A quick update

All that hedge-laying paid off...

...the hay and silage are packed away or in the shed...

...and the lambs are now weaned (thanks Ali, Joe and Sarah!)

Normal service will resume after a holiday in Scotland...although I doubt it will be livestock-free, with county shows and a visit to Liz and Hesky on their farm in Dumfries on the cards.  We'd get withdrawal symptoms otherwise.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Scene: A barn, somewhere in Devon.

The players:
Sonny "Sunshine" Jim (a spiffingly good hound)

Joseph Ffairfach Nathan Jones (a dog of humble origin, with a high opinion of himself)

Cody Alexander Timberlake (the Grant Mitchell of the canine world)

Freddy Dingo (a very 'special' dog)

Farmer Ian (bit player, off stage)

Sonny:   I say chaps, awfully keen to get this show on the road.

Joey (sotto voce):   Awfully keen an awful amount of the time in my humble opinion.

Sonny:    What?  Oh, amusing.  Now, I got a sneaky look at the blog recently, and my Auntie Lorna in Scotland is right!  Gosh darn it, there's not nearly enough about collies and their adventures.  It should be collie-tastic!

Cody:   Grrrrrrrr!

Sonny:   Of course, sorry old bean, collies AND huskies. 

Fred:   Wot's Scotland?

Joey:   Somewhere a long way away, my noodle-headed friend.  Past Somerset at least.  The dogs there have different accents, would you believe!*

Fred:   Cor, miles then.  More than wot I can walk.

Cody:   Waddle you mean, tubby.

Sonny:   Oh, not nice.  Bad show Cody. 

Joey:   Frederick, please.  Can licking that particular appendage not wait until we are not quite so en famille?

Fred:   Eh?

Cody:   Leave yer todger alone for five minutes, plonker!

Fred:   But I've got a itch!

Joey:   An itch.

Fred:   One of them too.

Sonny:   Fred's parts aside, and Fred, do please be a sport and tidy yourself up later, what are we going to do?

Joey:   We could affect a revolution, just like in George Pawell's Animal Farm!  The masters were overthrown, and the pigs took over.

Cody:   Pigs? You are flipping kidding me, right?  I ain't taking no orders from no pigs.  And where you gonna find pigs round 'ere?  See these teeth?  These aren't for eating veggies, no.  They're for eating pigs and other such juicy…

Joey:   Oh God, not this one again!  Lord have mercy on us.  It's a metaphor you uneducated wolf.

Cody:   Well, I've seen you eatin blackberries and sloes off the bush.  Barely evolved past fox you did, you fluffy-eared dandy.

Joey:   Well, there's no need to be quite so pejorative about it!

Fred (aside to Cody):   What's he talking about?  Perjitive what?

Cody:   No bloody idea.  The bugger always talks like he has a dictionary shoved up his jacksie.  But you know what they say…owners and their dogs and all that.

Fred:   But I have the same master.

Cody:   Yeah, but you must admit, our master does also have right dense moments.

Fred (laughing):    Yeah, he do….hey, wait a minute!!

Sonny:   Oh come on chaps, let's not have a bish-bosh over this.

Cody:   OK Biggles, what're we gonna do?

Sonny:   Maybe no revolution.  I'm frightfully worried that with no opposable thumb we won't be able to use the can opener, and I do rather like my treats.

Cody:   And strokes.  That bit right behind the ear, blimey how good is that?

Joey:   Hmm.  I can give or take it.  I prefer not to be anyone's lapdog.

Cody:   You what?  Any bleeding chance you get, up on the sofa and all doe-eyed.

Joey (spluttering):   That's, that's neither here nor there!

Fred (dreamily):   Oooooo, the sofa.  I luv the sofa.

Farmer Ian (calling from off-stage):   Sonny, let's go!

Sonny:   Sheep!  Sheep, sheep, sheep!  Oh, oh, oh…sheep!
[Sonny exits right, at speed]

Cody:   Positively piddling himself with excitement, the daft spanner.  Sheep are for eating.  Look at these teeth.

Joey (gritting his):   Yes, you say that, but it is frowned upon to eat the stock!

Fred:   The sofa, ahhhh.

Joey:   Well, we might as well make a move.  Action Pup won't be back for a while, and if I have to listen to another breathless commentary on how he took them this way, then that, through the gate and over the bloody hill, I'll throw myself under the dung-spreader.

Cody:   Yeah, me too.

