Making life easier

 Animals have a knack of sensing how to make your life easier.

 Here we see our last remaining Ryeland, Snowy, along with a feral sheep owned by the militia

 assisting in the loading of the bales.

 Despite their best efforts the job was eventually done.

Meanwhile Shadow thought the dishwasher could do with an upgrade.

Life jackets and swimming lessons

 At Rock HQ we have a plentiful supply of gravity and water which combine in the winter to provide entertainment like divert that new spring from flooding the runway or fetch the life jackets as the donkeys cant swim.

 Having discovered the distinct lack of enthusiasm from the small donkeys over the swimming pool that suddenly appeared in their barracks the job went from the to do list to the something must be done list which is why in the accompanying rain and under supervision from some very large dogs yours truly set about building a new shelter far away from any source of running water.

 At first the job did not really appeal and was at odds to what I really wanted to do which was to stay dry and clean.

 But with suitable encouragement from the K9s and MBAOSPW I duly set about the task. This was made much quicker and so much more fun when I decided to use the chainsaw instead of the boring old hand saw.

 Pretty soon a reasonable and almost weatherproof shelter was fashioned from the numerous spare planks lying around the place. It goes without saying that no measurements were taken during the construction process and any right angles are entirely accidental and probably unwanted.

 Said donkeys were then asked for their opinion and as can be deduced they were

 joyful at the prospect

 of food.

Donkeys are harsh critics.

Finished

 !st Squadron Empress Dragoons 1812

Nerd Alert

 The painting addiction continues....these are finished..

 while these are work in progress.

Trip Hazard

 Often found lurking in doorways at the moment is

Shadow aka Trip Hazard

Happy Anniversary

 Hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the successful summit of Kilimanjaro with lil Bef and a few others. So suitably attired whe and yours truly set off up the bonsai mountain

in weather the polar opposite of Kilimanjaro 

 but once topside we had a lark about, drank some fizz, made some videos to send to people less fortunate than us (as in they were sat indoors with central heating, TV and warm drinks) and patted each other on the back for having shared such a great adventure.

 By now the temperature was dropping, rapidly, so we set off downhill

 with Mrs Bear leading the way, observant ones amongst you might spot shes heading the wrong way.

Put your coat on!

 Trevor the little shitland has lost his coat yet again and given the current state of climate change means no hot weather for us for a while he soon felt the loss. Shortly after this pic was taken the idiot pony got a chill, something to do with the freezing rain falling and so he had to be whisked indoors to warm up and dry off. He is currently running up and down the runway still devoid of coat and refusing to stay inside.

 Inside HQ animals are getting bigger

 and if possible even more cute! Here is Shadow with his favourite cuddly.

Back outdoors rain abating slightly we have MBAOSPW walking Gemma the she wolf from Romania.

Bomb proof

 Lots of people describe their equines as bombproof, meaning that bombs could go off in their near vicinity and it would not alter their demeanour.

Apollo is exactly that, this is he "helping " as I do jobs around the smallholding on the weekend. The fact that I have a live chainsaw in my hands doesn't bother him in the slightest. If only he would pich up the cut logs and put them in the log box for me.

Not lost again!

 Another mini adventure was had on Sunday

 with an intrepid bunch of explorers yours truly set off along and over the Elan Valley to find the right off road

 but soon ran (cycled) into difficulty when the local wildlife had tried their best to obliterate the trail with their doings.

 Keef really enjoyed the hill climbs I could tell by his rasping.

 Finally the right off road was found snaking off to our left the trail to a world of pain.

 Once at the top we managed to find the wrong road again

 and no matter which way we went

 ended up misplaced

 and into the wrong valley.

 After a quick discussion of the merits of turning back and heading uphill again over going on and finding a cafe with bacon sarnies and mugs of tea

we took the bold decision and raced downhill. We will be back to find the right off road and complete the course, a case of third time lucky perhaps.

First time for everything

MBAOSPW has to put up with a lot, especially my taste in "music" but to find she had never put a record on, ever, well lessons had to be learned.
Talking of which, she is particularly fed up with the ease at which I lose cashpoint cards. 5 times at least last year the wretched piece of plastic eluded my grasp, usually at key moments like the day before holidays. I have for a while given up putting it somewhere safe and opted for always in the same place style of management. This has worked for several months but for Christmas I was given a wallet. My argument against, I'll lose that and everything with it and it will spoil the line of my suit obviously cut no ice so now I had one I will use it and never again will I lose my cashpoint card.
I lasted 18 days before putting said wallet with card and a substantial sum of cash on the car roof and driving off with inevitable consequences. 

Ice Ice baby

 The snow might have retreated but the cold hasn't so yours truly was awoken early doors by the sound of brass monkeys crying about their overnight losses.Once I finally figured out what the noise was it was clear on of the horses was not very happy with his lot. The pic above shows the rocks in the garden, the white is ice so pretty cold. 

 This poor chap had got himself stranded on the runway which had frozen over and resembled an ice rink. With my underpants on the outside of my trousers yours truly was the consummate super hero horse botherer and led the petrified non skating equine across the ice and into a warm cozy stable where he could be a cash converter (money into pooh type).

Talking of noise generators the pups are somewhat on the large size now, there being three left, here pictured trying to get a last drop of milk from their mum.