Haymaking, cats and weird weather

Well it has been a busy time for all around here with the only exceptions being the horses who have done nothing but eat for an entire week.
After listening to the Met office reports of doom and gloom and thunder, lightening, floods etc we put off cutting the hayfields for two whole weeks and it didn't rain. Fed up with putting it off we abandoned the Met office and went by Farmer's intuition, Si borrowed a tractor and we started cutting the Top Paddock on Monday. Disaster wasn't far behind - a pin broke loose and the mower swung out, overbalanced and nosedived into the ground, snapping one of the belts. This stopped everything for the day and it then decided to drop some rain on what had been cut.
Tuesday was blisteringly hot and Adam came down with his tractor and mower and cut the rest for us, the half that got rained on dried out fine.
I feel like I've been holding my breath for most of the week - watching the stormclouds building and, on one very memorable occasion standing at the top of the ramp and seeing them just scrape past us - the next town down the line got localised flooding - we got thunder and a few random drops.
Finally it was baled and wrapped on Thursday - a total of 35 bales from our 3 acres, enough to see the horses through the entire Winter and, with the 8 left over from last year we even have some to spare just in case. At last I can breathe again.
Thursday night it rained hard and long.
We are now into the long process of moving and stacking the bales - long because they have to be moved one at a time using our little Fordson and the borrowed JCB which overheats. Si is the only one with the experience to drive these things with any degree of accuracy ( I'd be taking gateposts out) so it also has to be done when he is not at work.
In the midst of all this some nice person went and dumped a box of kittens and mother cat on a second hand car lot and John, Tara and Simon spent a happy hour chasing kittens around cars in the middle of the night with torches. They have now been safely relocated to the local cat rescue.

Monday 6th
Finished moving the bales yesterday - discovered that I can do it with the Fordson and the buckrake but the weight of the bales versus the weight of the tractor plus the slope of the ground made for some very hair-raising events - pulling wheelies with a cabless tractor isn't really my idea of fun. Si decided to try an experiment and see if he could persuade the buckrake to fit on the borrowed (large) tractor - it did, I had great fun with that and the gateposts are all fine.
Today we have more rain but with the bales wrapped, stacked and covered I'm just thinking that it's good for the grass and should get the cut fields greening again.
We are considering the possibility of regrowing one of teh fields for a second cut to sell on, have to see how that goes but prices seem to indicate that it'd be a good idea for all concerned.

Some people.......

Have you ever been in the state where you are just loitering on the edge of a conversation - not really listening but not blocking it all out either ? This was me on Sunday. The conversation was about the possibility of cutting our haylage early and the reason I wasn't so into it was that I'd already had the same one earlier with Si and he'd come down to our house to run the idea past everyone else. I was actually just messing about on the computer ( OK, so I admit it was Farmtown !)
Anyway I suddenly heard, "and you'll get to use the jumping field and you can do what you were planning earlier" directed at the kids - right so that sparked me and I had to ask, well it turned out that John's daughter ( Stella) had come down to visit ( as it was Father's Day) and she'd got this plan whereby Tara could teach some of her friends to ride in this field on MY horse and charge them a tenner each. I hit the roof.
Aside from the assumption that I might go along with this Harvey is NOT a beginner horse, the land is NOT mine, Tara is NOT qualified and the insurance WILL NOT cover it and, as if that wasn't enough, - I don't want bloody beginners messing with MY horse. John was sat beside me and didn't get a word in, didn't even try, bless him. A long time was spent assuring me that they were actually planning on asking me before doing anything and Tara, ( who has ridden a total of 4 times since Min died) admitted that she was "iffy" about the idea.
Iffy ???
Whew - talk about taking the rip - John's daughter came out with me last week - for the first time in about 3 years. Okay, so she rode Harvey on the road - walk and trot only and following Fally. She thinks she knows this horse - she knows nothing, he'd dump her butt in a second if she tried to actually ride instead of passenging.
I was fuming and it's still bugging me now.
Add to this that yesterday we had an adventure with the car - I managed to run over a nail and ended up at the yard with a hissing tyre. Okay, so I have changed a wheel before and I had Tara the engineering student with me. We also had a jack that neither of us knew how to work. After scratching our heads at it for several minutes we put it away and borrowed Andy's. Got the car jacked up and the wheel off - so far so good - then everything slipped, the jack fell over and the car crashed to the ground just missing Tara's leg.
We went into the house for a drink and a smoke and phoned John to come and save the day with his bottle jack. Next time we'll put bricks behind the wheels and not try using a crappy jack.
Note to self - now owing Andy a jack as it bent a bit.
There's a paranoid little voice at the back of my mind wondering if I did run over the nail by accident or if it was anything to do with the neighbours..........
On the horsey side of things play was stopped at the weekend as Harvey, being the nice friendly animal that he is, decided to take a bite at Fally which left him with a nice lump in the saddle area. Fally got time off and Harvey got a lot of arena work. Starr finally cantered Holly - quite nicely once Holly decided to actually listen to her.
Neo's next vet appointment is tomorrow afternoon. The bald patches are actually getting smaller now and he is happy and full of bounce again.
A side note - we are apparently getting roof repairs done next month - that'll mean scaffolding ( bet the cats love that) and John's car disappearing to stay at Andy's for the duration - no way I'm having that parked in the road.

