Tess

All is quiet. No movement around anywhere, including the campervan, sitting out back under the oak tree:

Ah, someone wakes up:

Tess. Foggy with sleep. Not best pleased with still being in her travelling vehicule. But here. Time to get her sorted:

Hubs is here too, after having driven her back from the Charente, six hours away, making a twelve hour round trip. And here he is undoing the electric fence wire which I had to clamber over last night to feed Max, who is at this moment eating his breakfast over the other side of the pen. 

Operation 'Get Tess Out Of The Van' begins. She is reluctant, still fazed from her recent road trip, but a pot of food under her nose is leading her forward.....

And down the make-shift wooden ramp, gingerly she shovels her way into her new life.

But Hubs rattles the pot of food, cooing and chatting to her, to encourage her forward. She comes.

And here she is. The bare patches along her back are from the scratching post in her pervious home. Tams like to rub themselves with a vigour which is quite alarming to behold. When  Max arrived and promptly took advantage of his hut by using that as his scratching post, we thought he would end up with no skin, such was his enthusiasm to have a scratch. But now he does this hardly at all. It might be because his wallow is quite deep so he is most times smothered in mud, dried or otherwise. Quite frankly this makes him look a mess, but he is living his life as he needs to live it, and if needs to have the pleasure of mud to cool his skin down, then so be it.  The sheep have their 'down between the thighs of my neighbour' habit, and also their coats of wool.  Max has his coat of mud, which, I think, also deters some of the biting insects, the dried mud acting as a barrier to the probe of the would be taker of the blood.

And Max is met. He is on the left. She is on the right. And she is big. So big, in fact, that she can go inside Max's hut and reposition it by lifting it on her back and re-siting it. Twice she has done this. The hut is very heavy. She is one strong girl. 

And the battle begins. Well, not 'battle' really, just Max showing Tess that he is The Man and this is His Patch. Round and round he chases her. But no malice, just the need for Max The Man to show her that he is the boss. 

And I fear that the campervan will never be quite the same again. But then we can't get it registered here anyway, so it may as well finish out its days as a workhorse. Who would have thought, when we first bought it ten years ago, back in the UK, that it would fetch up getting elderly on a small farm in France. Life is queer with its twists and turns, as no doubt the campervan said to itself as Tess looked out of its windows at the passing cars during her road trip.

Ou est Hubs?

Hubs is absent from his post of Head Gardener/ Chief Shepherd/ Keeper of the Livestock, etc.

Look:

What do you notice. A Helpful Hint for you: Where is the electric fence? It is BEHIND Max. What does that mean? That the person taking the photo is standing beside Max. With him. In his pen. And now who does all these photo-shoots. Moi. 

And here is a really grotty photo of 'Moi'. But look where my hand is resting. On the back of Max! 

So with Hubs away from his post, it fell to me to feed les animaux. Rabs easy. Dogs easy. Max....ooh my tum went all silly as I turned off the electric fence, undid the gate, cocked my leg ever so high to get it over the electic wires, cocked the other leg over to join the first, and then I was into Max's space. Down went his head, into the food I had just put out for him. There it remained while I did his water bucket, and then I decided to give him a bit of a hug, which he took in good grace. 

But.......I did it. Next the sheep. Of late they have had to be called in, but not tonight. As I was having another nervous tummy spell, wondering how I was going to get them across the lane single handed, I saw them all gathered around the gate waiting for me, bless them. They were soft with me as I opened the gate, and did a straight and true gallop right into their Arbre, leaving me with tears in my eyes at the site of their bouncing rears. 

So: where is Hubs? Somewhere in France. In the campervan. With a lady. 

He is at this very moment bringing home our first female Tamworth pig. Apparently she went into the campervan very well, but did not like the curtains closed, so she opened them so she could have a look-see at what was going on. As Hubs travels along the roads of France, what are the French going to think, when they see an English plated campervan, with a reddish coloured pig looking out of the windows!

Hubs was worried about being stopped by the Gendarmerie. I said "Just say that you taking your lady pig out for the evening".

