The Highway Code

Curious onlookers wer treated to the sight of yours truly carrying his bike along the road rather than the more usual other way round. The joys of country lane cycling were interupted by a flail hedge trimmer depositing 20 trillion sharp objects per 100metres and having just got over feeling all flat in the tyre department I decided not to risk a longer walk by riding over the prickly surface.
Once past the obstacle course a quick remount led to another dilemma. Should a 50% lycra clad fat bloke over take a tractor as we sped  along the bypass?
Our paths crossed at the roundabout, he shooting straight across, me joining at speed from his left, we were around 100metres apart as we headed along the bypass. I could see I was gaining, albeit slowly. He could see I was gaining and with a puff of exhaust fumes piled on the revs to pull away.
Except he didnt.
 I kept gaining.
 I could see him watching me in his mirrors as I slowly closed in.
Now I wasnt racing, honest. (of course I was!)
He definately was.
I was keeping pace wondering what to do, the question going around my head almost as fast as my pedals were going was should a sweaty fat bloke attempt an over take of a massivley horsepowered blue behemoth with all the bells, whistles, flashing strobe lights, sat nav, radio, TV DVD, CD multi changer microwave and drinks dispenser as is now required by farmers, on his people powered badly set up R200 racer?
This was closely followed by question two which was if the answer to question one was yes, then how long would it be before tractor squished impertenant cyclist for showing it up.
 I decided that what was best was to tuck in behind tractor and take advantage of slipstream, my very own massive turbo charged peloton.
But again as I moved in I had less work to do as I was now slip streaming enormous diesel machinery and this meant I got the urge to go faster, just because I could which led to a repeat of question one.
The race was on.
 Thankfully for both of us the farmer turned off before the answers to Q1 and Q2 could be found. But what if he hadnt, what is the right thing to do when faced with a slow petrol head?
I should have put a pic of the badly set up R200 cooling off in the setting sun, you know, the inspirational sporty type shot, bike porn magazine style. But I dont have any and as a pig is probably chewing the back wheel it wouldnt look too good. So here is a pic to show that the chicks, or at least some of them have survived 48 hours here.

You never can tell

Just another circuit of the Bonsai Mountain

but the weather made

it extraordinary

and Rocky nearly found the pot of gold.

Time on my hands

Its been a strange sort of a day, one that has encapsulated every aspect of life here at Rock HQ. Paid work wise I ended up in the farthest reach of the Red Kite empire where my very taxing role meant 3 slices of home made date and walnut while talking to some very nice people about life the universe and all things fish. Or Bees. After some very complex negotiations about fostering (well some work had to be done!) I collected 20 cob chicken chicks who will feature as part of the Christmas menu (if they survive foxes) dropped off Lucy, a Berner girlfriend of the Rockmeister before heading back to the shire and a tad of office work. Back at the ranch I got to learn about the fine point of TV reception (hurrah the TV is fixed, have we missed anything important?) from a very nice man called Steve the Aerial who found our long lost TV signal and plugged us back into the matrix. A bit of playtime with little t was followed by shifting a ton of pig pooh, fixing the roof on the stable, settling the chicks into their new home and the evening feed routine. These two characters were found sleeping in the feed ring, they looked so comfy and the horse were able to eat around them I left them too it. I then took part in a Gallup poll measuring health and happiness speaking to Nancy from Nebraska, as I had just fed little t and was playing with his toys I'm off the Richter scale for happy so I may have skewed the result slightly, sorry Nancy, and once he was in bed it was time to play leader of the pack with the 10 Berners currently vying for sofa space and chatting to the Technohermit about the banking system, cat food delivery and the ex Queen Mother. In all a very full day. Think I need a hobby though.

Seeing the funny side

Little t developing his own sense of humour

Chalk and Cheese

 Pamela and Bridget are our Mangalitza sows, sisters from the same litter, and are as different as chalk and cheese. Both have recently given birth, Pam first had 5 chunky piglets, three weeks later Bridget had 6.

 Pam is a surly critter at the best of times, its all bluster but she does like to try and get to the top of the food chain and wants the sty to herself. Bridget on the other trotter is a mild friendly girl who likes company.

One of them, tonight, caused a riot when being transferred from one pen to the other, she set free two other pigs, point blank refused to follow the bucket, chased a sheep, tried to chase an owner until her bluff was called, made several dogs cower and then finally after an hour of bad temper on her part and SOHF on mine she went into her new quarters like she had always intended to. Meanwhile her 5 piglets had scattered to the four points of the compass and had to be retrieved. By nightfall all but one escapee had been captured and all was secure. Bridget was moved then, fearing the same behaviour as Pam's I was not too happy about her being moved but as I was under orders from my beautiful and oh so patient wife I did it anyway. Bridget followed the bucket like she was supposed to and took a mere 20 seconds of my time to move from one pen to the other.
One of these sows has had her pet status revoked and is going to be sausages. Answers on a post card please.

Raaah!

The Nougat Bar Monster strikes again! Raaaah!

Little Missy

 Thinking about playing.

 Playtime.

Sleeping.

Repeat.

Dietary suppliments

I found this evidence of one of the hangers on at Rock HQ taking dietary supplements. Malt Loaf is one of my favourite snacks and so it would seem one of Preston our 21 year old beagle, sleeping off his ill gotten gains in the spare straw. He nabbed this while I was unloading the weekly shop.