H&C

"Well, the big freeze goes on but, fortunately, there seems to be some easing here. It’s +3C here today, sunny and windy and that’s the five day forecast, so hopefully the thaw will be gradual and dried by the wind, and we won’t be left with a sea of mud. The sheep are off grazing rather than hanging around the hayrack, so that’s good. Hay supplies are getting short and I must get more next week. It would be good to get the ewes back – I kind of miss them. My beekeeping course starts on 26th January for six weeks or so. I’m looking forward to it but am a wee bit apprehensive. The “new house notebook” has been well used this week. We hope to get up to see the place soon – I’m sure we’ll look at it with different eyes now it’s ours (or nearly). I have a love-hate relationship with the Internet and have been looking at kitchens and bathrooms this week. I THINK we’ve found a kitchen that we both like and that is within our price range. We might buy a bathroom suite in the sales and store it until May. It’s only 16 weeks until our entry date – you may get bored by the countdown but please bear with me! We’ve all spent hours looking at the various photos we have of the property, discussing where we’re going to put the vegetable garden and the hens – not close to each other, either. It will be good to have the soil in the beds instead of on the paths! But until we see it “live” again, it’s impossible to make any final decisions. We’ll certainly go for raised beds again in the vegetable garden. There will be some topsoil from the waterhole and the gravel areas I plan to put in the paddock, which will help. We’ve been filling the bird feeders twice a day and putting out extra food on the fence posts. I’ve also made some fat cakes as a special boost for the wee birds. I feel so sorry for them in this weather. I hope our tenants feed them too, when we’re gone. Maybe we should make it a condition of let! The kittens are well. I’ve noticed that when we bring the dogs back from their walk, the kittens greet them as they do us, by rubbing around the dogs’ faces and legs. Kind of freaks the girls out, but it’s very sweet!"

"Well, here we are in 2010! Hardly seems any time since we were worried about the Millennium Bug; now it’s the swine flu bug. Happy New Year to you all – I hope you had a great festive season and that 2010 is good for you and yours. Of course, the news has been pretty much dominated by the weather. Touch wood, we haven’t been too affected here, at least not compared to other places. We’ve had some snow, which has now frozen, but out local council has done a pretty good job of clearing the roads and some of the pavements. Where it’s not cleared, it’s pretty treacherous underfoot. But it’s cold and crisp and beautifully sunny, so it could be an awful lot worse. Mornings are worst, when it’s dark and cold and everything seems to take twice as long as we slip and slide from field to the garage to the house to the hen house. All the water has to be broken and refilled; I smashed a bucket last week trying to break the ice. Most of the animals are doing fine although we haven’t managed to get our ewes back or return the ewe lambs that we’ve been wintering because the roads have been so bad. The hens have coped remarkably well – some have developed quite a nice skating technique, regrettably too late for the Winter Olympics. Our young cockerel is maturing – I heard him crow yesterday and watched him rugby tackle one of the Black Rocks. Hector seems to be turning a blind eye – with twenty odd hens, there is more than enough to go round. I have one hen that is looking a bit the worse for wear and I fear if this weather continues, she won’t survive the winter. And the Maran is moulting – great timing! She looks pretty bedraggled but I hope she’ll start laying when her feathers are back. I can’t remember the last time we had an egg from her; if I were harder hearted, she’d be culled. I’ve managed to get Smokey out most days. In weather like this, the Highland pony (and other natives) really comes into its own. As we walk to the field (he’s in at night), he manages to eat a fair wee bit of grass, whisking the snow away with his top lip and nibbling the green underneath. I’m planning to establish a “paddock paradise” at our new place, so have been researching that. It’s a method of natural horse boarding developed by Jaime Jackson, to mimic the way horses live in the wild. It is particularly good for horses and ponies prone to laminitis as it reduces access to grass and keeps them walking. Harry and Bertie are very well. Harry is now noticeably bigger than Bertie and their personalities are quite distinct. Our living room is south facing, so all three cats are lying on the windowsill. Soaking up the sunshine. They are toasty to the touch. Harry’s biggest catch to date was a magpie. Since they steal eggs, I’m happy with that, so long as they swap to bunnies come springtime!"