Category: Comments from Farside

Have you noticed?

How any time the media or friends start hammering on about something – it’s the opposite that usually happens? Back in 2004 a few spots of the country were getting mildly dry. That caught the media’s attention and they started. A drought was on the way! Just another week of no rain and we’d all …

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Mad Gander Alert

Last week I had the friends of a friend staying two nights, plus the advent of a local reporter to ask questions about the books I have about to appear. Both times I raced out carrying a stick to make sure that my visitors weren’t eaten. The geese have finally come to the conclusion that …

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From the Watchtower

That gander has escalated his determination to make certain no one sets foot on the lawn that he doesn’t know about. I took mail out yesterday and glanced around. No sign of that big white feathered form anywhere. That was odd. I stopped and took a very careful look about – being cautious is better …

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Spring has Sprung

If I’d not noticed that before, I noticed it this week. One of the hens (Fawn Girl) is sitting on six eggs in the hay barn, all three girl geese are sitting (in three different places) on the front lawn – and the gander has gone completely crazy over his impending fatherhood… The raspberries have …

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The rain

As the poet said, the rain it raineth every day, upon the just and unjust fella. But more so on the just because – the unjust hath the just’s umbrella. (and no, I don’t know who wrote that, it has many attributions including Shakespeare.) But what made me think of it is that it rained …

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Sharing

A quick trip down to our village yesterday to pick up a few things and drop off lemons. I have a Meyer lemon tree, there’s only a short period around early spring where that fruits really prolifically, but for most of the year it fruits steadily. Far more than I could ever use unless I …

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Hail!

and it did, on and off all yesterday. I’m not actually complaining since with that and showers we’ve had about 30mls of wet on the ground in the last 48 hours and we needed it. The hail did no damage – although the bombarded hens were annoyed – and, most conveniently the hail stopped for …

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Hawk and Hare.

I headed out on my electric scooter yesterday, a quick trip to the shops, and as I passed my hay paddock a movement caught my eyes. There was a young hare running for his life, while behind him about ten feet up and to the rear cruised a hawk in hungry pursuit. The hawk wasn’t …

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(No title)

I had planned to be on line earlier today but there were a couple of problems. The chimney-sweep was arriving to clean my chimney which had abruptly clogged, and then, just as he was leaving, I glanced right to discover that half a dozen of my hens were strolling up the centre line of our …

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Weather: snow

The weather at Farside has been absymal all week. Monday it snowed – to the vast confusion of the hens who amused me when I looked out and discovered that the four young hens (who’d never seen snow before) were all trying to walk across the yard without putting their feet down in this miserable …

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