Walking makes you think.

The snow finally carried us for a few mornings, in late March, and Mr. Chip got his favourite walks. We are so happy for him and now I got my pinkish suntan. Our lovely dog found enough hare droppings to keep him going for days but still wanted his lunch and dinner. We could have rolled him out in the evening but apparently it's very important to eat a varied diet. Or so we were told. It's mostly bark and dry grass in hare droppings, I guess.

Walking up and down on fields got me thinking about animals in general. Mr. Chip would not venture out on these walks alone. He wants company and reassurance that all is well. He turns and checks that he is on the lead and that his team knows to follow him. Mr. Chip is getting older but non-the-wiser. If a hare appeared in front of him he would shoot off and there would be no stopping him. Because of his slightly wobbly leg we try to avoid this, so he stays on a lead. He is a nice looking dog, though, when he does his dangerous climbing up and down the wide ditches dividing the fields. I'm sure in his mind they are huge crevasses and he is a mountain climber. I'm holding on to the safety rope and celebrating with him when he makes it back. Lots of fun and it does a world of good to both of us.

The point I was trying to make was that without our help, Mr. Chip would not enjoy these walks as much as he does. Interacting, playing and cheering are part of an animal’s day, as much as it is for humans. Rest, snuggling up with a good book and food are also on our dogs top ten list.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

Our four sheep make me wonder about this, quite a lot. A sheep is an animal you see scattered around fields, next to busy roads, munching away. In some countries sheep stay out all year around and even survive floods and other catastrophes. They seem to be a happy bunch and that's that, really. Then you meet our lot; four so different characters that you never cease to wonder about them. They are funny, they have moments of pondering (mostly Molly after she has eaten some hen food, so there might be tummy ache involved in that...) and they have the need to interact, in the same way as a dog does. This fact took me by surprise, I must confess. I never thought sheep would be such social animals. I imagined them to be more of a group of happy, woolly friends that would hang out with me, occasionally. It seems I was wrong.

At first I thought they wanted more dry bread or something but soon learned that it's affection that they seek. So that has started me thinking about animal behaviour in general. Have I triggered the need in them, to be noticed, somehow, or do all sheep need this kind of attention? Do a lot of sheep out in the countryside break out of pens and fences just to come and say "Hello", to someone? Are people who tell me that sheep are boring really the problem themselves, for keeping sheep in a boring way? This is a conundrum for me now and I will carry on pondering about this. (My world is not that big...).

It is the same with the hens. We treat them all kindly, I feed them the same food and they all get to do the same outings. Still some hens are grumpy, some really kind and some get picked on until I step in to sort it out. This for example resulted in Darya transforming from henpecked to a blossoming, happy hen. Lina is now gaining weight and being a feisty hen, again. Monty turned possessive and forced poor Eric to move house. (I know its territorial and all that but I still feel hurt by that one. There was no need to fight; we could all have plodded along happily around here). With hens I think the stress factor has a lot to answer for. Hens that are bred just to produce eggs tend to be a harder breed altogether and more prone to picking on each other. Our lot are more mellow as they get to do what they feel like, mostly. We don't feed them outside but they come up to greet us when we meet on the road. Some like to sit on my arm, the view is better from higher up, and Lina always has a kind word for people she meets. I believe hens need interacting, too. Even the squirrels have started to greet me, in the mornings. They climb down the tree, not up, at breakfast time. That feels nice, although I still worry about the fact that there are so many of them. I will carry on wondering and pondering about our friends and enjoy the fact that the spring sun has started to warm us all, a bit. Small steps, on all fronts...

The cockerel is linked with solar energy - a symbol of dawn, illumination and the sun, in Celtic and Nordic myth. So when Monty really gets going, early in the morning, I will try to feel the mythical side of it all. I will try, at least.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 17th April. 

Erik moved house

Eric has left the building!

On Easter Monday Eric moved to his new home, about an hours drive from our place. Two very surprised hens moved as well and although it was a bit unfair to uproot them, it felt the right thing to do. Our young cockerel would never have settled down alone in a new, still empty henhouse and our hens take things in their stride. They turn three years old this spring so they know a thing or two about life. We also knew by now that Eric would not be happy with us anymore, as every time he made a louder noise or approached a hen, Monty came screaming around the corner. Not a nice way to live! On Sunday night Eric crashed into the back of my head, trying to land next to a hen, sitting on my shoulder. He felt that at least there he would be safe to flirt with a hen without Monty interfering. He missed the landing and it felt like being hit by a football with claws. We were all slightly startled by that attempt.

Moving day was a bit of an ordeal as an hour before our friends were to arrive to collect them, all our hens decided to start laying eggs. This meant a lot of shuffling about, deciding where to make a temporary nest, a lot of calling for the cockerels and just general mayhem. Eric started going a hundred and ten around the place as Darya the hen was occupied elsewhere and could not hang out with him. Our lovely sheep just stared and I think they did some packing of their own.

It's interesting to watch when people who really know animals and work daily in an environment where animals are loved, enter our little stable. Monty is usually the first to start flying around when visitors arrive. This time he just stood watching Eric and left the creating of a chaotic situation to him. The real difference is with our four sheep. They are shy and weary of new people but now they just took a collective step forward and asked how everyone was doing this noise filled afternoon. The youngest lady of the party almost left for home with our sheep, instead of hens and a cockerel. It's easy when you know how....

After the first few slightly miserable attempts to catch dear Eric we managed and off they drove to their new life. The stable became so quiet; you could hear a feather drop to the floor. I just let all the animals outside for a while and they wondered around looking for their friends. Pippi, Eric's mother looked everywhere but soon started pecking away as usual. She stopped spending time with her son a few weeks ago, when all the fighting began between the cockerels. Maybe that was Eric growing up, leaving home, so to speak?

A few hours later the phone rang and our friends told us about happy hens and how well everyone had settled in. They did not need to tell me about Eric (they did anyway as they are kind people) but I could hear him in the background. He was telling all and everyone that he had arrived, nattering away about his new home, the food and all he could see through the window. Hens close by and new friends, Eric was a happy-chappy and an adventure had begun for them in a beautiful, new home.

Darya slept in her normal place, that night, no Eric to keep her company but her dear sheep around her. It will take a few days and then Monty will be back there with her, like it used to be. Spring is here and our first new neighbours have arrived from warmer countries. Doves cooing in the trees and we are knee deep in slightly thin looking blackbirds. Two very surprised geese are on the field, clearly feeling they arrived at the party a bit too early. We feed all and everyone and welcome them back.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

Migrating birds use the sun, stars and landmarks, to name a few factors, to help their navigation. The Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus), fly over the Himalayan Mountains in eight hours, on their way from Mongolia to India. They fly during the night, all on their own muscle strength with no Sherpas to help out. I find that to be an impressive achievement.

There is still some snow to melt away on the lawns, but a happy summertime to you all. It seems that we made it through another winter so well done, all of us.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 10th April. 

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.