And I thought they only contained monkeys...

Our weather has been so consistently sunny and freakishly warm that I've refused to come in until dark. Lots of outside jobs are done, including a new fencing project at Milkweed to create a small handling yard for sheep and lambs. My computer has dust on it. In fact, every surface in the house has dust on it, the carpets have a layer of dog hair, and the washing basket is overflowing. It's fine because it's nearly impossible to see the dirt at night, and if I trip over the laundry, it will afford me a soft landing.

I don't know if that rationale counts as 'thinking outside the box', or just plain denial.

My one "indoor" exception was a lambing class held at our vets' surgery last week. After all the lambing difficulties of last season, I wanted to rectify the pre-natal care and get some advice on dealing with problem births. The course finished with a Problem Birth test: a cut-away, 50-gallon drum on its side, with one end fashioned into a birth canal, and fitted with a see-thru plastic womb, was "impregnated" with a dead lamb. A real dead lamb. The vets arranged the poor creature into different problem delivery scenarios, and each student had to don the armpit-length glove, lube up, and go in. The rest of the class could watch the progress inside the barrel sheep, through the clear plastic womb.

Some towns have art centres where people gather and socialise. Some have museums and other cultural venues to patronise and enjoy. Dorset? We have lambing courses at the vets, where we take turns pulling a dead lamb out of a barrel, while drinking tea (remembering to hold it in the non-gloved hand; lube is slippery).

Truthfully? It was as much fun as a barrel of....OK, it was so fascinating that I've signed up for the next course on worming sheep.