Hot Chicks

The chicks have been moved from next to the Rayburn to the brood box in the tack room. They seem happy enough with their new accommodation.

Its a kind of magic!

Well we waited with baited breath but nothing happened. No walking around in circles, no making a nest, no sleepless night with hot water and fresh towels on standby and certainly n patter of tiny hooves. Misty has not delivered the long awaited foal, today being her last due day. This on the one hand is good news for Trevor who is keen on impregnation, often found mounting wheelbarrows, slow moving Bernese Mountain Dogs and hapless passers by who fall for the cute little pony act.

There is something strange going on here though. The Rock HQ experience perhaps. It has a strange effect on people. Theres always a warm welcome, if not from 11 dogs then us. And people get to do unusual things like feed lambs, or stand in the way of a stroppy horse as we try to get it back to where it should be. Actually Ben, our monster 24 year old who is now an officer in the army was nearly crushed to death aged 7 when I rather stupidly gave him a five bar gate to hold with the instructions "Wait here" as I tried to round up a few randy bull calves for our cousin. The bulls keen to continue their new found freedom faced with an albeit determined 7 year old gate holder ran straight over him. I ran across the field fully expecting to find an ex offspring and wondered how his mother would take the news. Thankfully he was lay in the mud like an acme cartoon character with hoof prints over him. Suitably chastised for his carelessness we eventually managed to get the randy bovine adolescents in the trailer and got back home in time for tea and medals.

Anyway the last visitors here went home. Perhaps something happened while they were here because on the way home they bought two geese. This weekend they take delivery of two piglets. Its like a drug addiction.

We had an email asking why Tales From The Rock. Well we live in the shadow of a huge one. Now and then bits drop off to add to the excitement and provide us with new rockery material and unlimited gravel. This is Tracey sat next to the last big one that fell a couple of years ago. Its now half the size after attacking it for a week with a jackhammer. In case your wondering, its the rock behind her, not the small pebble in front. Good job the tree stopped its progress.

Caught napping

Our very elderly beagles are enjoying their retirement at Rock HQ. When we moved here they were old, now in their eighteenth year they are positively ancient. Brother and sister, Preston looking at the camera and Passion his podgy sister have been inseparable since birth.

In fact when I bought them they were a Bogof, buy one get one free, the runt of the litter was given to me as a gift, so Preston a handsome dog pup was joined by his small pointy nosed totally un beagle like sister.

They have provided years of entertainment, especially the time they got into my office which doubled as a paint store and opened the cans. I returned from work to find comedy paw prints in yellow, blue, green and purple up and down the stairs, on all the beds, on the computer and all over the kitchen. They were masters at opening the fridge undetected, their crimes discovered when yours truly needed milk and found the fridge deficit of all edible items. To compound matters they would carry off their ill gotten gains and make a nest in the centre of any ones bed, any one that was stupid enough to have left the bedroom door open would find the remains of a beagle party on the duvet. Then there was the time that Preston ran off with the Christmas Turkey as it rested on the worktop. Christmas dinner with sausage instead of festive Turkey wasn't the same really. Countless are the times they have run off, chewed precious items, eaten my dinner or barfed in my boots. So naughty were they in fact that I would never have another beagle again.

But they are adorable and I wouldn't change them for the world, especially when they look so happy.

Not that clean

Hetty, our recently traumatised Dexter, is getting very tame and will now follow you around the pen, provided you are not wearing a hoody and baseball cap, and allow you to pat her or give her a back scratch while she eats. Her best friend is Ambrose, a jaffa Old English Goat (jaffa because he is small and seedless) who had no choice in the matter regarding this relationship, he was either her best friend or a Caribbean curry after breaching the defences of the garden for the last time.

Given that he lives in close confinement to a large beast who produces 60 litres or so of green muck every day we have marvelled at how the pint size goat has remained so remarkably clean. I mean I got plastered on one side after a near miss in the doorway on Monday, so how does he who lives under threat of constant shower stay so clean. The answer came when Tracey took a friend to see Hetty and top up the haylege pile whilst there.

Ambrose was backed up in the corner by the water butt as Hetty, who has an unfeasibly large tongue was licking him clean. Aside from the expression on his face, akin to that of a small child having his face rubbed clean by his mother who has just licked a tissue and is determined to remove every trace of grime from her offspring, Ambrose seemed remarkably happy about this attention. He even lifted his head so Hetty could clean right under his chin. So in fact he not clean, hes just covered in spit.

Whatever happened to monday!

