Counting Sheep

I didn't sleep well last night, which is unusual for me as I normally sleep the contented sleep of the righteous.

In fact last night I got less sleep than when Ben was last here and he went to bed later than the rest of us. Tucked up safely in our pits we could hear him trying to negotiate the perils of Rock HQ quietly and in the dark so as not to wake anyone. Eventually the house settled as the noise of him tip toeing up the bare wooden stairs faded into the distance and once we all got over the sounds of his metal door latch finally slamming shut we were able to concentrate on getting some serious shut eye.

Seconds later there was an explosion of swearing and a noise akin to Ben murdering an elephant in his room. I leapt out of bed to assist crossing the landing hoping that he had not brought a girlfriend home and that I wouldn't be interrupting any strange night time games they were engaged in. As I opened his door the barrage of swearing continued and Ben was stood, or rather, was dancing in his boxer shorts on his bed, thankfully he was alone in the room and the cause of his distress was now smeared across the wall. Ben had got into his bed and discovered that a very large wasp had also taken up residence. It took umbrage at having to share and so had retaliated to having its sleep disturbed by stinging him along his leg and back. This came as quite a surprise to Ben and had provoked the response that woke the household. Still, as I helpfully pointed out it was a good experience prior to his jungle training, which is where he is now, he is no doubt sharing his pit with dozens of bitey insects.

Back to last night and my insomnia.

My attempt to sleep didnt get off to a good start when, as I got into bed with my gorgeous wife she snuggled up and whispered "Have you put the birds away?"

The sudden realisation that I had in fact completely forgotten to shut the poultry away was a hammer blow. I dutifully got out of bed and set about the task. An advantage of living in such an isolated rural location is that no one was concerned that an overweight forty something man was wandering about the countryside in his underwear and wellingtons as he rounded up the geese, ducks and hens. Head count over I returned to the warmth of my bed and my now sleeping beauty.

All was well until about 2am when I woke up. Nothing I did could get me back to sleep. Tracey on the other hand was dead to the world. I tried counting sheep but kept focusing on how funny Ebony looks being sheared, she is the black one in the centre of the picture above. I wasn't worrying about anything but my mind just would not switch off and let me sleep.

I must have dozed off because at 3.15am I could see the first threads of dawns light filtering into the room. I lay for a while looking at the light patterns on the ceiling and walls realising that the sunrise takes place the other side of the house and doesn't alternately flash red and blue. Neither does the sunrise to the accompaniment of human voices, boots scrunching in the gravel and diesel engines. Tracey got to the window first. A collection of emergency service personnel were wandering about our yard with powerful torches and an assortment of reflective clothing. A beam of light illuminated Tracey in the window as she called out to them.

"Have you got a sixty year old man up there?" someone shouted. Tracey looked across at me, OK I didn't look my best at half three in the morning but I didn't look that rough to be mistaken for a sixty year old. She shouted down that she didn't and really at this stage she didn't want one, she was alright for men at present. The collection of paramedics, police and mountain rescue personnel having searched the grounds for missing men of pensionable age climbed back into their vehicles. By now the dogs and horses were voicing their opinions loudly on the subject. There was much too-ing and fro-ing of emergency vehicles, eventually the mountain rescue Land Rover reversed down the track and a very apologetic paramedic asked if we could move Rene so they could turn the ambulance around. They disappeared off down the lane leaving us to wonder what on earth was going on.

Perhaps The Oracle, our neighbour was ill again. We have before now driven past to find the air ambulance parked in his garden. This occurs so often that the last time the aircraft was just passing and decided to drop in for a brew. The Oracle has had quadruple by pass surgery on his heart but insists on running his farm, which at times places a bit of strain on the stitches holding his arteries together which leads to another emergency flight across the county.

Eventually we settled back to bed. Tracey fell asleep almost immediately which no doubt she will deny later on and I lay pondering the plight of who ever the emergency services were looking for.

The Bernese alarm clocks decided at 5.34 that they needed to visit the little dogs room in the garden so I gave in and got up.

Currently they are sleeping at my feet, Tracey is fast asleep and I feel like I should be. Especially as tonight I am going out with a gun to wait for the fox.

Me, tired, armed with a lethal weapon, what could possibly go wrong?

Horse Power!

I was talking to a friend today who told me I should get rid of all the animals that don't directly contribute to Rock HQ. In other words get rid of the Horses, Goats, Dogs, Cats, the Poultry that are free loading and presumably the fish.

