Everyone is bored.

Bored of being indoors.

Bored of being on a soaked-hay, soaked fibre block diet.

Bored of each other.

Even Newt who now has many of his cell-mates in his “Little Book of Everyone I Hate”.

There is bickering, often.

Fivla’s squits have returned.  A new treatment started – please pray for her.  I hate squits.

I’m not going to lie – I am exhausted and possibly bored of poo-picking, feeding, soaking hay, worrying, etc at least five times a day.

My whole life revolves around this lot.

Nothing is sacred.  If you leave anything around, it is immediately taken.

And it can be a fight to get it back.

One thing, Skippy is a ruddy godsend.  I love that machine possibly more than I should.  It is an answer to one of my many prayers and my back thanks it too daily.

As nothing is safe and, yes, everything is removed out of the way when I am not there.  No one can be trusted.

So I guess we are all fed up.  This is not what I wanted for any of us but here we are.  And why?  Because eight small ponies broke through a perfectly good fence to get grass and refused to be caught for two whole days.

PLEASE SEND CHOCOLATE (or gin)! 

As you know, Lambie has to eat his breakfast in his own “private diningroom”. He doesn’t do sharing and he hates being hassled.  The others eat in a merry-go-round fashion, pushing each other off their bowls to see if there is anything better.  Lambie won’t go in the stable because he likes peace and quiet to eat.  I understand this.

But once out of his private dining area, Lambie then becomes a nightmare because he wants the ducks and chickens’ food too which I leave out in the morning so everyone can get a fair shot at it, except for Lambie.

So I shut Lambie in the big shed with the ponies and the hay bale for company.

And everyone else got on with eating.

Lambie knew there was chicken food to be had – his favourite and tried to work out how to get outside again but luckily multi-tasking (eating and planning) is not his skill.

Once everyone has finished, I put the tempting poultry food away and let the sheep out into a field full of grass for the day.

I went to see them at the end of the dogwalk.

On the walk, Dahlia and Gussie had followed me home so I asked them if they wanted to join the flock.  They didn’t and quickly followed me out.  They’re not scared anymore.  Just not interested.

So that’s Lambie’s day.  Eating, resting and more eating with very little actual thinking.  Lucky chap.  In the evening, I leave the gates open and they can come home and go to bed if they want.  Lambie’s bedtime is 10pm.  He has a special spot in his shed too.

Some might say Lambie is spoilt.  I prefer to think that I just know him very well.

Vitamin and Fivla make me laugh. They can’t manage soaked hay as they don’t have the teeth for it anymore but they must have something. I was told to just give them a big bucket of Fast Fibre (Allen & Page) every morning and they could graze their way through it slowly.

Fat chance. It was gone in ten minutes! I tried again and gone just as quickly.  Food is food.

So, rather than leave the old ladies to digest all morning, I now feed them little and often – about every 2-3 hours with a smaller bucket of Fast Fibre.

I don’t want Vitamin to lose weight.

Meanwhile, everyone else wants a bucket of grub every 2-3 hours through the day.  Again, fat chance.  They get soaked hay and I have decided to reduce rations as it is not being finished.

Meanwhile, out in the fields there are three lurking Icelandic horses.  I go out daily with carrots to check no one has colic or laminitis.  Iacs farts his way towards me and everyone else moves well and looks good.

Haakon heard a motorbike in the far distance and did his best to look like a Przewalski’s horse ….

….. or a cave painting.

Iacs just did his best.  This winter he is favouring the woolly mammoth look.

And, well, Kolka was busy trying to hoover up all the small carrot bits everyone else had dropped. We can’t all look beautiful all of the time.

And tonight, after making a sheep.  My fan club awaited me.

I was followed to the Feed Shed.  Cupboard love.

This side in the shed are doing ok – no more lameness and good healthy appetites.  The odd runny poo but I am working on that with probiotics, etc and lots of bottom washing and tail brushing..

This lot are still mildly lame and ditto on the runny poo situation.

And these two are worrying me.  Fivla has been producing watery sludge, which I am nuking with probiotics, kaogel, a digestive equine supplement and buckets of sugar beet.  Today was the first day of a good solid poo and I may be just slightly obssessed with the state of everyone’s bowels.

Vitamin is still lame but perky – on the mend slowly.  She approves of buckets of food very much.

Lambie, for anyone who is missing him, is on top form.

As is ‘Bert.

Later this morning we had a break in the weather and, feeling rather neglectful about Gussie and Dahlia who have been so good these past few days coming down for their breakfast and then going straight back into their field with very little bother, I went to see them for a chat.

They were miles away in their field and I trudged over with my walking poles.

While Dahlia happily left her son to talk with me, I had a long chat with Gussie who couldn’t decide if he had reverted to being a wild sheep again or not.  He decided he didn’t want to be that sheep.

I sat on a peat bank and got a wet bottom as my waterproof trousers are not that waterproof.

But it was worth it to talk to Gussie who is all back to normal now and my best friend again.

I was sent home from Turriefield (volunteer veg packing) yesterday afternoon with a huge pile of unsellable carrots for anyone who liked them.  Floss and I took a good pile over to the Ancients as they are particularly partial.

Everyone asked nicely, there were no arguments and Flustice (Flossie plus justice, ie fair shares for all) was adhered to at all times.  Them’s the Rules.

(Iacs trying to look noble.  Haakon trying not to look).

Once finished, Kolka and Iacs followed us to the old rickety field gate.

I was just thinking to myself that Kolka was looking particularly beautiful when I thought I would take a few more photos of the typical pose – “horses standing at a gate”.

I was a fool to think it would work out.  Thank you, Iacs.

Slightly better.  Now, if they could both look at me.

And fail.  It always ends in bickering with those two.  We gave up and went home to build more electric fences on the track.