Yesterday, Mandy and I went into my shed to play our flute duets as per our usual Saturday afternoon routine.

And Pepper came too, which is part of her routine as well.  She doesn’t seem to mind the noise (we tell ourselves that it is “beautiful” music) and usually settles after a chewy treat, going to sleep.

Today, Pepper said she had eaten her treat and now what?

How can I resist that little face, always trying to catch my eye in between making a pot of tea and grinding to a halt (sadly a frequent occurrence) after I get stuck.

But I could see the Other Half was around too (aka Monster).

And, as the weather was perfect (really no one should be indoors), I let Pepper go outside, even though she has form for leaving to go and play with the neighbours.

I decided to trust her and I explained this to her, hoping she was listening and had maybe grown up a little since her last excursion.

And Monster was around to supervise too.

I explained this to him as well, hoping someone was listening to me.

Yes, please.  Listening ears on.

As the afternoon wore on, and the music continued in varying degrees of accuracy (I can’t help but remember Eric Morecombe’s famous phrase – “all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order”), Pepper stayed around finding different spots to sit in.

She likes to watch the world go around, but the urge to join in is sometimes more powerful.  Luckily today was not that day so maybe she did listen.  I remain ever the optimist.

s

Every morning I go out with buckets of food for the old horses and ponies.

This is not as simple as it sounds as I have to carry four rather full buckets – one each for Kolka, Iacs and Haakon (they each have different dietary needs)…..

…. plus another for Fivla and Vitamin which I split.

Then I have to stand in between Kolka and Iacs because Kolka will finish her food faster than everyone else and then start picking on Iacs to get his, failing that she marches off to the little ones as they are an easy target.  So I grab Kolka and stop her doing this, letting Iacs finish his food in peace, though today I did catch Haakon thinking about having a go. We had words.

To get to the field, I have to scramble through a difficult gap in the dry-stone wall, with my four buckets trying hard not to fall over in the process or let Kolka grab the wrong one over the wire fence, while simultaneiously not letting Gussie eat them first, which is his only ambition.  Kolka by now is threatening to kick everyone.  Meanwhile Vitamin is running up and down the fence hysterically worried she will be forgotten.  When she gets her food, she wolfs it down in gulps!  Honestly, none of this is easy.

Gussie does not help in any way.  Just want, want, want.

And Dahlia is no saint either.

Later, when I come out of the field clutching my empty buckets, having fended off everyone left, right and centre, I feel like I have been in a rugby match where no one really knows or cares about the rules very much!

After I had sorted out all the animals, including Lambie who was determined to be in exactly the wrong place, I drove into town to find out if all the rims on the horse-van’s wheels were knackered.

It was a morning all about learning and I learned about how find out if steel rims are useless.

The magical process (which I now know) confirmed that all four of mine are completely shot.  The man at the tyre garage was incredibly helpful.

This is not my world but one I am finding out about.  So that’s it.  The four wheels on my wagon are no use.  I need new ones (of course I do. Is this not always the way of my world?), they have been ordered and might arrive next week.

Afterwards, I went to get some hay – four square bales to stuff into the back of my little car instead of one large round bale in the van.  This is what will have to happen in the future until the horse-van is mobile again.

I made a quick stop-off at Jamieson’s Knitwear to re-fill their field.

Lunch on the go (sitting in Tesco’s carpark) and then home to make another sheep.  The cruise-ship season is just starting up.  This will contribute to keeping the horse-van on the road for the hay collection.  I can see the Minions will stay on soaked hay all year.

Imagine my horror to find the probable cause of all my troubles.  I wonder if the van even has brakes now?!

I am not hopeful.

I walked the dogs today and went down to the Shetland ponies’ field to a) count fence posts as I am having wooden ones put in where I built the new track and b) see how everyone was doing.

They’re all doing fine, thank you very much for asking.

Though, I think they all look fatter but I won’t know this for sure until they are weighed.

How the ponies can be fat on virtually nothing remains a mystery to me.

I am now telling myself that all Spring grass is rocket fuel to them.  I was told this by a Shetland pony breeder whose father told her.  So any small blade of “rocket fuel” will not helping their waistlines.

Still, they can all move and spend their day listening for the slightest thing so that they can gallop up and down the hills regularly checking whether I have left some chocolate cake out for them, which I most definitely have not!

After lunch, Monster followed me to my shed, which was unusual but as OH was away, I guess he was bored and had no one else to annoy.

But annoy he did.  Monster sat exactly where I wanted to work.  It was like he knew.

He quickly made himself at home.

I was prodded, regularly.

And then Monster wanted to play the in-and-out game, which I totally refused to participate in.  I knew where that was leading.  “I am here to work” I told him, while he said he wanted to go out and then probably in and then out again, ad infinitum.  Absolutely no!

So Monster sat in the wool bags and sulked a bit.

Back again on my table, but this time I told him to SIT DOWN!

Everyone else knew what to do in my shed.

It’s not rocket science.

But apparently it is to some.

Then there was the shouting.

And then getting stuck in a place he had no need to investigate but did.

By 3.30 p.m. I had finished (I know not how) my hand-felted sheep and was ready to go into the house and got their tea early because I was fed up with the nagging.

Once done, I then escorted two ducks from the house who were looking at the porch as Real Estate!  “No, absolutely no!” I told them.  “This is not the place to lay eggs and make a nest!”  Imagine ducklings in the house.  Well, I can but I know OH wouldn’t.