Us again!

So the secret of what goes on behind the green, now black door is out. A project long in planning finally gets going. But we are having second thoughts about one aspect of the operation, the main office. First it flooded. Then the rooms above caught fire, bringing our ceilings down when the brave firefighters dealt with it. Then as we organised a celebrity grand open day scaffolding appeared covering most of the building. On the actual open day snow and ice made us postpone it. But still we carried on working behind the steel tubed facade.

Then tonight.

A supermarket lorry driver decided to rid us of the menace of scaffolding.

The driver of the car was a tad shaken. The town centre is closed, fire, police and ambulance are in attendance. One of the firefighters nodded in recognition, you again. Yes. Us again.

Slim pickings

Ambrose has ample food supplies but being a goat he cannot help himself breaking into the garden and seeign whats on offer. Not much this time of year but he has an eye on the bird feed station.

Earlier Geisha was wrestled to the floor and a fat ball complete with green netting removed from her mouth, the noise she made in protest would have woken the dead.

Do you want ice with that?

There was an enormous clang first thing this morning out in the yard. The noise came from a rather embarrassed looking brass monkey as he retrieved certain ornate yet vital parts of his anatomy. It is that cold. The promised thaw forecast for yesterday did not arrive. There was an hour or so when the temperature reached the dizzy heights of minus 1, and for around twenty five seconds the sun shone and it was positively sultry, but for the majority of the daylight hours it was cold. The snow has turned to ice, making any attempt at movement across the yard suicidal. I have added to the chaos caused by Jack Frost by filling the horse trough with water and forgetting the tap was running. The slight trickle of water over filled the trough and we now have a two inch thick layer of ice some twenty foot wide on the steepest part. This is providing much entertainment as the Berners on Ice Show is much better than anything on telly.

I did venture out in the repaired and renovated Vic today, once again his sturdy constitution saved me from a fate worse than NHS food while at the same time giving a horse a lesson in survival.

It was dark, and we (Vic and me) were crossing the Brecon Beacons, not going very quick as the ice and snow made that a bad idea. As we rounded a right hand bend with a steep drop to our left something strange happened to the white lines and cats eyes. They were missing. Big Black horse shape missing. For some inexplicable reason Neddy had wandered off the mountain and thought the best place in the world was to be stood arse end facing traffic on a busy mountain A road. Braced for sudden impact I uttered the drivers universal prayer of "Oh Shiiiiiiiiiiiii....." and calculated the injury caused by horse going through windscreen would be less than injury of driving over cliff face. Vics ABS had other ideas and helped me steer a path between the two the explosion of noise and broken glass was quieter but loud enough. I gathered my thoughts and my elation at not bleeding was halted as I thought about poor Neddy. Reversing lights on I carefully retraced my path, Horsey thinking I was coming back for a second go took itself and its no doubt sore backside off up the snowy mountain. I checked Vic, no blood or gore, no hair, just a broken drivers door mirror where Vic reminded Neddy that playing with the traffic can be dangerous.

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Fellowship of the Ring is broken.

It was a valiant attempt to unseat the King from the throne, but alas, for them, fortune did not favour the brave and their ill timed rebellion was crushed and they all went to bed with no dinner.

It was most likely my fault. Perhaps I should not have laughed when, after much effort on my part, the water started to flow at high velocity along the 20mm water pipe. Had I thought I would have checked to see that there was no shitland pony called Trevor biting the free end hanging over the trough, hoping to catch a dribble of fresh water. I did look up in time to see his cheeks bulge as a million gallons of ice cold water suddenly filled his mouth. Pointing and laughing only sowed deeper the seeds of the later rebellion.

The boys, William, Apollo, Trevor and their sidekick Misty (a girl pony) are in a routine that goes roughly along the lines of wake up, wait for servant to open bedroom door, stretch, wander lazily to the hayledge in the Ring, spend all day eating while servant cleans and tidies bedroom, watch as servant appears just before sunset with buckets of tempting goodies, note carefully the goodies placed in bedrooms, wait impatiently at gate for servant to get a move on and open gate, wander into bedroom, ignore platitudes from servant and get nose down in bucket, have servant shut bedroom door and turn out light, create Himalayan range of horse dung for servant to shift later, lick salt block, snooze and do it again in the morning.

