Little gifts

It's late summer now. The hay in the field is baled, and the combines have started bringing in the corn. The partridge pairs have formed the coveys, many with wild-raised chicks, that will be their winter social group until they break off into pairs again next spring. The second hatch of swallows has finally fledged from my freezer room, early enough and strong enough to face their great migration to Africa.

The dogs know it's nearly autumn too. Most of this year's pheasants are in their woodland pens. On overcast days, the pheasant wander looking for the sun. Spud and Quincy know that means it's time to chase them back home. As soon as they finish their breakfast, they jump in the buggy ready for work-

It's not ideal to take my best picking up dogs out to chase birds, but that's the rub when you have working dogs. You have to ask them to understand the complexities of different jobs and trust them to do it. Pip and Dakota are still willing, but physically not up to the job any more.Tinker and Molly aren't mentally strong enough or matured enough to cope with the extra work. Mike uses Podge and Dulcie to do his rounds. Even with eight dogs, we haven't got enough for the work load.

Then, we had a week of dog accidents. Spud found the jar of peanut butter I use to bait rat traps (I long ago stopped using poison after too many inquisitive dogs ended up at the vets having their stomachs pumped). I must have hit it when I was mowing and the glass shattered. Broken glass isn't enough to stop Spud from eating, so she retrieved the jagged, part-consumed jar of peanut butter to me, mouth cut up and bloody but still smiling that dopey flatcoat smile. I had to find EVERY piece of the jar to be sure she hadn't swallowed any.

The next morning Dulcie came stumbling out of her kennel, head tilted to one side, unsteady on her feet. Her eyes were unfocused. I later found out it's called a vestibular incident, but it looked for all the world like a stroke. I raced down to the vets as fast as my old Land Rover would go (50 mph in case you wondered) and with medical intervention she's recovered and is about 95% back to her old self. I need her to work over winter this year, but I will have to be extra vigilant and make sure she doesn't suffer another episode. She has pills to take twice daily. I added her to my chalkboard list of "Who has What Medication When".

I'm going to need a bigger chalkboard.

I've started on Pip's hydrotherapy but she's a terrible physio patient. With the life jacket and me to support her, she half-heartedly paddles her front legs and lets her back legs stick out like a frog's. Even when she sits, she uses her bad leg like a kickstand -

Not only is she lazy, but she's now a trip hazard. The vets say she is healing fine. 

We've had some nice surprises too. I found these in Wales looking for a home, and of course I took them on -

Two female Golden Guernsey x Saanen goats. They came with one month old kids at foot: a little buck -

We called him Dai, because he's going to.

The bigger nanny has a little doe, which I've called Rhiannon -

As the goats came from Wales, I figured they should have Welsh names. I haven't got names for the nannies yet, as my Welsh is pretty limited and I've already exhausted the words I know. Unless I want to call them Heddlu (police) and Croeso (Welcome).

The goats are ready for me to milk, except they have not really been handled much. When I collected them, they were just tied to a fence, the kids playing loose in a field. I will have to earn their trust before I can have the milk. There was already a collar on the small nanny goat; when we got the goats home, I scrounged through my box of dog sundries and grabbed a nice camouflage collar that Mike found left behind by poachers he chased off the estate. It fit the big nanny goat perfectly.

I've quarantined the goats in Mike's pheasant rearing field, with a shed for protection from the elements. This is their temporary home while I get a vet to come out and health check them, and while our fencer finishes building them a suitable paddock around a disused brick shed I found in my sheep field. Kitty can see the quarantined goats from her paddock, and seems to like the new company very much. I feed them by hand twice a day and hope they will respond to that ultimate bribery: sweetened grain.

I found my second little gift this morning. As I lifted the lid on our nest boxes, I saw the determined broody hen who has been sat since forever. Even when I took away the clutches of eggs, she would just steal more and sit tighter. I lifted her up to clean out this new nest of eggs and found a surprise-

Bless you, you stubborn old hen. I guess determination pays off sometimes. I've left her current clutch of eggs alone, and will chec again tomorrow for another little gift.