I’ve not done much today – just the usual, including labelling vegetables at Turriefield in the morning, making a sheep and mucking out the grubby little boys, and old ladies afterwards.  I have also prepared 7 haynets which will keep every going for a little while.

The weather is cold and there is a mean rather fresh north wind.  But it is nothing compared to my Florida friends who I worry for and I shall never complain about the Shetland weather again (but we all know I will).  I can’t imagine how we would survive what they are about to go through.  Thoughts and prayers don’t really seem enough. I keep going through the what-if scenario while tracking their hurricane.  I think it is different for us because a) no storm surge, and b) very little flying debris as we don’t have trees.  We do have the wind speed, though.

From Shetland.org  – “Unofficially, the RAF station at Saxa Vord in Unst holds the British wind speed record; a gust of 197 mph was recorded in 1992, after which the measuring equipment blew away…”

So these are just random photos from my quiet day.  Later, I will hang up haynets in the “red light quarter” of our croft, put the chickens and ducks to bed, finish making my unfinished sheep and transcribe another month of Aunt Kate’s diaries – 1939 so War has been declared and that, too, is very scary for the family.

Farrier today.

The big ones were brought up onto the track to wait politely.

And little ones stayed in the container paddock.

They all had hay and water but were bored.  Tough.  It’s not for very long, I told them.  I ask very little.

Albie spent his time chatting up Kolka.  He was quite smitten.  He likes an older lady.

Haakon politely ate individual stalks of hay at me in disgust that there was no grass to eat.

Pepper and I waited in the car as it was the warmest place.

Note the happy little tail!  She was squeaking with happiness when she saw the van appear.

Anyway, I lined up each pony, one at a time and Stephen got down to work.

(Is this not the cutest picture?)

Everyone behaved beautifully, walking in and out of the container – even Albie.  Not a single discussion.

There’s a farrier in the middle somewhere.  The container was considered a useful thing.  As each pony went in, but didn’t seem to want to leave, it even got quite warm.

Little ones all done an onto the big ones, who I led into the big shed.  Pepper was now wandering around with a towel on her – I have no idea why but she was perfectly happy trundling about narrowly missing being trodden on.

So that’s us until December – the last visit of the year.  9 horses/ponies trimmed and not a sign of laminitis, though Newt has a slight case of thrush in his frogs.  Our thanks, as ever, to Stephen.

We are not on mains drains and, every couple of years, a “scent bottle” (Mum’s name for it, not mine – she was similarly afflicted where she lived) comes to empty our septic tank.

And today was the day.

I did warn the accompanying gentlemen that there might be some “help” as they would have to cross the ponies’ track to get to the tank.

But I was assured that pony involvement would be fine.

Funnily enough, I was not convinced.

So while the men were busy emptying the tank (not much in as it is mysteriously very efficient), I dished out the last of the Turriefield mishapen carrots to distract any potential assistants.

Sadly, I didn’t have enough carrots for the time it took and, when Vitamin determinedly started walking down to tell them they were doing it wrong,  …….

…… I headed her off at the pass.

No one needs help from anyone, I told them.

So the ponies all went back to the task of eating their hay while the scent bottle escaped safely and unscathed.  Phew!

I found these old videos today and they made me reminisce and think awwww and also cry.

This was when Lambie was very young (April 2015 so just born).  He is still dirty from his one day living with his mother and I hadn’t managed to clean the poop off his face.  We are bonding and, at this stage, I was thinking of calling him Pongo as his sister was Perdy (think 101 Dalmatians).  Perdy sadly died on Day 2 and their mother a few weeks later.  She was never in any fit state to have lambs.

And watching this video, I’ve just heard the music and seen BeAnne (whose name I still can’t say out loud) and I am now crying my eyes out, dammit.

*** sniff, and blow, and keep going ***

From Day 1, Lambie had a bad case of joint ill  (bacteriol arthritis) which meant he could barely walk and he got worse and worse, slowly going off his legs.  This resulted in many courses of antibiotics (intra-muscular injection, poor soul) to find one that would work.  He was very good about this. Walking was also prescribed.   Eating was not great but we persevered.

Daisy created “The Bear Grylls” assault course when I went to see my mother. Every day, Lambie had to complete it and slowly he got much better.

And then we got Lambie a friend – Day 1 with ‘Bert.  It didn’t take long before they were besties and Bert taught Lambie how to eat.

They were besties until Lambie became annoying.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the videos.  I think they are very sweet. I shouldn’t really watch them.  Seeing BeAnne does me in.

OH and I have been experimenting.  Red lights are apparently the way forward for horse-stable lighting and there is a science in this, all of which I have read and not understood (says Michael Faraday’s 5th great niece!)

Anyway, last night we rooted around the house looking for red material and I found OH’s orange woollen hat which I put over the light only for it to turn a very credible red.  So more rooting around and I found a large fluorescent orange hood in a drawer from a coat long gone.  We put it around the light and, again, it looked very red.  Perfect.  OH cut up the hood and covered the light.

And later on that night, I stuck the red light onto the container.  It looks much brighter than it actually was.  So now we have a Red Light District with some distinctly dodgy characters living there!

This morning and everything was fine.  All happy.  Buckets finished and the gentlemen (** cough **) were tucking into the haynets.

The ladies, of course, as Victorian etiquette demands, had retired to the drawing-room, or in this case the containers.

They seemed very happy inside and stayed there for most of the morning.

The little boys did their own thing.

And OH and I are still experimenting. I drove over to Turriefield for their selection of red plastic bags some of which we added to the lights.  It gave it a better hue and nearer to the colour  science says horses find easiest to see in at night.  Something about wavelengths being above 620 nm but we don’t have a way of measuring any of this so this is just a stab in the dark.