Well We're Moving on Uh-up...

We are the proud owners of a new tumble dryer AND a new chest freezer. Both are brand new, though not for want of looking for a preloved dryer or freezer needing a new home. Maybe it's the credit crunch effect, but there were more buyers looking for chest freezers than sellers offering one in our local papers and on-line. Dryers were easier to find, but there was little difference in the cost of a new A rated energy-efficient model versus an older, energy-questionable model. I feel positively modern now.

Then, as suddenly, the feeling passed as I took possession of our recently dispatched meat chickens.

I'm worried that there are another 16 chickens to go in and possibly not enough freezer space to accommodate them. The problem is getting worse the longer I delay killing them as they just keep getting bigger and bigger. Plus it's pheasant season, and I need room for some pheasants which are free meat. A third freezer is out of the question. I think.

We shot yesterday and I took Podge who is working her first proper pheasant season. She was what you would call a 'late bloomer'. Most of her siblings were working at 18 months old, but Podge is 3 years now. Still, she's got the heart of a lion (and the jaws of a gin trap) and after a long hot day of picking up pheasants, she still carried this big bird up from the bottom of the valley:

It is nearly as big as she is, and heavy too. I don't know how she does it but she loves doing it - at least judging by the howling and barking I hear when she gets left behind on a shoot day.

Not all the dogs were as busy as Podge yesterday:

I only got up to make a cup of tea. I wonder if they'd jump in my grave as fast. Pip would - for any residual body heat. Dakota would just to check that I didn't have any biscuits still on me.