I should start with an apology to anyone who actually takes the time to read my musings on a regular basis. The last couple of weeks have been weird and busy and I've either ended up too tired or too brain fried to even consider attempting to write anything coherent. If I'd tried I'd have probably ended up with the internet grammar police jumping all over me and threatening to confiscate my keyboard or possibly beat me to death with it !
The weather remains brilliant - long hot days spent outside are enough to wear just about anyone out but add to that the kids are all in the throes of exams ( in one case the final ones which will decide whether she gets the course she wants at college or not), we have had numerous computers breaking down, a car off the road, a hospital emergency and have acquired some new neighbours.
New neighbours normally wouldn't be a problem but I think we have the neighbours that nobody else wanted. Actually I don't want them either- they have an indeterminate number of obnoxious children who play in the road; now that's not a problem in itself ( although not something I'd recommend with traffic and all) but they throw stuff at cars, cats and my bloody house. Being that it's rented property and the landowner is the local authority everything is now getting reported and logged and the police are coming around etc etc etc. but it's still a pain in the backside and hassle and mess that I really don't need.
John moved one of the cameras hoping to actually catch the little sods in the act but they went and reported us and said we were spying on them or something so then we got a visit from the powers that be and ended up having to apply for planning permission for cameras that had been there for about 10 years.

Now I don't know if this is in any way linked to all the hassle but on the Monday morning I returned from the college run and found him on the floor in some distress. It looked like another heart attack and he ended up spending the day in hospital having tests etc. In the end it turned out to be a weird reaction to medicines, low blood sugar and tinnitus of all things which was a huge relief to say the least.
In the meantime with the running about to the hospital etc Gemma's car got hit by a flying brick that came off a lorry on the D road and the stupid neighbours pelted my house with food while I was out. What they didn't realise however was that my daughter was in and saw them doing it - she called the police and the council etc and got the whole thing logged with the landlords etc. Hopefully they will now deal with it and we can have some peace and quiet again.
The car is finally back on the road and the computers are all working again even though we ended up having to literally hotwire one last night when we found out that the wires had come off the on/off switch and that was why it wasn't working again ! John's computer - of course, it had to be really !

Holiday week

The weather took everyone by surprise by turning suddenly glorious again - people are burnt and sore and very inclined to sit outside drinking and not do much of anything else if they can possibly avoid it. Temperatures in the 20's and brilliant blue skies.
A distinct lack of mud makes a pleasant change as well.
The kids have been off all week for half term and Asti has spent most of her time out in the garden or greenhouse being green fingered - she even made a start on Andy's huge and very overgrown garden when she ran out of things to do in ours. She is one of the slightly burned ones !
Simon is flat-out silaging for Phil and the post knocker never turned up as I think it got forgotten with him being so busy - 13 hour days tend to do that to people . Actually I think the horses are currently too hot to be bothered with breaking any fences but I probably spoke too soon and will find them somewhere weird tomorrow.

Starr has been working hard at riding Holly despite the heat and all horses are getting very used to being hosed off on a daily basis ( love the smell of wet horse and hot concrete).
The repairs to the car are happening at last - at the moment it's propped up on logs in Andy's back drive and currently without any rear wheels. The "good" calliper is now consigned to the scrap pile as the magical screw extractor ( bought solely for the job) snapped off whilst attempting to remove the bleed nipple. New calliper should arrive Tuesday.
Tomorrow we are shopping and the list is even stranger than usual as it involves weed killer, brake pipes, underseal and hair colour.
The horses get a day off and the kids go back to exams, assessments and all that happy stuff they have been so looking forward to !
John's temperamental computer finally gave up the ghost early in the week so, after some diy fiddling, we admitted defeat and it's now at Wattshop for repairs, hopefully we should know more about that situation on Tuesday too although I'm not holding my breath on that - if it was a simple repair we could have done it ourselves - this is something strange and unusual - I suspect either processor or motherboard myself ( can't be anything cheap can it ?)
At the moment my computer is working overtime as everyone is taking turns at it - just as well that I have been pretty busy with horses and all - queuing up to use my own computer is something I don't take very well.
I somehow managed to break the nosepiece on my everyday glasses so I'm stuck in the shades till I can get to the optician's (tomorrow with any luck) but at the moment that's really no hardship at all.
Neo is due back to the Vet's tomorrow and we shall see what they have to say then. He's certainly a lot happier and livelier now he's had 2 weeks worth of antibiotics shoved down his throat and I'd be happy to see an end to him wearing that awful cone as well.

Bank Holiday Weekend...

