A view for eternity

We have more than your average number of dogs. This inevitably means we have more dog deaths than most. Its been a run of sad passings recently, Gemma a rescue died 4 months ago, followed by Mrs Bear who nearly got to 14 years old, a fantastic action Berner, then Holly, another complex Bernese died of liver failure 6 weeks ago closely followed by Ursu another rescue Romanian who died unexpectedly in his sleep two weeks ago.

So today we took him for his last walk and final resting place, in the dog cairn on the Bonsai Mountain.

The apprentice and several Berners provided the guard of honour

and Ursu was carefully placed in the cairn alongside all the other clan members past. 

Sven sat in contemplation, this is not a bad view for eternity, its where I shall probably end up, but not for some time hopefully. 

We spent a few minutes taking in the vista

Sven posing magnificently amongst the geography. 

The shire below us.

Wales to the left.

The apprentice spent a few moments with his dog, Ace. 
 Job done, we walked back to the cottage to feed the rest of the gang. 

No prevarication whatsoever...

Yours truly has a mountain of paperwork to do so as the sun was shining I took the easy option of ditching the foolish notion of completing anything so boring and instead set about catching up with some essentials on the jobs list. The yard is in a bit of a state, not helped by the new delivery of hay, these 1 ton bales need moving to where they should be.

Today I was not flying solo, Big Dave who is by any measure hyperactive, came over to assist clearing out the stables, The fact that he got to race around on the Daisy the quad bike was an obvious factor in his decision to spend the best part of a morning helping me shovel horse doings. Trailer by trailer load the stables were cleared with Dave racing about at full speed on Daisy, his full speed or stop mentality an asset when you're time limited. 

Next job was to add guttering to the stable, this job had been lying around in kit form for about 6 months so needed doing, and as storms are forecast for the weekend it seemed prudent to crack on while the sun shone.

The runway needed clearing, and gates repositioning to allow the boys, Rocco and Will.I.Am access to food and shelter in the forecast maelstrom.

As an avid arachnophobe coming nose to nose with this giant beastie at the top of the ladder was a bit of a worry but I managed not to scream and turn it to jam, instead carefully moved it to allow the placement of new guttering, leaving it to ponder where its web had gone. 

By mid afternoon gutters were on, gates were fixed, runway clear, new mats were put on the concrete floors to soften the impact for horse turds and the bales were moved. As a bonus the little shits (shetlands) were also back in their field so were unable to wreck all the hard work undertaken.

Happy with the progress made it was time for some fun with the K9's as an alternative to actually having to face the paperwork inside. 
 

Road kill

On the subject of sheep and their innate ability for self harm, yours truly was on the school run (late due to recalcitrant Corgi refusing to get back in the cottage) and was further delayed by two sheep who for reasons known only to themselves forsook the green fields and were wandering along the Kings Highway dodging quarry lorries. 

Donning my red cape I managed to persuade them from certain death and on to pastures new. I was even later now but at least I saved the lorries from being damaged. 
 

All for show

Kington has an annual show so what better place for the Kington Lions to try and attract new recruits to serve the community. Hence the tombola which attracted a lot of punters, none of which wanted to join the Lions, and quite a few young farmers who thought this would be a shoeing to win a can of cider and went away disappointed having any alcohol wins exchanged for hand sanitiser. 

The show got off to a slow start

but there were some big attractions.

I was told that under no circumstances could I bring home any woolly backed critters

so I loitered around the sheep pens remembering sheep passed/past, like Crispen the giant Ryeland Ram, decendents of which still wander the wilderness after he busted out of his pen and ravaged the local ewes. 

The Police were at the show, suitably attired for rural combat, see the sword... thats not standard city issue.

Usual things happened, like the parade of livestock winners, last year it was so hot all the animals were sent home to chill out.

The Grim Reaper kept the crowd entertained a while

by driving round and adding to global warming with its massive engine

but this was dwarfed in size by Big Pete which is, the owner enthusiastically recounted, the largest working monster truck in the world.

End of play yours truly packed up the Lions for another year to head back to the ranch to spend time with the K9s. 
 

Leaders of the pack

So the time had come to drop these two off and let them fend for themselves in the woods, which would be a great adventure for them and a break from parenting for us. Thoughts of a weekend away doing something fun evaporated when yours truly realised that the one weekend without rug rats was to be spent at a local agricultural show volunteering. Curse poor calendar management!

Fast forward 48 hours and two very tired children were recovered from the woods and soon they were back at the ranch on the games console where every child thinks they should be. 
 

Room for a small one?

When you have as many K9s as yours truly the addition of one more seems irrelevant in the scheme of costs, food, time, exercise, poop scooping, training, shouting and long walks, which is why yours truly was press ganged by MBAOSPW to view what looked like a very large hamster  

but turned out to be an eight week old Corgi girl pup who has yet to be named. Perhaps one draw back of so many K9's past and present is that names are at a premium, all the good ones have been used up so coming up with an appropriate name for a bat eared hamster dog is proving taxing. 

Back at the ranch yours truly took some proper dogs for a stroll in the dying rays of the day through the old wood

where Ivy struck a proper pose

before racing round after Otis, Spotty2, Shadow and Loki.

                                                             Otis and Ivy are particularly photohygienic                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Spotty kept his distance in case he was dunked in the river 

which is still bone dry so he is safe.. for now. 
 

Schrodinger's fuel tank

How much clearer do you have to be for the post office, here we see some of their finest delivery attempts, the box containing some awesome bike parts shows signs of abuse 

and has been bent into a strange mathematical shape and for a while contained Schrodinger's Fuel Tank, it being perfect or trashed at the same time, no one  knows the state its in until the box is open.

Thankfully the parts survived the trauma of the post office and was in perfect condition. 

This is Ivy helping MBAOSPW with some work, she can't type very fast but is a good listener, Ivy that is. 
 

Another fun day

Today we hit Tipton with an eye catching recruitment drive to get more foster carers to rally to the icanfoster flag. 

We even had a marching band!

I met the Mayor, thats her in the middle. 

It was all too much for the apprentice who sought solace in his phone. 

Back at the ranch another quick game of Alien ended in disaster for the crew who were 

one square away from safety before the Nostromo exploded. Again.