Get on with it.

Having had a day meeting the collective nerd it was time to get on with the jobs list which today included clearing the runway, a horrible task give it had not been done since the digger was here and the ponies had exacted their revenge by making huge amounts of money in the form of hay turn into what yours truly was supposed to shift by barrow and spade.

These are the after pics, with Mrs Bear in attendance.

She has taken over the role of action Berner since her brother Spotty crossed over the rainbow bridge.

This young dog has landed on his paws, Rio seen here lounging by the poolside. About as far removed from dying in a drainage ditch in Romania as you can get!

A day at the races

 Being a born again nerd yours truly felt the call to attend a nerd convention to see what other nerds are getting up to which is why I took the apprentice nerd with me to Newbury Race Course.

 Nerds as a collective have no sense of time as they stand around discussing the merits of a D6 saving throw which is why the signage was a tad out of date.

 But as a festival of nerds, this did not disappoint. There were hundreds of us them so yours truly and the apprentice mingled with the crowd to see the nerd displays. This a Russian French conflict,

 while this was something going on in  the desert

 while this was another Napoleonic bash.

 Being a trainee nerd requires calories and once refreshed

 it was back to it, this a lego under the sea game where there are no children at all playing with the toys. Nerds don't like their toys being played with by children.

 However, we did find a nice nerd who let yours truly and the apprentice play a game called TANKS

 and so it wasn't long before

 the apprentice was hooked

 and despite my best tactics

 he ended up King of the hill, his surviving Churchill tank defeated the finest German panzers.

 Naturally this meant he had gone up in the nerd ranks and so we spent some hard earned cash on a few more toys as nerds can never ever have enough.

 The apprentice was so happy he ran round the race course.

 While we had been inside looking at hundreds of toys soldiers and war games the local wildlife had been having a game of their own

using Stan as target practice!

Up n Over

 Sven failed spectacularly at his audition to be an action Berner as he could not clear the first obstacle.

 After much hiking we found an aincient relic hidden in the trees at the summit.

 The worlds biggest ants nest is even bigger.

 Sven, not a people dog, would not go anywhere near Keef, unless he was walking just to heel.

 Not a bad view from the office. A spot of lunch.

 Sven wasn't sure the corned beef hash was fit for consumption.

 Back on patrol placing the checkpoints out for the 8 peaks competition.

The smallest cutest black foal ever, pity it ends up as pie filling.

Safe and Sound

Bala was found the following day wandering around our neighbours farm. He was very happy to see us and promised not to go walkies unsupervised again!

Dez Rez

The hens have a new house, an Eglu...very swish and today yours truly made it even better by putting a waterproof cover on it.

A hard Knight

 Blessed as we are with so many animals, occssionally (read every day) they let themselves down. Here is MBAOSPW with Isla our latest triever puppy.

 So while the boys were playing

 all things medieval one of the K9s, an old Romanian Sheepdog called Bala took it on himself to wander off from HQ which prompted a full blown search.

 One side effect of this was that the apprentice and RRMK2 learned the joy of scrumping apples.

 As it was their bedtime yours truly abandoned them into the care of their mother and set off again looking for missing dog. This view from The Knowle, no sign.

 Certain he had entered the wood and failed to find the right exit a thorough search revealed nothing other than a new looking riding boot that one of his associates had dropped there a while ago.

I did find a pond I hadn't previously seen, but no dog. So the poor lad spent the night out in the cold while we fretted indoors as to his safety.

Rainbow valley

View from the front door

How to get down from a boat...

Summer loving

 Saturday in the garden with Snowy enjoying the sunshine

 Sunday in the garden, Daffodil and Snowy looking for the sun

Summers gone.....

The silence of the goats

 Time passes, as we now have 21 dogs, who when left to their own devices have parties and can create quite a mess so something must be done, especially for when we may be out from the cottage. An extension to the kennel block is required. Rather unhelpfully since the build of the kennels the area to the side has been used as a dump so it needed to be cleared first.

 Then whilst doing that the overgrown trees began to bother me, as did the pitiful bleating of the goats who wanted feeding which is why I fetch the chainsaw

 and loppers

 and soon the goats were quiet, not permanently, happy munching the fallen trees (this is another huge job, the trees have taken over to the point there is no TV signal, this must be sorted by the time the next series of Strictly Come Dancing starts!) and the rubbish area

 began to look like a building plot. Levels were ascertained (I've changed ) and finding the plot went from 4 inches to 16 all the old rubble and

 stones from a long way down the track were found

and many hours later yours truly was ready to see the osteopath, erm..I mean concrete!  Then it rained for a change.

Bit of a scare

 Rocky our first ever Berner gave us another scare the other morning.

 This is he, in all his smiling goodness, but unable to walk, move or stand up.

 As he is nearly eleven years old, fathered 54 pups and has seen off three of his children, Biffer, Spotty and Bliss, lost his wife Reba and way outlived Aunt Montana we know that the dreaded day for a dog from a breed who average 6 years life span is not far away but we don't want it to happen. So we gave him a dose of metacalm, lots of TLC and moved the blanket of death away from him, that's the lovely yellow blankie his son Spotty went to sleep on recently.

 So he rested.

 Perked up and was, I'm ever so glad to say, back to his annoying self.

Talking of old dogs this is Poppy, 14 years old now. Bless.