Christmas disappears into the distance with the snow, and we are concentrating on doing more work to the house. Well, in between other essential things such as croceting jumpers etc. Over the last day or so the temperature has warmed up (today +7.9 outside, and a paultry 12.7 inside – thankyou Jim and Viv) and the snow has gone, as has the end of the lentil and mushroom soup, but the left over lentil and mushroom wellington is in the freezer.
We had a nice few days, going for a walk on Christmas day and Boxing day and then cleaning up the back yard Monday and Tuesday. Neither car would start yesterday, as we were only wanting to go into Haltwhistle to buy a new mop head then we weren’t too disappointed. And both cars are working now. Don’t think they liked the cold and wet.
We gave Bob a new baby (this is not favoritism, he is the only one that keeps his own toy), as his current baby is a smelly ex-teddybear which is without stuffing, eyes, ears… He is very attached to his baby though, and keeps it upstairs and can find it within a fraction of a second, however it is a rather smelly and unpleasant creature and could be replaced. We got him an orange thing from the charity shop and of course he ignored it. All the other dogs too have ignored it over the last few days, and I commented to Ian that they were getting quite good with regards to chewing things, as they do not seem to have chewed anything that they shouldn’t for ages now. So as I put on my dressing gown, I was rather disappointed to find that one of them had chewed the pocket of my dressing gown right the way through both layers. As I don’t know which it was no one can be repremanded, however I KNOW that it was Basil who ate the maltesers that were on the table as everyone else was in bed, although I suppose Ian could have got up in the night. But why would he have shredded the box and strewn it round the room….?
The quails have stopped laying! I’m wondering if it is lack of light, I will keep the light on in the stable for longer and see if that has any effect.
Basil has had a short back and sides. Very short. Its very much a two person job, so we took advantage of Ian being home and got the clippers out. He doesn’t seem to be too traumatised and will be easier to keep debris free. His back end still needs doing, but Ian understands that this is his job. The little buns were also trimmed as they had got knotty. I don’t think I am grooming them as much as I was during the summer as it is cold in the stable, so I will try to make a habbit of bringing them in to groom.
We had to bring our erstwhile ram lamb back again today. We have done some work to the fence, but I am sure it will only be minutes before he is out again. This time we had to go up the road to get into the field as we didn’t even need to shake the bucket before we were being followed by all of Debbies sheep and most of ours! So we had to go back and the creep out the house and up the road without being seen I could imagine Mikes face as we took them for a walk over his field!
The sheep can now shelter in the lean to barn. I still think that Loofy might be showing signs of being relatively close to lambing – ie next few weeks, and as she had premature lambs last time which we lost, I am keen to keep her close by. I think we’ll put her in the stable soon. Of course if I am wrong it might mean that she is in solitary confinement for a few weeks – we’ll see.
I can’t make up my mind if Bluebell is looking like she is in kid or not, however I spent three months earlier this year thinking exactly the same thing & I guess the chances are she’s not.