We had a new visitor to our garden – no, not Monster (that’s his shouty face).

A beautiful cock pheasant who arrives every day to look for food in our garden.  Pheasants are not indigenous birds to Shetland and, although I see them around on my travels to Leradale (they were released from a nearby croft either by accident or design), they have never visited us.  I have a feeling my neighbour also feeds this same bird.  He is obviously doing the neighbourhood.

I am intrigued by him. I always want to watch and even tame him down a bit.

But he is very difficult to photograph!

I took these from my kitchen – note-to-self, I must clean the window.

I am not sure how OH feels about this beautiful bird scratching up his garden.  I don’t care.  Animals over garden every time unless it is a certain cat doing his business in the potatoes – that’s a different discussion.

So I crept outside with my big camera to see if I could get better photos.

And he immediately ran away.

And then flew away.  I will keep trying, though.

Pepper lost her collar somewhere during one of her Great Escapes so I decided to buy her another.

And I am not sure at all if I like it.

I love the colour, but I hate the collar – too big, too wide and too chunky for my wee pin-head Patterdale terrier (Pepper has a small head for her chunky body). So I’ve ordered another one made with rolled leather in the same colour in the hope this is The Collar – I am very fussy about this sort of thing. It has to be right and no matter how I look at it, I know that this one is not. Every time I look at Pepper, I think “nope, I hate your collar”.

However, nothing is every wasted. Ted’s is looking as if his one is about to break and he might end up with this green one instead (hand-me-down – sorry, Ted and twins as well) or, failing that, there is always some sheep that needs a collar when they are in my care, ie a handle easy to grab.

I have also ordered another dog tag for indentification as Pepper likes to wander. She was returned by a complete stranger the other day!  Nothing changes.  Every time I think it does, she lets me down.

Anywho, the games continue and Pepper is still bouncing around Maggie and Maggie is still chasing Pepper.  The funny thing is that they both love this game (and that is exactly what it is) while neither is prepared to back down or stop.

I hope I like the next new collar.

Everything is thawing properly now.

So we all spent most of the morning outside enjoying the stillness, the warmth of the sun and the fact the snow is finally going (for now).

I took everyone for a walk.

Monster followed yowling loudly too.

He explained to me that this was his last day of invisibility.

I told him with the noise he made it didn’t matter if he was invisible or not!

After our walk we all sat outside. I had a cup of coffee and the radio. Monster had a spot on my bench.  The dogs were mooching about in the garden.

Sadly the garden has taken quite a battering this past week.

Then Monster was joined by Pepper and these two did a spot of bird-watching together.

And I took a family photo. They looked so sweet together.

Poor Monster is going to miss the snow.  He’s the only one.  I will be glad when it’s all gone.

The round bale of hay is a huge success.  I think this is the way forward.  I have it sussed using the bits that drop down, when I am making up the horses’ haynets, for the sheep.

The beautiful hay dished out in a variety of net arrangements to everyone here at home.

The hay in the round bale seems very different from the square bales.  Lots more flowers in it – one of which Madge is beautifully wearing for us.

Barrel prefers to stick the hay up his nose – sighs, oh, Barrel.

I did a head count and one sheep was missing…..

Ah yes, that would be Edna – she hanging out by the feed shed ever hopeful chocolate cake would fall from the sky.  In her dreams.

Meanwhile, the Happy Couple were sharing their haynet.

And the Odd Couple were sharing theirs.

Iacs gets a bit lost in this weather. He forgets what he’s supposed to be doing (eating) so I have to point his nose into a haynet and tell him to eat.  Haakon is a good example to all.

No one needs to tell these two anything though I wish they would stop arguing – there are four haynets out there.  Plenty for all. I should know – I never stop filling them up.

I was waiting for Fivla to finish her bucket when Vitamin came up to stand next to me.

This is quite rare as Vitamin is not really a chatty sort of pony.

Having decided that Fivla was obviously not going to share her bucket (Vitamin had already wolfed her own down as quickly as possible), she thought we could have a chat instead.  I felt this was a summons from the Queen.

Vitamin has done very well this winter and the spark for life is still very much in her eyes.  Vitamin certainly takes no prisoners, either.

She is very tough with her small herd of reprobates and in return, they mostly steer well clear!

Today it was Newt’s turn to be irritating.  He also wanted Fivla’s bucket and so spent his time nibbling her back legs.  Fivla was not amused and I don’t blame her.  Once finished, I cleared everything up, rinsed mouths and gave the old ladies a hug.

Snow again tomorrow plus a gale.  Meh.