Yippee the clocks have changed and it could not have come too soon for me. Like most people during the winter all the jobs that accrue during the week get left till the weekend and it they quickly fill up with a list of chores to get done before Monday, so its lovely to do a bit after work and just enjoy pottering around outside. Saying that last week we finally moved the horses home so most of my pottering has been messing around with them which has been lovely. Although this idyll very nearly started out with a disaster thanks to my bird brain. I had enlisted the help of one of my sister and a long suffering friend to help me move the horses as although they were only moving a couple of miles down the road it was easier with 3 to load them into the horsebox and drive them here. Having owned our tatty old horsebox for years we are both well practiced in travelling horses which makes it even more incredulous that I did what I did! I parked the box in the farmyard giving myself plenty of room to drop the back ramp, undid the internal partitions then we went and got the 3 horses. All of which were suitably enthusiastic about seeing the lorry. I gave my old mare Ellie to my non horsey friend, I loaded George (the little bay gelding with a questionable personality) first and closed his partition so my sister could by dragged up the ramp at speed by the ever enthusiastic Tipper whilst I held the partition back, it was then my stupidity became apparent as the lorry began to roll very slightly forward, I had only forgotten to put the B*****y handbrake on. What made it worse it slowly rolling towards the farm pond. Luckily I was the right side to be able to get to the drivers door and haul myself in and pull on the handbrake. After the horses found their feet and my sister stopped swearing at me we quickly loaded the elderly Ellie and headed for home without further incident. I don't think I will be allowed to forget that in a hurry. Anyway the horses were soon settled in the paddock and got on with the job at hand to graze the field down. Once they had time to settle into their new home we have been out a few times hacking around the lanes and villages, there really is no better way to travel although Pat might disagree I have yet to get him up on board.
Other than horse drama we have been very successful this week at breaking things. The biggest casualty was our tractor. The tractor has a front loader and it was used to carry the muck pronged bucket shovel in the shovel bucket up to move our winter muck pile and in the process it bounced out, despite being strapped in, and the tractor ran over it and the prongs punctured the sump. On this occasion I was not involved thankfully but the result is the tractor is sidelined until we can source a new sump. Captain our bantam cockerel was the other casualty. Having refused to be caught and cooped up with the others he was caught be something the other night that nearly finished him off. By the time we found him the next morning he was in a sorry state all hunched up, lacking lots of feathers with some small wound round his neck. Not expecting him to survive we caught him up treated his neck wound and popped him in a small coop by himself and kept him in for a couple of days. Amazingly he has made a full recovery and is now out and about again. We were hoping he would hang out with the 3 original hens but whether its because they are bigger than them him or he just likes his bantam ladies he has gravitate back to his original flock. Sadly for him Bert our Big cockerel is in with them currently, although that was a temporary arrangement purely to stop him attaching himself to my backside! So our next job is to sort out the chickens accommodation.
Other jobs this week have included getting first early potatoes in, planting some raspberry bushes and planning our rainwater harvesting system as we have a huge amount of roof space and there is a growing need to take water conservation seriously.
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