Happy Easter

After a very much warmer week, Easter weather hit us and we are back to freezing around the place. That would be the hens and me. Dear husband never seems to feel the cold and our four friendly sheep look like walking bundles of wool. It's absolutely mind boggling how so much wool can grow out of an average sized animal! Mr. Chip is slowly changing into his summer coat but still has enough fluff left to fend off our silly spring weather.

Our "happy go lightly Eric" is packing his bags and moving on soon. Two hens will move as well, still not sure who they are. It feels sad and nice, at the same time, which is odd, to say the least. Eric has more humour than Monty so our funny guy is leaving home. All three of them are going to a beautiful, huge farm with no immediate neighbours to complain about Eric's spectacular lungs. Or so I hope... We do know that Darya and Lina will not move with Eric as they both love their sheep too much and would get sad without them. (And I would miss them too much...)

Easter is upon us; chocolate eggs and our own, oh so pretty eggs. Spring is arriving, nature waking up again.... The snow started melting on rocks last week and it looked so wonderful. Green moss and ferns, which we had not seen for ages, stood blinking in the bright sunlight. Half a day later the henhouse filled up with the muddiest, happiest bunch I've ever seen and all that was left of the rock displays was soil and upside down ferns. Our hens and cockerels are a demolition team to be reckoned with. I helped the fern to stand the right way up so we will see if they survive our lot.

Easter week brought ice onto everything again so the digging has stopped for a while. Monty and Eric are not the best of friends anymore and we are counting the days for the move. Poor Eric can't do anything right, according to Monty who is older but not the wiser! If Monty took a chill pill all would be easier. They can be almost civil to each other outside so the poor hens spend a lot of time ice skating and gliding around on snow. They seem to be relived when it's time to go inside to lay an egg. And they do not hurry out again - bless them.

When My wants a hug. Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

Easter is also a time for reflecting on life and that might be around the corner after that. With the world going hundred and ten in the wrong direction, we can certainly do that in abundance, if we choose to do so. Here the animals really come into their own right! It's difficult to be sad and blue when you are sitting brushing a sheep with Darya the hen balancing on your head. A moment is interrupted when My the sheep decides to hug you and you have nothing to say about that. My does not take kindly to the word no, when it comes to hugs so you just have to do as you are told. Animals fend off melancholy like no one else... Chocolate is quite a good remedy, too, for that. Dear husband just danced passed and left Mr. Chip standing stock-still, staring and wondering. We do not want to ask why a dance was needed but just take it as a positive sign and spring does give you a lift. Molly the sheep finds green grass uplifting too, so our lawns will soon be bare fields of mud...

We all want to wish you a Happy Easter, wherever you are and enjoy the holidays. May the Easter Bunny be with you and in a generous mood.... Mr. Chip believes the Easter Bunny is one of the hares he has been chasing around the fields, over the years and that's why he/she is so fit that everyone gets a treat delivered during Easter night. We try to humour him but for all we know he might be right. Who knows? Sending you all some Easter magic as that's what this holiday should be all about. Remember to duck for low flying witches and be well. I have not told our lovely animal that my plan is to live on Easter eggs this holiday. And to give something to those who go without, at the moment. Easter should also be about new beginnings, new hope.... "And lots of good food", I'm told by all our animals. They do not watch the news... Be well.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 2nd April.

Stoneback book circle

It's been a lovely week of birthday treats and half term at the schools down south, in Finland. We are such a small country that in order to avoid complete chaos at the ski slopes, the north has a different week off from school in February. It is very organised and probably totally unnecessary as everyone heads for the Alps.... No, not really...

So we have had lots of visitors and I have had too many lovely presents. And as you could guess, our little gang does not ski. The hens skate on the ice and our four M’s enjoy rambling on snowy footpaths, but that's about it.

One of my many wonderful presents was the book "Pigs in clover" by Simon Dawson. I highly recommend it, although I might be the last person on earth to have read it. It's a warm, funny book about struggling with it, fighting against it and finally loosing the battle to it and then falling in love with a life full of animals. As a vegetarian, I do feel there was just a teeny tiny bit too much meat eating as well but I guess that was the point of the story, being a smallholding and all. I told our animals about the book, told them stories about all the mud and the pigs and how some had to go to heaven. Apparently it's good for some but we do it differently, I was informed. Here at out place the theme is more "Retirement home for lovely animals" than self-sufficiency.

My dear husband will now get to read the book and I know he will love it. It has all the mumblings of a man missing fast cars while driving a tractor. There is a sequel to the book that we will definitely buy. All those animals and they still made a go of it and even felt like sharing their new found knowledge with the world. And you have to like a man who takes a one-eyed collie dog because no one else wanted it!

Next time, in Stoneback book circle, we will talk about a long overdue book, a present we got last summer from a dear friend. It's called "Milly-Molly-Mandy", you can spot the attraction, can't you. The first stories were written in 1928 and the author Joyce Lankester Brisley wrote four books about this little girl. Brilliant stories, but more about her next time.

