Little things mean a lot

I think Tellus often looks very serious but here
he seems to be smiling.

It's the little things that mean a lot... so the saying goes. Well they do. One night I went to put the chickens away and I was thinking that I really must try and find time to clean them out. When I got down to the chicken arks I found out the job had already been done. Yey! The next little thing was the day I was working late and trying to get work done; when I had finished for the day I found that hubby was in the kitchen already making tea, Yey! Okay that last one might not seem a big deal but we've had the arrangement for years that I cook and he washes up. Well it is getting more frequent that he is doing both. The problem is that I am the one who knows what's ready in the garden, and stored in our various stashes around the place. Is it in the blue box in the barn? The root cellar? In the fridge in the barn? Maybe in the cardboard box in the caravan? Or even the shelves in the caravan? All of these places are within 30-50m of each other or thereabouts. Farm to fork might not be far but it feels longer when you have to do all the walking to put it together. 

Socially distanced cats. Slowly though the older
cats are beginning to tolerate the kittens and I 
mean slowly. Eyre and Ron were curled up on Ian's
lap today for quite a while. Ginger Tom though
is still quite shy.

Oh dear Aggie! Why so glum? Aggie is not 
friends with me as usual. Her leg has healed 
nicely but I realised that her feet are now cracked
and sore. She was not happy about me putting
cream on those, but they are getting better. Not
that she seems to approve of my efforts to help.

That was not the only little thing. One afternoon we decided to have coffee in the boys field to take advantage of the last warm sunny day for a while and watch our alpacas. We had just begun supping our coffee when a lady rode by on a tandem. No this isn't a joke, it's real. One person riding a tandem. She slowed right down and came to a stop and the next thing we knew she had parked her bike at the bottom or our road and she was walking up the driveway. Ian went down to chat. Something we haven't done in a long while.... no not the chatting bit, but welcomed someone onto our land who was driving or riding by. I carried on finishing off my coffee while Ian directed her onto the land with her bike and started the tour. I had vegetable beds to dig, so couldn't stop for long. I said hello and left them to it. 

Fleabane. Yes my nails are awful!
I blame the gardening.

Chanel is another who does not seem to appreciate
the effort that goes into helping her skin heal. She
had another round of treatment this weekend. A
good wash to soften the clumpy bits in her fleece
and the scaly skin and then a good lotion rubbed in.
She wasn't as bad as before but later on in the day
she went up to Ian and spat at him. Not normal 
behaviour for her, it usually is provoked to make her
spit, like trying to put cream on. Hahaha. Anyway
she hasn't done it since.

Several hours later I went into the greenhouse and Ian and the lady joined me. "Have you got far to go?" I asked her. "About 7km I think," she replied. Hmmmm! By now it was getting rather late and a ride of that far on the dirt roads with no lighting didn't seem like a safe option to me. Ian offered to take her home and I'm proud that he did. She didn't need much persuading. He managed to squeeze her tandem into the horse box that he had been stacking wood in that day and off they went. I made our tea that evening. By the time he got back it was already starting to get dark, so dark in fact that by the time I got the chicken food ready the chickens they had already put themselves to bed. Whoops! The nights are getting longer so fast.

Her skin might be wrinkly and need cream, but
it doesn't stop her from practising her yoga.

Chanel has been training her daughter in the ancient
art too.

Even the boys take their practice seriously.

A winking Lady V

I managed to mix up a timesheet for work the other day and thought I had a day off, so I booked to go and see someone for the day. Only it wasn't a day off, it just so happened to be that I was looking at the wrong month, errr December. In my defence the timesheet is usually posted to me with the correct month showing and I only looked at the dates. Did you realise that September 24th and 25th fall on the same day of the week as December 24th and 25th? No? Neither did I! I often miss the fact there is an Estonian public holiday and so just thought this was one of them. Whoops again! In my defence, the day also turned out to be a good networking event and I've worked through a few holidays this year. Anyway it also turned out to be the perfect de-stressing day. We sat and chatted in the beautiful garden modelled on an English country garden for hours and had a barbecue. We came home, rather late, but with a bag of apples and pots of flowers for our garden. Now I just have to work out where they are going to go. 

At least Herkules sores are beginning to heal up 
properly now. I don't have to bandage them because
the flies are not so bad. Phew!

Not sure who Sofie is training at the moment. She
brought back a weasel today. Unlike the hare last
week, she wasn't bothered about eating it herself.
First Eyre ran off with it, but then got bored of it. 
Then Ginger Tom found it and started on it. 
He even growled at Eyre to keep her off it.He 
puked it up though!!!! 

It's been a long slow process for Turbjørn 
unfortunately. We got the x-rays back and now
Ian can start to discuss treatment again with the 
physio - well now that she's back from holiday
that is. He has really been bothered by flies, he
can't shake them off, so he has to put up with me
putting clove oil on him (rubbed onto a tissue
and then wiped over his fleece) and cream on his
ears and nose. We tried fly spray, but really its
mosquito and tick spray, the flies don't care, they
still are attracted to him, which is why I started
with the clove oil.

