Category: Comments from Farside

Almost Christmas

The weather is finally starting to look as if we could get that threatened el nino too. Not November however, with 89mls. But if the amount of rain is significantly down in December, it could be around the corner. Luckily our area tends to be more moderate than much of the surrounding places. They get …

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Heading towards Christmas

Not that this makes a lot of difference to a farmer/author. Both occupations can take place any time over 24/7 and don’t care if it’s Christmas, Mid-year, my birthday, Easter, or a zombie apocalypse. In fact what it really means is that I’m busier than ever because Christmas events are added in. Right now it’s …

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The Usual Peculiar Goings-on Here

Quick break just now while I marched out and explained to my rooster (Oscar Wilde II) that I’d appreciate it if he went elsewhere to do that. I have no idea why, but he’s just spent the last hour standing in the woodshed making odd noises, not ordinary crowing, more like a hen cackling while …

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Swinging and Swaying

yes, we had another earthquake, this one a bit more vigorous than usual at 5.7 confirmed. I was parked on the bed at 9pm, book before me, cat over my ankles, when, in the silence broken only by Thurder’s small feline snores, there occurred that old familiar noise. Earthsound! I set the book to one …

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Goose Antics

small problem the other week. Sister Two (a goose) decided the woodshed would be an excellent spot to start a nest. It was just then, because I’d used almost all the wood. She dug a shallow nest, lined it with breast feathers and settled in. Friend arrived a day later to split the wood that’d …

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More Spring Events.

Out in the cat park yesterday afternoon and noticed that the next spring event is well underway too. Yes, the raspberry canes are leafing out strongly. That will in due course, mean an excellent crop. It was meagre last year so I didn’t bother with jam, but if they do well this year, there may …

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Oh, Yes, it IS @$% Spring.

I strolled out to bring in firewood this morning, to find my progress seriously impeded by the gander and a goose. Idiot goose had decided that the woodshed was the ideal place to nest. Not by me it isn’t. I made a stragegic withdrawal and returned with my shepherd’s crook and an umbrella. Removed the …

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It’s SPRING!

and I have proof. The gaggle have established two nests in which they have eggs – and a nasty attitude to anyone approaching. In fact you don’t even have to get that close. Stroppy my gander is his usual paranoid self, and has taken to lying in ambush around the back of the main water …

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Exasperation and Lambs

Recently I calculated my life expectancy. (87) What I should have been calculating was life expectancy for lambs. I went out the other morning and discovered that one was now deceased. Typical woolly idiot. Somewhere in the early hours he’d climbed through the fence and couldn’t work out how to get back to his mum. …

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Lambs Arriving

First lamb of the year arrived Wednesday July 15th when Mopsy had a nice little, mostly-black, ewe lamb. Swiftly followed by back and white twins from Princess, another single (ditto) from Rachel, mostly black twins from Ellie-Mae and another two black and white singles from my remaining ewes. The hills are currently alive with the …

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