It has not only been cakes and coffees around here. The sheep spent warm, sunny hours outside, munching on hay and willow while the hens dug up the manure heap, once again. I felt like Cinderella on a less glamorous day and cleaned the stable from ceiling to floor. Everything out, new beddings for the animals and not a speck of dust anywhere, when I was done. Well, apart from all the stuff stuck on me, I turned into a walking, coughing dust ball... It looks perfect now, for a while... I think dust is bad for all animals and hens tend to move it about with all their flapping and flying. Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My certainly appreciated my efforts. The hens were too busy making everything look the same again to comment on my work.

Mr. Chip enjoyed the sunny days too, walking with dear husband and feeling the warm sun on the old bones. (Mr. Chip, not husband....). Our dog has found a fifth gear and is zooming around the place, barking at invisible things, asking to be taken for longish walks and eating well. It's a pleasure to watch his button eyes sparkle again but he still stops by our feet and trips us up. As he does not hear very well, he sits in doorways so he knows we're around. That's tricky too but he's a sweet dog, so we grumble and stumble on happily, for his sake.

Being birthday week, I have been thinking of the concept of getting older. As a friend of ours commented, "I'm catching up to his age!". Does that mean that up to a certain age (50!), we get older and after that, others do? If so, I have a few more years of catching up to do and then I'm done. I hope it still means lovely presents... Just joking... What I do hope is, that we get to celebrate Mr. Chip turning 14 years old in August and I wish that spring will be a continuing party at the stable. All the hens will get tiny birthday presents and later on its four happy sheep. Being EU regulations and all, I have documents of their time of birth and even know at what time they plopped out. My dear husband has to wait until autumn for his catching up.... I guess there are proper documents on him too. I have been told that he was a beautiful looking baby....

A fox terrier’s lifespan is about 15 years they say. I hope we break the bank with many more birthdays to come with Mr. Chip. Sheep can live up to 12 years and that would be lovely! Many more outings to go to for our gang, if we are lucky. Hens are tricky, they take a day at a time and hope for the best. They can live long lives if all goes well.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

To celebrate our little book circle I will leave you with something I learned today. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," uses every letter of the English alphabet. Not bad work for a fox and a dog...

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 27th March.

Winter thoughts

It's funny but I used to love long, cold winters. Dear husband building his snow hole (digging a house into the snow instead of upwards like an igloo...) and taking long walks out into the crisp and white world. Coming home with frost on our eyelashes and frozen faces. You do feel alive in such conditions and you spend a lot of time feeding the wild animals out in the forest. You also keep fit.

Since our little group of animals arrived, my view on the winter season has completely changed, not altogether a surprise. I spend hours listening to mutterings about snow being hard to dig in (this from the hens) and mutterings about how the world stands still (sheep thinking out loud) and I understand them. From summertime, when everyone bobs about, meeting up friends here and there, the world gets very small for the animals when the cold hits us. They long for sunny days, lounging about on the field, seeing everything that's going on around the place. They also enjoy hearing what's going on in the forest near us. Winter is a quiet time of the year in that sense too.

So I walk around with hens, make paths in the snow for our four sheep who think "Ladies do no such things!". When I'm done they walk gingerly off in my tracks, making me step aside into the deep snow, giving way to them. It is very Jane Austen and I feel like the scullery maid. Apparently making paths is my job as I wear bright blue wellingtons and that's not lady like. We still do longish walks with Mr.Chip but we do not break any land speed records anymore. So I'm as fit as a flapjack and not half as sweet, unfortunately. And I would not have it any other way!

Dear husband out on a winter night.
Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

My dear husband swapped his Diesel engine car to a petrol one after our really cold spell, this winter. It gets a bit depressing when the car is even slower to get going in the morning than the frozen driver. A few years ago I would have asked him in a silly "no car expert style", what colour he got on the new family worker. This time my first question was "if we can fit a sheep in it?" It's always a worry if someone gets ill and need to go to the vet... Animals do that to you, next I will confess that my favorite song is "Old McDonald had a farm..." but not to worry, we are not there, yet.

The squirrels around the place are doing very well, this winter. We have never seen such healthy, huge tree climbers and they are the red squirrel. Mr.Chip has decided that they cannot be chased or disturbed in general, in fear of them having a heart attack. It's not so much that they are fat, they are just feeling really well and have grown a lot. They are a pleasure to watch but we do worry about the bird population, in the spring. We will have to build new bird boxes with metal around all the round doors. The squirrels will eat every egg and bird baby in the yard, otherwise. There is always something to do in the country, the building I mean....

As the cold spells seems to come and go, gardening becomes a bit of a lottery. When to prune apple trees, when to sow seeds and so forth. At Stoneback farm all the pruning has been done at the wrong time of the year by four eager sheep. Hopefully our pear tree will still give us that one pear, so we don't forget that it's not an apple tree. The berry bushes got cut down so thoroughly last summer, that they will look like the trees up north; small, scraggly things, fighting cold and wind up on the fells. Our sheep do a proper job, when they set their mind to it. As Molly pulled up most of our flowering bulbs last spring, we will have to hope the forest gets a good amount of white and blue anemones this year. Otherwise nothing much will bloom around here this spring.... Apart from four woolly friends, lots of hens, two oversized cockerels and a little white dog, we hope. My dear husband and I will just try our best to fit in. At least one of us gets a suntan, I turn pink as a piglet...

