November 2007

The animals gave us a run for our money this month. One fine morning I visited the cows, still out in the top field, to find an extra 4 little legs charging around. Freedom (aptly named) had calved and Liberty must have been hiding in the grass when visited over the previous days. Anyway, all is well and as the weather was turning, we took the opportunity to bring them in for the winter.

Woken at 4am by Brandy, our dog, barking most insistently, I wandered downstairs in my dressing gown and blearily looked out of the window... nothing there. I expected that a fox or badger had wandered past the window and disturbed our canine friend. Settling her back down for the rest of the night, as soon as I'd left the room, off she went again in a frenzy... woof... woof... woof... WOOF... WOOF... you get the picture. Once again, nothing out there but Brandy wouldn't settle, so I got the torch and shone it through the window (quite a skill when half asleep at 4am) to show her there was nothing there... but wait a minute... a shape, moving along the fence of the cowyard... a calf - no, too chubby - a fox... yes, a fox... bit of an odd shape for a fox, but it is 4 am and things look funny at that hour! Hang on a minute... there's 3 of them... and they're not foxes, they're PIGS!!! Instantly I was fully awake, up the stairs, in my clothes with Mark in hot pursuit. We found 4 pigs wandering around in the farmyard and steered them skillfully into the feed room where we left them playing with the sack of potatoes whilst we went to find where they'd come from and how. Of course, that night there was no moon so everything was done by the light of the torch. Fortunately it wasn't raining. Everyone was sleeping soundly in the barns, so we visited the last batch of outside pigs to discover that where there should have been 15, there were 8!!! The long and short of it is, that the others had gone to sleep in the hedge (as you do) and were persuaded out of hiding by the cunning use of a bucket of feed! It took us an hour, but when we returned to bed for what remained of the night, there were 11 pigs settled back into their sty with hot electric fencing around them and the 4 musketeers were in a pen in the barn. The joys of keeping animals.

Our time alone was broken by the return of Dougal, a helper of great helpfulness who stayed with us last winter. He's returned to spend winter with us again and suddenly life seems a bit easier. He is good with the animals and a great "fixer-upper" we are really pleased he enjoyed himself so much last time he wanted to come back... he still doesn't believe that this place can be not muddy!

It was especially good to have his help at the end of the month. Mark had the opportunity to visit the Four Riding Schools show in Paris so was away for 2 days. This coincided with the busiest weekend of the year so far for markets with our regular Wootton Bassett and Outlet Village Farmers markets but also the Devizes and Calne Christmas Lights which we attend with our burgers and bacon rolls. Emily was on her Homoeopathy course (did I tell you she was doing a 4 year training course?)... so our other daughter Anna, came to help... and Dougal looked after the farm. We all had an exhausting but good weekend.