Whilst I can see his point that they are eating us out of house and home, that our feed bill every month is twice or three times what we spend on our own food and that sometimes there seems very little return for our investment, what he failed to understand is that most of the animals here now are work in progress and one day will, hopefully, contribute to the smooth operation of Rock HQ.

The goats will be milk goats once they go to kid in November. This does depend on us being able to find a Billy Goat that wants to do the business with our two very pretty females. It also relies on us being able to transport a Billy here in accordance with Defra rules and current restrictions on moving animals in and out of our area due to the Blue Tongue Midge. Then there's finding a Billy that's the same scrapey rating as our two, that they can actually get pregnant and safely deliver kids and produce milk in reasonable quantity. Apart from all that its easy to see that by the end of the year they will be giving us "free" milk and some kids that we can sell, bring on to milk goats or even eat Caribbean style. Meantime they keep us entertained. Or busy.

The dogs and cats are pets, so they are allowed to live here rent free. The fish are very quiet so no trouble, unless they get out and start swimming up and down the path, they then have to be caught and put back in the pond before their flood created adventure playground dries up. But as we live in Wales it hardly ever rains so it no problem.

The poultry are currently under review, do we replace the three turkey females that got eaten by the fox, or do we cut our losses as well as Terry the turkeys head off and eat him. He is fortunate that there are no festivals or holidays coming up otherwise he might find his reign of the garden ending very soon. That and he is an absolute monster bird, therefore scarey and difficult to deal with particularly when you only have one arm capable of turkey homicide. The geese are pets, as are the ducks (Tracey has a habit of nominating things as pets to prevent their premature demise and subsequent appearance on the dinner table). The rest of the poultry are being rotated, in other words the new chicks we have will be layers next year, the current layers will be chicken stews in the winter, apart from Devil Hen, Cheeper, Budge, Cheeper's Mate, Donna, Black Hen, Fluffy and Walter who have all achieved the exhaulted status of petship. So again hardly any hangers on there.

The sheep are all pets, with the exception of Hercules, Bonny, Maude and Sandy. Hercules will be sold as a pedigree ram as soon as he is old enough thereby making a small contribution to the feed bill. The other three will be making a very real contribution to reducing our personal feed bill and taking up residence in Mr. Whirlpool the freezer just before Christmas. Bill is still missing on the common, the two Suffolks will be mutton or sold once I can track them down but at present don't put a strain on the purse. Ebony the coloured ryeland may be sold as a pet, or eaten as a bar b que, it depends on how she looks tomorrow after shearing. He has promised to turn up tomorrow, Trevor the Shitland hopes he does as they are in his stable at the moment and he has been evicted to the dairy. As usual we are keeping the smallholder rule, if you have an empty building then you must fill it with animals.

The pigs will all be going for meat, one as bacon and two as pork. The astute amongst you will already have worked out we have four pigs and I have only listed three. This is because the status of "Pet" has been given to Tiny, a pig with half a tail and who is substantially smaller than the rest. Why has this one been chosen as a pig we want to breed from, well not because she is the best, healthiest, biggest or strongest, no, its because she looks so cute and has kind eyes. I must stop Tracey going to the pig sty before others get pet status and I have no bacon next year.

The horses are definitely work in progress. They are going to be working horses who will carry and cart stuff around the smallholding, from moving hay to logs, from dragging a bracken bruiser to clear large patches of future grazing to dragging a scuffle or harrow across our fields to improve the grassland. I am not a Luddite, but machinery here is not suited to the ground, we had a Land Rover called Ivan (pictured above) but he was useless and totally unable to get into the fields. The slope is quite severe. A quad bike would be fun, but again impractical as it would not manage the gradient safely. This leads us to horse power. I am keen to learn old country skills and horse handling is one skill I intend to master. If you have seen the picture of my attempt to shear you will see I am keen to acquire the ancient ways of country folk and have an obvious talent.

I expressed this desire to learn horse handling to JJ at the weekend and told him how a harrow for a quad bike is about £100 whereas a similar sized one for a horse coats over £1100. This is because of a quick release mechanism engineers refer to as a dog which prevent horse hurting itself when it bolts off, or stops the horse handler being dragged under the harrow by the enthusiastic beast. Apparently JJ is inspired to help this project, he is an engineer type, not because he is overly concerned about the welfare of the horse, or that the handler may suffer a devastating injury to his other arm as he acquires these new skills, no he wants to help so the project actually happens and he can read about the mayhem on this blog.

Its good to have friends!