It's a funny thing but I did say there was some sort of unnatural attraction between fence repairing and bad weather - it's been a glorious weekend ( unusual because it rather goes against tradition to have a Bank Holiday when it doesn't rain) anyway it was forecast to break last night with the usual dramatics (thunderstorms etc) and, of course I got the phone call from Simon to tell me that Harvey had broken through the fence and got into the 10 acre field. Not a major disaster - Harv is a big wuss and Mr Really Easy-to-Catch under these circumstances - ie - he's jumped over and no-one else has bothered to followed him - by the time we arrived Simon had got him back into the field and was preparing for a repairing session. It would have been a different story altogether if they'd all got in there. Anyhow, a good part of yesterday evening was spent messing about with posts and wire in the rain and being harassed by about 3 bazillion flying bloodsuckers who all seemed to want to be in my hair.
Obviously attempts to limit Harvey's grass intake need to be backed up with a bit more than Victorian railings and barbed wire ( yes, I know and it's not my fencing of choice - just of necessity - not everything can be replaced in one fell swoop but we are working on it)
Post knocker ordered for later this week !
On a brighter note we managed to ride out a couple of times with the weather being so nice and to get through the rather horrendous roadworks where the new bridge is being put in on our favourite ( and usually safest ) route. I was so pleased with the horses for going through that mess of cones, tarps and roadsigns - I took pictures !
Starr rode Holly on the lunge with some very pleasing results and we finally managed to buy most of the parts needed for my car repairs ( parts department was closed over the holiday weekend)
WE have decided to crown Gemma D the spontaneous BBQ Queen after her amazing short notice performance which actually included going out to buy a BBQ -
Round of applause for Gemma !

Rain

I don't why it is that it has to rain whenever I need to fix fences and not just rain once - oh no it has to be the whole preceding week so I end up wading through mud and sliding about in wet grass.
Also the funnest thing about electric fencing is certainly NOT that they decide to give up the ghost when it's cold,, raining, muddy and DARK.
This has been yet another week of nasty, miserable weather. The lunge area looks like a mud slick - I'm avoiding walking on it never mind asking Holly to do anything in there. The ramp is spewing sand all over the yard and the drains are backing up again. The fire is on and my car is still awaiting "real" repairs.
Cats are driving us mental - wanting to go out and then crying to come in when they find out what the weather is doing - then they give us accusing looks like we did it on purpose.
For some reason it's tending to stop raining and go rather nice just when it's too late to actually do anything, I did ride late one evening and a couple of times during brief spells of not-rain although the second of those started dry and ended up with me squelching ( sleeveless of course) and Fally drying out in the stable. Admitted I did stay out longer than I'd intended, lack of work makes him spooky and he was well into spooking at stupid stuff so obviously determination and more work was the answer - shame I wasn't wearing waterproofs and I don't know if the saddle's dried out yet.
On the tedious subject of the car - well, the kids are off this week coming and, as 3 of them are technically inclined ( and educated) when it comes to vehicles, the plan is to get it sorted then. At the moment it's unusable as I took it to a local garage to get the seized bolts released and there is now no grip on them at all - driving around with a swinging brake caliper doesn't seem like an especially clever idea. So I'm back to driving John's classic car and getting whined at for dog hair on his seat cover ( oops - last time it took him 3 hours to vacuum the hair from the door lining). Think I may need to get it valeted this time.
The dog himself is miserable and wearing a cone - the only time he is cone-free is when he's in the car or out in the fields. I can't imagine what the horses' reaction to Neo the cone head bouncing around would be but with all the mud we have at the moment I don't think it's a good idea to try to find out.
I did get my camera fixed so at least I get to use pictures this time !

Vets, pets and lots of wets

Neo has another vets appointment on Monday - they were talking about blood tests, biopsies, scrapes etc - seems a bit late for that since they've been treating him for the same problem for the last 3 years. Anyway, Monday will be second opinion time and hopefully make some headway with it.
We finally got the results from the lab for the tests on Asti's lizard poo and that was a waste of time too - they couldn't find anything wrong with it and suggested taking it to a specialist vet in Cheshire. The really funny thing that happened was that she had been complaining about the tank and wanting to change it and I went and fetched her a cabinet at the weekend which she set to and converted. Put the lizards in there and the skinny one ( who has not voluntarily eaten for 3 months - she got so skinny that she was re-named Victoria Beckham ) decided that the new house made her hungry and went on a binge. Three days later and she already has a fatter tail and is looking good so it seems that all she really needed was a new penthouse !
Fally managed to bite Asti the other day - first time he's got anyone in quite a while. She was fastening his rug and he swung and grabbed her by the arm - her entire upper arm. Praise to Asti as she responded by yelling, swinging and chasing him up the ramp before dragging him back and sorting the rug out. Her coat is ripped and her arm is purple - funny that she called him exactly the same thing as the vet did when he got bit !
The weather has been somewhat unsettled -thunderstorms, wind and rain and I've been off colour for a couple of days as well so doing little with horses and rather a lot of sleeping.The horses are fresh and looking for trouble.The couple of times I have been able to ride I've had the silly performance of parked cars being so scary and grids that have to be jumped over. Bucking seems very likely if we actually get to go for a run at the weekend.