I know that mixing up days off in some places could get me into trouble, but employers who cannot exercise some sort of flexibility in these days are not good news. Fortunately mine are flexible and I get my work done, so we both win. If it had been a particular problem or something needed doing on that day, I would have got it done, I can be flexible too. I caught up with emails in the evening anyway, especially as there are many folks who are working odd hours and I was in communication with people in different time zones too. It's hard to know when people are working these days, which has its good points and its bad points I guess. I can understand the need to switch off from work but I also like the flexibility that comes with working from home and I've been doing that for a very long time now. 

Mari sporting the newest hairstyle.

I see the pruners are back!

You do realise Brencis that you aren't supposed to
be eating those leaves? It doesn't seem to do them
any harm though. It would if they were weak though

"Hahaha! At least I don't have to have cream on",
says Freddie.

There is some tasty grass here somewhere

Initially the boys took quite a bit of interest in the
girls, but now they seem to be ignoring each other.
I'm sure that Aggie and Chanel would give them 
what for if they came anywhere near.

Give us a kiss! Brencis, Jakobs and Josefs went 
out for a walk with visitors this weekend. The 
first time we've let visitors take them on a walk 
this year. Covid19 and mating meant we weren't
prepared to let visitors take them earlier on in 
the year. Knowing that outside there is a lower
risk though helps.

The girls on fresh grass.

George about to put his head through the fence 
again. We'll have to stop him one way or another.

Puffballs. Definitely not for eating. At
least these ones are. Too far gone and
not sure if they are edible or not. The
white ones are fine, unless they smell
horrid.

I feel like I should turn this picture around
but this is the angle the mushrooms were 
growing at 

I wish bracket fungi were edible, but
definitely not these, they are nearly
as tough as the wood in which they grow.

More mushrooms requiring id. Fortunately
there were still enough mushrooms we
did know about that we could have for
our evening meal.

The year is turning

Autumnal looking

The leaves are turning yellow and the geese are flying south. Summer has just about gone and we even had a mild frost this week. Not enough to kill off my plants yet, but it speaks of autumn days and the rapid slide into winter. Well if feels like a rapid slide at times. The geese heading south often means that snow might not be far away, even if we are having some almost summery temperatures at the moment. We are not beguiled, we know too well how rapidly the temperatures can drop in these parts. The rather blustery northerly winds we had a few days ago reminded us of that fact. The plastic over our hay bales needed rearranging one night, which was not a fun job in the pitch dark. The plastic stayed on during the few light showers we had but one section blew off the following night - thankfully it didn't rain that night. We seemed to escape the worst of it, as the coast bore the brunt of it and the very heavy rain passed to the north of us.  

Definitely a hint of autumn here

My garden was looking a bit battered before the
latest storm, now it looks worse. Maybe next weekend
I'll get around to dealing with this.

The girls fence was moved today and George was
very interested. Normally he's quite curious anyway, 
but this time it looked a little different. 

Josefs is turning out to be such a super alpaca with 
visitors

Our quiet time with no visitors ended this week, as we had two groups. One group had a child with special needs and our alpacas were very good with him. It's nice how the alpacas can be a calming influence on some children. The more active children often soon learn that they have to be quiet and stand still and then the alpacas will come to them. If they go after the alpacas, they just run away. Josefs stood still while he draped himself over his back. He's like his mum Aggie, as she will also let people gather round and stroke her. Not all alpacas will do that. 

Some cheerful nastursiums 

Aggie in relatively good mood here.

Mind you, Aggie won't do that at the moment generally, it depends upon what mood she's in, now that she's pregnant. She's not in a particularly good mood now as her foot is sore and cracked. I had just about got her leg healed from the problems with flies and noticed that her foot was cracked, when I looked more closely I saw that it was worse than I thought. She will let me touch the leg that I've nearly finished treating but she gets very antsy when I try to get cream on her sore foot. Sigh! And I thought we were getting somewhere now the flies have died down. At least Herkules is slowly improving. I would prefer it if the sore leg would heal quicker but at least I don't have to put bandages on it now and can let the air dry it out. I think the bandages were making it worse to some extent but had to try and keep it covered due to the flies. 

Aggie and her poorly foot

Herkules looking quite sprightly for his 16 years

Then he has his moments like this, just resting
his weary head. Then again, he's done this for
quite a few years. He just likes to lie about.

Turbjørn struggling with his neck

We finally got a visit from the vet with a mobile x-ray this week to x-ray Turbjørn's neck. We are still waiting for the x-rays but at least got to see what the problem was. He has slightly dislocated one of the vertebrae in the lower part of his neck. The upper part of his neck is either ligament damage or over-compensating for the lower problem. Poor guy, it's been so long in getting an answer to the problem and he is struggling a bit again. Maybe the cold, maybe just jarred it again. Who knows. At least it is not as severe as we thought it could be. We now just need those x-rays to work out some treatment plan. We helped the vet with taking the x-rays and got all kitted up in lead overalls. I could just about move, because of course they are made for someone taller than me. Ian held Turbjørn still while I held the x-ray plate. While the vet was there, we had him x-ray Herkules' back leg, because he had started limping quite badly and we knew that if we didn't take advantage of the x-ray there and then, it could be worse and need to have him come out again. As it was we found out it is just an age related issue and it will be sore until two bones have fused, then he should be fine. 