Just read that squirrels give birth to two to eight offspring so that means we all have to move. Not enough space for all of us... Just joking, but that's a lot of baby squirrels around the place. Mr.Chip will get burned out chasing them! Here's hoping our lot are a squirrel boy band....

A footnote; A few days ago our smart cockerels decided that spring had arrived and had one almighty fight. I found them both bleeding from major cuts in their faces. The hens were not impressed either! So now we keep them apart indoors and I walk around telling them to behave, outdoors. We are thanking all and everything for good friends as our lovely friends will take on Eric when the weather gets a bit warmer. We will have to send two of our hens with him as no one should have to move house alone. Young Eric will move in his father's and grandfather's footsteps and move to a farm with horses. Sad times but he needs to get his own place and our hens will like the fact that kind children will spoil them rotten. So now we just have to keep the fighters at bay and hope for the best. Eric will cherish the chance to be the king of the hill and hopefully grow up as beautiful as his father.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 20th March.

Training hens and me.

Listening to the news makes me wonder if anyone can make any sense out of the world, right now. Here in our little country good manners among people seem to be vanishing rapidly and we are turning into a grumpy nation. Being polite to your fellow man does not take that much energy, you would think.

In our henhouse things are moving in the opposite direction. We have been practicing politeness and sharing and it looks like the hens have understood what we have been doing. Hens are much smarter than we think. They remember yesterday, they can learn a daily routine and they do know right from wrong. The problem with hens can be their extreme stubborn streak.

As I have been telling you, Darya the hen is clearly the lowest hen in the pecking order. Lina used to be head hen but lost her spot when Waldemar the cockerel died. Henrika is back and she is a kind hen but her friends chased both Darya and now Lina if they got a chance. So I have been meddling with their group dynamics, just a tad.

Lina and Darya got a secluded breakfast served for some weeks. Then I added some more hens to the party. When the new members could not behave themselves, I put them back in with the bigger group. After a few evictions they got the idea of things and more friends could be added. Now Darya has got two friends that follow her out into the snow, in the mornings. Lina is still quite thin although she eats like a horse so I don't let her out into the cold. She would follow the small team if she could.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

Some of the arctic explorers let me carry them back home after a successful dig at the compost. Darya is an old hand at riding on my arm, Lotta clings on for dear life and Henrika still prefers to lead the procession. If it's really windy I get to help her out but her legs are meant for walking.... Lina will never be a hen that takes kindly to being handled by us. She is nervy and thinks my tasks are to feed, help and clean out and that's it. She is very social but we have to keep some distance to her.

The hens still chase each other at times but the ganging up on one particular member of their team seems to have stopped. It's also lovely to see Darya getting friends, but she wants to spend the nights sleeping in the sheep pen. Most nights Eric joins her for company.

Our lovely sheep has been a great help in training our stubborn hens. Whenever the going got a bit tuff all I had to do was to open the door to the sheep pen and calmness returned. The hens adore our sheep and Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My think the world of them. Molly can stand for hours watching them and Mindy still loves to blow on her feathery friends. (They pretend to get frightened but know it's a game....) Eric is the only one who still thinks the sheep might be dangerous so he keeps an eye on them at all times. Monty bobs in and out amongst the sheep and finds them handy for climbing. Eric will also get there because there is nothing more calming than a flock of sheep for the nerves. He was already fine but after he's collision with one of the sheep, he got back to being a bit jumpy.

The winter months are the time when we hang out more, the sheep and I. They crave the company and I brush their coats regularly. Mindy, Molly and My stand in a tight group, so I end up brushing all of them at the same time. Mindy blows into my ear, My stands still and takes it seriously. Molly leans on me until I fall over. Mandy has started her own system. She eats away while the rest of us make a bit of a muddle of the whole thing, but still enjoy ourselves. When we are done, Mandy steps forward and I groom her in an orderly fashion, no messing about. She does worry so when things are not done the proper way....

A few evenings ago I was in a slight hurry to get on with things. It does not happen often but this particular evening was a snow clearing evening and I was needed outside with a shovel in my hand. So after grooming and hugging the first lot of sheep friends I put the brushes away, turned the evening light on and said goodnight. Then I saw one very sad sheep looking straight at me wondering what was going on. So lights back on, hens upset wondering if the disco was in the village, brushes out and back to being social. Poor Mandy was very offended and I ended up being very late, shoveling snow. Sheep need company and they are very social animals. Thankfully I am very seldom in a hurry while tending to the animals. It would not do...

Sheep are animals that need their flock to feel safe. Dogs are also not meant to be left alone for hours on end. They need their flock to feel happy. The flock can be their family members or other dogs but they need company to feel well. Horses would certainly loose the plot if they were left on their own for long and humans are the same, I think. I just found out that some species of termite mate for life and that one queen termite can form a whole colony with her king male. Hard work but lovely, in a way...

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 13th March.