So aside from laughing at Trevor's water boarding mishap I was guilty of complacency. A sin that if committed by smallholders seldom goes unpunished. Putting the ponies to bed is easy. Five minutes max.

Which is why last night I was to be found shivering in the lane in unlaced boots, no torch, wearing a t shirt instead of the arctic gear I had been wearing earlier, because after all, this would only take five minutes I cheerily shouted to my beautiful and oh so patient wife as she reminded me to put my coat on as I set out to put the ponies to bed. The four ponies had gone through the motions of wander towards stables but at a key moment failed to enter and cantered down the lane. Misty who is as fast moving as a comatose Eeyore wandered miserably after her fleeing companions whinnying at being left behind. I followed after grabbing a feed bucket to tempt them with.

By the time I rounded the bend in the lane even Misty the wonder Sloth had disappeared into the night. Somewhere out there were four naughty ponies and 500 acres to play in. The tracks in the snow helped with direction, but each time I got to a point where they might be, the tracks led further away. Every now and then a whinny of temper from Misty prompted me not to give up and get back to the warm of Rock HQ and my coat. The whinny got louder, this one was real fury. The tracks ahead split, three went one way, Misty another, I presumed the whinny was her telling the boys they better make their whereabouts known. I followed Misty's little paw prints, up to the Ghost House, where she stopped and doubled back along the hedge line. As I descended toward The Oracles homestead I wondered how on earth four ponies could hide so well against a snowy bonsai mountain and how much I could sell horse meat for.

Finally I found them milling around like naughty teenagers. William advanced, ears back, your empty bucket trick will not work on us, he was saying, but in horsey, if he could talk we wouldn't worry about paying the mortgage, anyway, bluff was called, what you going to do, there are four of us in the Fellowship of the Ring, we will not be broken.

He was right of course. Me shivering with cold armed with an empty bucket was no match for a naughty Welsh Cob with an eye on the crown. So the next weapon in the armoury was deployed, divide and conquer. Holding Apollo firmly by the forelock words were exchanged along the lines of "For you Tommy the war is over" and with the promise of a full bucket if he behaved Apollo fell in behind and plodded after the true herd leader. Misty sensing she might share Apollo's good fortune dropped in alongside while William and Trevor cantered up and down trying to convince their former allies that all was not lost, they could win.

William continued his defiant stance right until the bolt was kicked over on the other's doors and suddenly the yard was a very large and lonely place. Mustering the dignity of the defeated he entered his stable without an apology while I did my best not to gloat. Fifty three minutes after the start of my five minutes outside I was defrosting on the range which was nearly as warm as the glow of victory.

Am I really a polar bear?

Its a measure of how cold it is when your hardy hill sheep sneak in doors and avail themselves of the facilities. Here we find Ferny Fern Fern from Ferntown making use of the radiator.

Deep freeze

The snow has been here for a week, and we have managed to eek out the water supply for seven frozen days. Today we managed to thaw out the pump and by using a new piece of pipe filled the reservoir to the house.

This was useful for many reasons, not least of which was the luxury of flushing toilets.

The animals are coping well with the cold, the horses seem to like eating the ice off the water trough. The piglets are getting by on a combination of cuteness and bravado, they seem to be an endless source of fascination for the Berners.

How was it for you?

The office was a bit emptier than usual today, the commute in made a teensy bit challenging by the weather. As usual I was first in, on my second cuppa by the time the next happy camper arrived and plugged them self into caffeine and keyboard. In dribs and drabs they arrived, all with tales of a snowflake causing chaos in town. How was it for you one of them asked after recounting a horrific tale of an icy side street causing panic amongst pedestrians until the council gritted the road. How was it for me? Well as you can see the first ten miles was pretty interesting. I used Hazel as Vic is poorly, failed the annual health check, bless him. He should be back in action tomorrow, but he wont make it to Rock HQ for a while, not after today's snowfall.

Set for take off!

Happy Days :)