishing work on their escape tunnel today and setting off to explore the delights of the garden, or Katy the lamb hiding in the pantry, or even Faith the Gordon setter playing chase with the last of Devil hens chicks and accidentally supplying the main ingredient to tonight's chicken pate starter, no, I am talking about jobs or situations you just had not dreamed you would encounter but soon become routine. Things like extricating goats trapped by their horns off cliff faces, playing midwife to sheep as they try to push out a large uncooperative lamb (times like that you thank God for the BBC and James Herriot!) or attending to various aspects of animal hygiene.

Today we should have got on with the most boring job in the world, sanding off the varnish from the conservatory. This job we allowed a weekend for, it is progressing slower than middle east peace talks and at this point in time is about as successful. The situation has not been helped by the cheap orbital sander threatening to burst into flames every time we use it longer than ten minutes. Perhaps the dogs should have chewed it after all.

Now instead of completing this mammoth task I found a whole host of other jobs suddenly became extremely important. So important that the sanding would have to wait. Tracey watched patiently while I trimmed the sheep's hooves, a couple had early signs of foot rot, caused by the wet summer. As I trimmed she sprayed them with the purple spray that stops infection. The sheep chose not to play the game at this point and pretty soon Tracey and I were alarming shades of purple, the patches on our skin resembling bad bruises or large birthmarks.

That unexpected chore over with I think that Tracey began to suspect I was stalling from the real job of the day when I decided that today was the day, the day I crossed the final frontier of horse ownership, well male horse ownership anyway. Today was the day I got a bucket of warm water and much to all concerned surprise, especially Apollo, I did the deed.

I washed Apollo's John Thomas.

Getting up close and personal with your horses widgey is not for the feint hearted, there are no half measures, no prizes for second best, its a job that demands total commitment and two hands. Having no sense of smell would be a bonus too, I excel in that department having lost most of my sense of smell in the Alps when the inside of my nose froze, its never been the same since. Despite that advantage the smell is hard to avoid, especially as its quite likely your nose is not as far as you would like it to be from a horses dirty penis, lets face it you are only ever going to be arms length at most as you sponge and soap it clean.

I am now one of the elite few, call me the horse whisperer, should anyone shout "Is there a horse hygienist in the house!", whatever, I know that from this day forth I am one of the few people who can, when needed, or called upon, its not after all a hobby or pastime, coax a horses bits out from its protective sheath and give it a really good scrub without losing my breakfast.

The final frontier, I crossed it.

Did it get me out of sanding the conservsatory?

Yes.

Was it worth it?

If I dont have nightmares then yes.