Unbelievable

We have for a few weeks now been detecting autumn colours in the leaves around us, hardly any time seems to have passed since we were longing for the first signs of spring, some of the trees didn't get to full leaf until mid June and here we are in early August and they are preparing to fall. Our sheep are just visible in the top photo on a long range forage.

This is the view at the back of Rock HQ, below is what we call The Cauldron. Trolls live here, up in the caves behind the large Ash tree, at least thats what the voices in my head tell me. So, here we are, our third autumn about to start at Rock HQ, it will be only the second one I remember as the first on I was off my head on drugs due to the teensy weensy accident I had that nearly ended it all. I cant believe so much time has passed so quickly, and there is so much to do here, just the chainsawing alone would keep you occupied for weeks. I have done some pruning with the chainsaw this week, some of the hazel twigs had got over thirty feet high along the lane. The hazel tree opposite the stables has been "disappearing" bit by bit allowing sunlight to reach the yard the first time in years. It has to go piece by piece as A. Its very large, and B. It is in the farmers field so technically its not mine to chop down.

Its also taken three years to sort out some proper animal feed. We have been buying ours from a Countrywide store, very convenient and very nice people but the feed bill is reaching stupid levels as they charge around £7 for 20kg. As your average piggie will eat 2Kg a day it soon adds up. Especially with sheep, goats, horses, dogs, cats and surviving poultry. The Stable Sprite took me to the feed the local feed mill for local people today and we got 550kg of organic animal feed for £110. A bargain only if the animals eat it, and the pigs this time round are very fussy.

First test was with the fussy pigs, who had escaped onto the common today just to annoy me, which in turn annoyed the Stable Sprite as I was coaxing pigs down off the cliff rather than helping him unhitch and hitch his trailer while he turned in our lane. The fussy pigs fell on the new feed like a pack of rabid dogs devouring their daily ration in seconds. So far so good.

The goats, who would if given the chance eat broken glass, rusty nails and anything else they felt they shouldn't, relished the new feed. Similarly the sheep polished off a mighty portion in record time whilst the geese thought it was a race and scooped up massive beak fulls. All the poultry seemed to like the new stuff and the horses were given a small sample to gauge their reaction, all good, and so having passed the test the new feed will now feature on the menu at Rock HQ for evermore. Only the dogs require a different food source.

There was a bit of a commotion behind the stable. Poppy the Golden Retriever had just hijacked the goats dinner and was greedily tucking into the new muesli. She looked at me rather sheepishly before polishing the complete bowlful. So perhaps I was wrong, all we need to do is buy gravy granules in future.