and welcome  to some new recruits!
As I said in my last post most of the things I spoke about there are the same topics I planned to speak of here. Unfortunately a lot of them are from a very different angle.

By far the hardest thing I had to do this year was part with my dear friend Rog, to say I was heartbroken doesn't really cover it. He has been such a mate to me through thick and thin, well never thin for him! (He was on a constant battle of the bulge regime).
Dear old fat Rog, he loved the baby animals as seen above, I always joked  that when he grew up he would be a farmer. He was always in the garden and in my affairs;



Here he is caring for me in the spring when I'd done my back in and was sleeping on the floor and not coming out much!



Indeed that was a lie he was just after my apple!



Rog loved going out and about, this was a trip to Deauville for new shoes and is my favourite picture of us. You can see the food theme is still top of his priorities.


Before Rog went to his new home I took him along to Aston le Walls to do clear round sj and xc over the BE90 and 100   (sort of pick and mix, as you choose), he had been due to run at Stafford but as I'm sure you'll remember the weather was dire so Stafford got cancelled so that was that;



It seems like Rog has found himself a nice new mum though;



and he's been really busy, out and about, up to all sorts,



and of course up to his favourite hobby of all;



All these pics of Rog in his new home, I've been so lucky to find people who want to keep in touch with me and let me know how he is and what he's up to. It's not the same as him being here of course, and I do miss him bitterly, but what can I do? I didn't win the lottery and the cash flow had dried to less than  a trickle, sever drought threatened!

We also lost another stalwart team member this year in the shape of dear Sussex, the hen. Now I won't pretend she was the best layer ever but she was our first ever egg layer. I recall vividly the dogsbody's delighted face when he found his first egg in the run of our only just purchased point of lay pullets. That egg probably accounted for 5% of Sussex's total life production since she's always preferred to laze around, broody on the nest. That's not the point though, Sussex was part of the furniture and a character to boot.
Since all our old hens had long since decided that egg laying wasn't for them it seemed rather pointless feeding five hens forever for no returns, so a mass cull was arranged. I have to say that Sussex was exempt from that cull, I would have kept for the long haul, but she never really got properly better from her first bout of egg boundness and it kept recurring in between her periods of moult;



Turnip ever the drama queen did realise a chicken shouldn't look so drastic in moult. He reckoned that it was probably a result of radiation nuking from the newly installed THT lines about ten miles away.I've told him til I'm blue in the face that they're not yet ' wired in' to the new power station, but dipstick, he still insists on going out in full NBC ( nuclear, bioligical and chemical warfare) suit!



So the big chicken kill got under way;



Everyone wanted to be involved, even Debs the goat reckoned she liked fresh killed chicken. The dogsbody discovered a novel technique of plucking, more commonly known as skinning and while it might not be the best method of preparing a chicken for oneself it's certainly the fast track route for preparing an old  broiler for the dogs' supper.


 So then we set off to the local market for some new point of lay pullets and with luck a plentiful bounty of eggs;



But these girls gave us more than we bargained for;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyKnJ0LwHpg

It's been a long running plan for me to create a new 'Mini', that Mini being my little black and tan Jack russell. She's no longer in her youth and I would really like to wind up her breeding program, though she has other ideas about that. When Pete came to live with us I had hopes a new mini Mini might be in the pipeline, but as you know my darling Pete never even made it to adulthood.
So it was with a jolt of adreanalin that I saw a little dog in St. Sever forest who resembled Pete in every way but size, he was far more petite. His owner a drunk french hunter was more than happy to rent out his stud to Mini to make baby ones.
Infact he had found the little dog 'Titus', roaming round the woods lost and never managed to find his rightful owner despite local ads in shops and newspapers and even a report to the local police. Titty was his little mate and very proud of him he was too, his little house dog, though apparently that had been called into question during his early days. His wife had said, ' If that dog cocks his leg in here once more he's out.....' or something to that effect. Titus must have cleaned up his act as he was firmly 'in situ', when Mini went to visit.
So Mini and Titus had a romance and produced my mini Mini, meet Eeny;



She has already proved her worth helping the dogsbody install the new sat dish;



It wasn't a foregone conclusion though, selecting Eeny from the litter of pups was confusing, laborious and time consuming, and we hadn't even got to the names at the stage, well we had, but they were all muddled too;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDT7wz1LHws&feature=youtu.be

We also managed to wind up with ANOTHER dog, Jim, bringing the grand total of the rat pack to five. But Jim, a jug ( pug cross Jack Russell) isn't hot at hunting, he's more of a pig herder;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhKd75okU4U

He just showed a natural apptitude for it, but perhaps his trainer should  be taking the credit;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RN8craSwY

Jim actually belonged to my sister, but she found herself moving house to a new place that didn't take dogs. I'm not sure how long Jim will stay with us, despite him being a very sweet dog I'm not sure how many dogs we actually need and though he has produced some very cute pups with Donut;


I'm not really sure we need more pups!

Especially when you see how much hard work is involved in getting the photos for the ad just right;



Too tight mum!



Too squished!



Just right mum!      A million dollars!



Or 400 euros to be precise!
Even the pup tale has a sad little twist since Donut started with three pups, but Horatio wasn't really up to speed. Despite my best efforts to help him live and grow by milking Donut for him, feeding  formula, holding him on teats and fending off his siblings he never made it past three weeks and hardly grew at all;



Finally as if all this wasn't enough,  I felt we needed some more equine team members;




Meet Popeye, Cloud and Cloudshadow. The Clouds are irish sisters and Popeye was bred by my mum, they came over here for the summer to chill out, get fat and learn french. More recently they've been brought into the chain gang, but more about that another day..........!