Joey:   What do you say we mosey on down the lane, have a little snack of rabbit currants on the way, and roll in the pile of dung by the gate?

Cody:   Pukka idea!  Let's vamoose.

[Exeunt stage left]

Joey (from off stage):   For the love of God, Freddy leave your unmentionables alone!  Now get a move on!

Fred:   Did someone say rabbit currants?

[Rapid exit stage left]

[Editor's comments]

* It's true about dog accents!  Even cows have regional accents!

From the edge of … Seneghe

The gentle jangle of bells in the morning heralds a flock of sheep in the lane, hooves raising dust as they meander by.   An idle thought bubbles to the surface of my mind – maybe we should put bells round the necks of our ewes – but it is rapidly dismissed given the  clamour 600 would make in comparison with the 20 or so passing by the farmstead in Sardinia where Ian's sister lives.  Kat and Nanni, with help from 1 year old Rowan, are converting a barn on the outskirts of Seneghe, and putting into practice permaculture techniques to live more sustainably than most.

Milking ewes rest as the day warms up.

Spending the longest period of my life in East Anglia (so far), I thought that the fields in Devon were small (and small is, of course, beautiful).  But the plots in this part of Sardinia are sometimes tiny, separated by drystone walls, and surprisingly often containing an ancient tomb or Bronze Age nuraghe (from the vegetable garden I can see one tomb and four nuraghi).

A nuraghe.

Kestrels are common here, and a little owl spends the day perched on an exposed rock.  Sardinian warblers call from the bushes, while spotless starlings feed around the feet of the beautiful local cattle (bue rosso), which seem not to notice the heat. 

Non parlo inglese, mi dispiace.

Lizards scuttle up and down the walls outside, while geckos sneak out from behind the fittings to clear away any flies that make it inside.  The insect life is abundant compared to home – crickets and grasshoppers, dangerous-looking ichneumon wasps, and everywhere trails of ants carry seed-heads from grasses back to their nests.  Meanwhile, the harvest here is of a different scale entirely to what we are used to with our hundreds of massive bales of silage.  

No tractor needed to shift these.

Many thanks to Kat, Nanni and Rowan for hosting us (and Ginella la bella, hound-in-residence).   And Grazie mille to Tore for all the wine!

One farmer...one potential farmer?

Nothing is as good as home-grown

Nope, not talking about lettuce or radishes I'm afraid.

Had a most delicious steak at the weekend, courtesy of the local butcher who is currently stocking some of our beef.  It's pretty darned good to know how the calves were raised and see all that hard work and silage turn into dinner.

Reminds me of a T-shirt I once saw: "Meat is murder, tasty tasty murder".

06:51 from Tiverton

First Great Western pulls away.  Beautiful day, hawthorn blushing, wildflowers rampant, countless shades of green splashed across the countryside.

An unexpected field of rams, several hundred, grumpy.

Calves in a gang, running back and forth, while one hides in his den in the nettles, curled up and nose-to-tail.

Two crows fight on the ground, cheered by a third.  Wings outstretched, beaks locked tightly together.

A hairy hare hares across young wheat, pauses and watches us pass.  Curious.

Buzzards fly low, and the occasional red kite lifts on the wind, forked tail subtly adjusting as she goes.  Ubiquitous wood pigeons blunder about.

Gloriously handsome horses walk in single-file along a track, unaccompanied, heading towards a country church.  Further along, a donkey sneaks hay while a girl feeds her pony.

Newbury Station car park full of BMW and Audi, looking like a showroom.  The occupants board the train, suited, and plug themselves into phone, laptop, tablet and self-importance.

We shadow the canal, reeds flushing pink with anticipation; willows and bogs, locks and leisurely barges don't envy our hurry.

Rabbits and young buns sit pretty in the no-man's-land between railway and waterway, their whole world bounded, while beyond a fox jags away as the train rushes by.

A heron labours across the sky, backed by blue and a criss-cross of contrails as people speed home or away.

Low conversations, dull susurrations, broken by a mobile phone.

"Yeah mate, can you pick me up at East Croydon?   You can?  Great, you are a legend."

What a horse's arse.

A quiet interlude

It's all relatively quiet on the farm.  Sheep, lambs and cattle are all happily grazing on the steeper fields, while lower down we've shut up shop to grow grass.  Now is the time to fix fences and the shed roof (where each and every one of us has had a go at whacking the grab into the tin).

Time to sit back and smell the roses...or whatever else is growing in the hedgerows.