The Boys are Back

The field has had a few weeks to recover a bit and the grass is now 'moving' well and giving it a lovely new green 'pile'. I have had to mow the lawn its first cut and the other two miniature horses are getting through the hay we made last June and stashed away in the barn at Carolyn's, so today we get them back. They (Bob and Romeo) are delighted and, says Charlotte, as soon as they turned right out of her drive and realised they were coming here, they were pulling like mad down the lane to get here.

Once released into the field and cleaned of all tack, head collars and so on, they went completely giddy, racing round the field in big figures of 8 and loops, bucking and playing and stopping now and then to munch big mouthfuls of grass. It is a pleasure to see horses so happy and we are delighted to be able to give them this fun and pleasure just by having a spare field which needs a bit of mowing now and then till our lambs arrive. Carolyn is, meanwhile going to fertilize her own field and let it grow to hay again so that we can do the hay-making, hopefully in June and then put the horses out on the aftermath.

20 years of gardening - our first
successful fritillary!

The third amigo is still confined to home awaiting his appointment with Aoife the Vet. He needs 'doing' in between the risk of frost and the start of the blow fly season, which is a tight window but his other problem is that the months of separation have led to him no longer being able to get on smoothly with Bob and Romeo. He, an entire stallion, is convinced that he should be top dog but Romeo, backed up by Bob argues this point quite forcefully. At the moment, he can't go back into the field with them but he could now go into our pig-field which is also horse-proof, so we're waiting to see in his case how the operation goes and the reduction in his testosterone levels which will follow.

Concrete pig-drinker.

In the pig department we have had a nice result as a gift from former pig keepers, Carolyn and Charlotte. As we now know from our pig-learning, pigs are devils for destroying any plastic bowls or buckets you try to use for feeding them and providing water - they are playful, boisterous animals and they will happily grab up the bowl and go for a game with it, hurling it around, fighting over it, doing tug of wars, climbing into it and generally messing. K-Dub's solution to this was to build a bowl shaped mould out of wooden shuttering and fill it with concrete, thus creating a heavy robust concrete bowl which the pigs could not move, never mind play with. We have inherited this (Thanks very much, all three of you!) and hefted it into the car to bring home. It is currently being washed and sterilized with Miltons fluid prior to being installed in our own pig-run.

Tarte tatin with pâte brisée.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to me.  Not a significant number but one with a rather neat symmetry, I was born in 1957 and I am (tomorrow) 57 years old. Tomorrow though, we have an extra session of Bee School thrown at us, so we decided to do the special meal tonight. In our family the rules are that the Birthday-boy (or girl) gets to choose the menu and the other person has to cook it, but is allowed to interpret too. I 'ordered' steak and chips, apple pie and ice cream but this being Liz, it was not your standard apple pie with shortcrust pastry.

Steak, chips, peas and chestnut mushrooms.

Nope. She got out the Darina Allen books and went for a rather special Tarte Tatin (a French upside-down apple tart). The pastry is a superb fragile, rich, 2-egg-yolk job called Pâte Brisée (Broken or 'crumbly' pastry) which is allowed (nay, expected!) to break up as you try to turn out the pie. The apple you start by getting butter and sugar to foam in the frying pan till it turns fudge-golden, then add the apples and cook till the whole is caramelised to a dark brown colour. "Hold your nerve" advises Darina in the book, you will think you have burned it all to blazes but , no, you will have created a superbly sticky, sweet, apple-y version of heaven which your husband will be very very impressed by and grateful for on his 57th Birthday.

Spoiled, I am.

Hay Cart

We like to do things by the traditional methods over here as you know, so when we go hay carting we use the traditional Irish farm implements, the 2CV and pedigree Argentinian miniature horses (!). OK maybe not seriously but we had some great fun getting the baled hay in for Carolyn and Charlotte. The field which is to be home to the 'boys' (Romeo, Bob and Cody) is only yards from the house and is accessible by hard roads and flat dry gate entrances, so it was perfectly good 2CV territory. My little 6 foot by 4 foot trailer did a good job, taking 21 bales on our best load.

Once the morning mist had cleared the hay was beautifully dry and the baler man gave it one last shake through and rowed it up about 1 pm, returning to bale it at about 2:30 to bale it. We got just over the hundred bales off the 2 acres, which is not bad for a field which had not been fertilized or limed recently, all be it the baler man may have had his eye on the per-bale rate and had set the machine up to do them short and a bit light and fluffy, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt; he may have just been being nice to the ladies he assumed would be carting the stuff.

We went into the field at about 3 pm and we were all done with our 6 loads by half four. Hot work in the sun but when the 'cavalry' turned in the form of another helper with a big 4 x 4 and a stock trailer, there was precious little left for her to do (she didn't mind at all!) and we also had to save 2 bales for Charlotte so that she could have the pleasure of getting mini-horse Romeo back between the cart shafts for a bit of exercise. I got a ride in the cart down to the field, so it was fine by me too!

It was hot work in the sun but, as I said, the bales were smallish and light; none of the lumpy, dense, long things I remember from my student days while sometimes took 2 of us weedy students to lift before we'd built up a bit of muscle tone over the working weeks. We have all the bales now stashed away in one of Carolyn's barns and I was 'paid' 6 bales for my efforts, so I too have a little mini-stack in a barn which will see the geese, chickens and rabbits through the winter (and beyond) for bedding.

In other news I was back at the carpentry today creating 4 more nest boxes. The '8-ball' chickens are now approaching point of lay and I want them to get used to the idea of being able to lay their eggs somewhere sensible. Their aunts are still laying either out in the nettles or, sometimes, in the pile of our own hay in the goose house. That's fine in the hot weather when I wedge the goose house door open with a log to get a bit of breeze onto Broody Betty (who you can see still on station on her duck eggs in this picture; she was completely un-fazed by me turning up with another 4 nest boxes and filling them with wood shavings and hay. She has got her little private drinker there (a sawn-off milk bottle) and her Sussex County crest above her head. She's due a happy event on Monday, 4 days time.

And last but not least, I promised a pic of the dozen baby bunnies - I've got up to 11 here I think, so I ask you for your continued patience. These little whizzers do not stay in one place for long enough to get a picture AND count them.