Currently I hold the enviable position of being Bibble’s Best Friend.

Iacs = Bibble, for many reasons, but mostly because he could trot incredibly smoothly with some poor unfortunate soul learning to ride around the school.  We would call this effortless gait his bibble.

Also, Iacs stands for I Am Completely Stupid, so you know.

Anywho, back to the plot….. Bibble loves me. Every day when I walk up the hill from the Minions he follows me and my empty buckets.

I put out a salt-lick so the big ones don’t have to share with the little ones and showed Bibble where it was located. I hoped if the others saw him using it, they might too.

He liked it.

Recently, I’ve noticed that Bibble is probably bottom of the herd at the moment with Haakon not far off either.  Haakon keeps to himself so it is Bibble who gets the brunt of Mr and Mrs K’s bucket-searching wrath when everyone is finishing up.  They are not kind and hunt as a team.

When Klaengur thought I had given Bibble something lovely, he waded in and was not kind.

And this is the face of the two of them when I waded in back – I shouted at them both.  Icelandics hate enraged shouting.  I think they knew I was not happy with the arguing over a salt-lick.  Klaengur looked contrite and I think there is a hint of smugness from Bibble, my  current Best Friend.

Lambing has begun (dear God, please not with us), so dog walks are only at home on our land.  Never anywhere else.

My sheep are used to the dogs.

They are far too laid back to care about anything like two small terriers or even a cat.

Here is Harrel-the-Barrel’s most creepiest smile.

And then he went a bit “Dalai Lama” on us!

Anywho, moving swiftly on, here are Les Girls ……. Maggie with her gorgeous smile.

And Madge, trying hard to be tame but failing dismally.

As you can see Edna doesn’t care and Ted is now officially a croft dog.  Sheep mean nothing to him.

There is white and then there is WHITE!

When I sent this photo to Daisy, she wrote, and I quote, “I think this sums up our life”.  I have to agree with her.

But, in the next minute …..

Pepper: “Can you see anything worth chasing, digging up or eating?”
Monster: “I’m always looking.”

Pepper:  “Well?”
Monster: “Nope!”

Cat and dog work as a team and tend to forget (read lose) Ted as he barks a lot when he is hunting. Patterdale terriers are silent hunters.  Monster does his best.

And now this is where it gets weird.  Monster sat on a rock in the middle of the burn (stream).

And I looked at him and wondered – was his tail really floating on the top of the water?  And, yes, yes it was!  It was all wet on the under-side when I felt it.

Who does that?  Monster, that’s who because he is officially weird.  There, I’ve said it.

A lovely day today, and everyone lined up politely to eat their scoop of minerals/vitamins.  Storm didn’t even bother to flip over the rubber feed skips as I set them out – he thinks it’s funny!  That’s how good everyone was today.

And I remembered that the other day, in a gale and lashing rain, that I had given Fivla’s bucket to Silver because I couldn’t tell them apart at the time.

In my defence, and Flossie will tell you, it is an easy mistake to make.

This is Fivla.

And this is Silver, who is every day becoming increasingly greyer (you don’t say white in the horsey world).

They sometimes even have the same facial expression.

Obviously I whipped the bucket swiftly away from Silver, when I saw Fivla’s little sad face of “but, but where’s my bucket” as I went along the line dishing out food.  I double check now.  I don’t want to make the same mistake again.

Food is highly prized in this field.

It’s every “man” or pony for himself but I do keep guard on Fivla as she is not very good at keeping her food.

This is about as cross as she gets with the vultures.  It’s not exactly scary, like Vitamin who terrifies even me!

There is grass out there. Honest.

The ponies just have to go further afield than their beloved rock and find it.

And if they don’t, they will starve because this is their field for possibly the rest of their lives, though I might move them this Autumn into a hill field.  We will see, as my mother used to say.

Today I am having a day off from being me.

But first too town, which was depressingly empty.

I refilled my sheeple field and know that I have to keep making more, which is good – it pays bills for those that never stop eating.

I enjoyed the gorgeous Jamieon’s shop windows. They are very clever.

So innovative.

And then off to a funeral, which was, well, what it was.  I am not great at funerals…. hence my wish for a day off from being me (sorry!)

This is the “rainy day” field that I save for when things are tough and we need a bit more grass.

I opened the gate yesterday and the old folk moved in like whippets and now they are almost deliberately goading the Minions about it.  Poor, poor half-starved Minions.

The horses eat at them, while the miserable orphans stand by the fence like the cast of “Oliver” looking on.

I tell myself this is for the best.  I remind myself of the many, many months that Albie, Tiddles, Storm and Waffle had to live inside and I don’t want it to happen again.

On the plus side, Haakon, Iacs, Klaengur and Kolka are very happy with this new location.

And I wormed everyone today with total success – ie nothing was spat out, I didn’t go home clarted in the stuff, and everyone was very nice about it.  I didn’t even need a headcollar.  Just grabbed a handful of chinhairs and squirted the required dose down.