Life is a blur here from time to time, days run into each other as jobs get done, or not as more often is the case. Not sure what happened to Monday, it even disappeared from the TFTR pages prompting emails of gentle outrage from our merry band of readers. So the actual posting for Monday is below with Fern, it was late by the time it was published but it just vanished.
Part of the day was spent teaching the Rock HQ pack some manners as their over exuberant welcome is getting borderline intimidating for the unwary traveller and welcome guests alike.
Passing through can be quite an experience with so many cute animals to oooh and aahhh over, many a walker is seen posing for photos by the Pocket Rocket and Misty our tiny ponies. Other are seen risking an inquisitive bite from the piglets as they lean over the stock fence and try to touch.
Some scrota tried to feed the ponies a golf ball, and Sunday some idiot on a motorbike nearly ran Apollo down in the yard as he (the man not Apollo, if we had a horse that could ride a motorbike we would never have to worry about paying the mortgage) illegally tried to ride his too powerful bike for such a weedy man over our Bonsai Mountain for an off road adventure. Now I am all for live and let live, and if the buffoon had got off his bike and pushed it slowly past the horse instead of riding straight at him I might have taken a more lenient stance, but if he shows up again then by the time he finishes the boys in blue will be waiting.
Anyway back to puppy training. As ever this is not the run of the mill, it involved me sneaking out of the cottage and hiding in the lane dressed as a hooligan, hoody, baseball cap and so on.
The dogs of war were unleashed and when they spotted me, a stranger in their back yard they did the usual full cry gallop to come and say hello. I reacted totally unlike any stranger they had encountered, by running at them screaming, waving my arms and generally behaving like an escaped lunatic. They skidded to a halt en masse and gave a few warning barks before retreating to sit behind Tracey to await further instructions. As she failed to give the kill, maim disfigure command they watched with some amusement as yours truly hammed it up by stomping around like Guy the Gorilla. This eventually prompted a fresh sortie but they, being brave dogs, ran away as fast as their paws would carry them as I stood upright and beat my chest like King Kong. All except Bliss, she circled me tail wagging making eye contact as if to say I know its you. Cover about to be blown I doubled back through the cow pen to get back to the house before they did so I could surprise them by apparently being in the house all the time.
This would have worked a treat had I not encountered a cow having a nervous breakdown who now thought the lunatic who had tried to frighten the dogs had certainly frightened the cow, goat and pigs, and finding herself alone in the barn with said nutter sprang forward head down achieving 0 to Mach1 in a millisecond. The bovine human collision was narrowly avoided in the confines of the doorway and the soft landing in her daily deposits was a better option than a goring from her horns. Scraping off the worst as I jogged along the garden I made it to the conservatory just in time to be greeted by Bliss who sat there with an I knew it was you all along look, quickly followed by a phew whats that smell.
The training continues, for all of us. Hetty's therapy starts as soon as we can afford it.

Creature comforts

Fern is getting bigger every day and has come on a long way since she scared us all by nearly dying.
Here she is bouncing around the living room playing Queen of the Castle on the coffee table and choosing a magazine to read.

Fern is getting bigger every day and has come on a long way since she scared us all by nearly dying.
Here she is bouncing around the living room playing Queen of the Castle on the coffee table and choosing a magazine to read.

All creatures great and small

You might wonder what is going on in the picture above. First glance could lead you to assume that Gold had been discovered by the spring in the garden, the shovels, pans and buckets do tend to support some sort of prospecting going on. The dessert spoon wielded by Paul is perhaps an indicator that precious metal is not the reason why four adults spent a fair proportion of the morning knelt by the pond.

It was because of these little creatures, photographed underwater by my all singing all dancing camera, bought with a take pictures underwater ability due to the high levels of rainfall in these parts. Anyway the thing does take a recognisable snap of tadpoles in their own backyard. It chucked down several inches of rain last night and result was a lawn covered with thousands of tadpoles washed out of the safety of the pond. There were small gangs of them clustered together in paw prints, swimming up and down the path and all were in dire straits facing death once the water level dropped or from being squished by huge dog feet. So Rock HQ human inhabitants armed with a collection of kitchen cutlery and sieves rescued them. Not all of them but several pounds in weight of them. I did wonder if they were edible, were we missing out on some embryonic amphibian omlette treat, or a baby frog jelly but common sense prevailed and the majority of little black wrigglers were returned to their more usual habitat.

Ben and Beth joined us for lunch and we had a huge tadpoless feast. After dinner Ben who very much considers himself a mans man got very interested in what I was doing shouting from the sofa "Hey Dad what are you doing?" Taking photographs was my reply. "What of?" he yelled back. The speed at which he left the sofa to join me in the kitchen was matched only by the speed of his disappointment. Perhaps these were not the sort of pictures of chicks and puppies he was thinking of.

Just a dash of water

We have some friends staying over so we went to Water Breaks it Neck to do the tourist bit. As we have had such a long dry spell there wasn't much water in the fall.

A nice piece of modern art though.

And its getting greener.

Its one of those places thats different everytime you go!