We had 13 chicks hatched but a couple of them 
died. Hatching is such a stressful time for them.
At least these look healthy enough and the heater
is keeping them warm enough at night.

The shed is beginning to be filled
with the stuff that has been in the
greenhouse. I now even have a 
recycling point - second shelf up!

Working from home has its advantages, but there are downsides to having flexible working times. I guess it's partly laziness and not getting up so early, but now it's dark when we get up and so it's getting later and later when we see to the animals, especially with their various ailments. I then end up working later to compensate, and as a consequence our evening meal is later. We end up juggling putting the animals away with the timing of sitting down to eat. It doesn't help when I get into the garden to pick a few beans, then spot a caterpillar or two, then a few weeds and before I know it that's 20 minutes gone. When Ian was working, we used to have regular mealtimes, but since we've had the animals, our mealtimes varies with the seasons. In the summer we eat before we put the animals away, by winter it is the other way around, but spring and autumn it depends on the day and what we are doing. The light and the weather determines the routine of our days. 

Jakobs 

The tomato monsters before taming

The pleasant weather over the weekend meant I got the chance to finish off digging up the potatoes in the area where I planted them. I know there are still some more to dig up, but in areas where they weren't deliberately planted. That will be next weekend's job. It's good to look at a large section of the garden and think that is done. I also started to tackle the tomato monsters in the new greenhouse. I gave them a good hacking back a while ago and didn't really expect them to put much growth on since then, but they did. It won't be long before we start pulling the tomatoes up and preparing the beds for the chickens to overwinter in there. But for now we make the most of the warm days to ripen what we can. 

It's getting neater bit by bit

Autumn raspberries are doing well. There are lots
to come. Let's hope they ripen before any major
frosts

Don't you mess with us little one!

Our two little kittens are being allowed out more and more. They know the rattle of the cupboard doors and that it means food. Today Ian went to feed the older cats and the two little ones were straight in there and muscled in on Eyre's food. She wasn't sure what to do. Ian ended up taking them both by the scruff of the neck to their own tray. Eyre doesn't really like them at all, but they largely ignore her. I do wonder if our older two cats have decided they need to up their game to compete. Eyre has been out of the greenhouse more and is less likely to be under my feet, now it's more likely to be a kitten. Sofie on the other hand has excelled herself as a hunter. One evening we watched her bouncing up towards us with something in her mouth. It looked on the large size and I wondered if she had caught another rat. No.... not at all. Our little cat (not compared to the kittens of course but to other cats) had caught a small hare. The hare was the same size as Sofie. How far she had carried it we have no idea. We tried to have a look and she immediately took it into an old chicken ark that was lying around and stood guard over it. Over two days she then ate it. Today she had the look of a cat whose had a heavy night out on the town. She must be absolutely stuffed. 

Sofie with her hare

Have they gone yet?

Morning coffee with the Kelly Kettle

It was Ian's birthday on Sunday. We didn't do anything special but I did get in some special treats. I bought some beef from the local organic farm and so we've had beefburgers for lunch and I slow cooked a joint of beef for Sunday's evening meal, only we didn't end up eating it on Sunday due to the timing of the visitors we had. We had a quick, light, early lunch before they came and then finished off with more burgers mid-afternoon after they went. The problem is that I was so stuffed after the mid-afternoon meal that I wasn't really ready for a roast for evening meal, so we just had a few small jacket potatoes, cheese and salad. Still the roast meal was nice this evening. I also surprised Ian with a Kelly Kettle. It is a rocket stove kettle that boils water with just a small amount of fuel. It's been nice to sit outside and boil the kettle, although today it was a bit smoky before it got going. I think we need to work on the fuel mix a bit first. I told Ian that I went into the village to get a better internet signal for a meeting, which was sort of true, but it was also so that I could be at the apartment to get the package and then it could sit in the car for a few days without him knowing I had got it. It worked! It's not often I can surprise Ian, he's usually quite observant of that sort of thing.

Ginger Tom in the chicken ark where they were 
living while they got more used to us and our routine

Rocket Ron 

The waterlily is still going strong

Black tail is one of our original chickens. She's 
about nine years old now and still sprightly

A fine comb on this cockerel.

Bee balm has such an out of this world look about it

Rocket Ron also has an out of this world look 
about him much of the time. Here he is hiding
in a ditch

Ginger Tom is definitely the quieter of the two

Always on the alert for something to go toddling into

Spot the kitten who had followed Ian all
the way up to the alpaca house. They both
went at one point and Ian had to rescue them
from the alpacas as they tend to chase the 
cats.

Yes there is still a lot to explore in the greenhouse 
and to climb and to hide in. Great fun for a kitten