65130 592

65130 592: 65 is our region of the Haute Pyrenees. 130 is the number of our commune (Castelnau Riviere Basse). 592 is us. Add all this up together and you get 65130592. And that is our Cheptel number, individual to us, got at Tarbes yesterday after filling in some forms with the help of a young lady who had a fetching cream bra on which we could see everytime she leaned over to explain certain aspects of the form. Bless him, but Hubs managed to stay concentrated on his French nevertheless. 

And what it means is that we now have to put ear tags into the ears of our sheep, and our goats when we get them (chevre du noir are favourite at the moment). We don't know about the pigs because the young lady all of a sudden got into a hurry, scribbled an address for us to go to where people would apparently explain to us certain things. Not sure what those 'certain things' were, as couldn't understand her all of a sudden speeded up French. What we didn't realise was that it was 5 o'clock and time to shut the offices, so we are none the wiser as to what to do about legalising Max.

So why do we have to have ear tags? Because that makes us legal, and that if we sell any of our animals then they can go to the purchaser with the appropriate paper work, the paper work which no one else seems to bother with, because the animals we have already bought have not come with any paper work. But ours will. And our sheep will have pretty ear tags in their ears as well. Which will come in the post. Together with the necessary implement to put the tags in the ears.  I guess a bit like putting ear rings in us really. Hope the sheep don't yelp, only I remember doing a bit of a moan when I had my ears pierced a few years ago.

On the subject of Gussy:

 Gussy has found a new role for himself, and that is Guardian of the Door Mat. This means he can monitor all activity in and around the Courtyard as well as in the house itself, meanwhile he can avail himself of the comfort of a bit of carpet and have a bit of a snooze when things are quiet. 

Bools is usually to be found either underneath the Bedroom Caravan when it is hot, or hanging around the kitchen if I am busy cooking. His new role, now that he no longer has to use his energies up making sure Gussy does not step out of line, is Chaser of the Lizards. For some reason, this year he has become keen to guard us from these little creatures, who scamper up and down, round and about. And I am sure they tease him. In the above photo one has just shot past his feet, and in the underneath photo Bools is on the Chase while Hubs encourages him. They would both been in trouble if they had knocked over my plant pots.

Anyway, back to Gus. He has got to be trimmed. He is OK about his top half being done, but not his under-carriage. If I go anywhere near that area, then his lips sort of lift up a bit, thus exposing his gleaming sharp white teeth. 

Now it is of paramount importance that this area is sorted out, him liking to get wet either by romping in the ditches, or swimming in the river and then finishing off with a sleep on the ground, normally where the builders have been working, the ground therefore carrying a mixture of gravel, sand and cement, which mix really well with the moisture still in Gus's coat, the mix then drying nice and hard in the warmth of the sun. Ipso Facto. A mess. 

Not to worry. A visit to the vets has provided a solution for the trimming out of the mess: 1 cloth muzzle. 4 tranquillizers. The tablets take two hours to work, so care must be taken to keep him in the house, only a dozy Gussy is likely to slide away for a sleep under the ex-Kitchen Caravan, or behind the very heavy leather settees in the house. To get him out from either sleeping position will not be easy. 

But as far as Guardian of the Door Mat, he is ace. As shown recently when the young girl-builder who works for Danny (our builder man), did a peremptory knock at the open door above Gus's head. His response was to bite her. Not hard. And she did have jeans on. And his aim did collide with her phone in her pocket, and not flesh. And if she had only 'hallooed' in a lady like fashion I am sure he would not have been inspired to do Guard Dog Duty, only her knock was most unlady-like and quite threatening, after all everyone else just walks over his head and most times he ignores the people traffic, although if it is near lunch time then maybe he might do a bit of voice work just to remind us that he on the job and not slacking, and therefore worthy of his dinner should there be any coming his way. 

He is a sweet soul though. Normally. But it is nice to know that he will do guard duty if necessary. And him and the builder-girl are friends, as indeed everyone is with him, because he really is the cutest dog and very brave. 

And a lovely surprise:

On cleaning out the one and only cupboard in my temporary kitchen, eveything else being kept in plastic boxes, I did a general sort out of pots. Having been in a super duper chutney making mode last year, I made loads of Tomato Chutney of which there were still a few pots left all of which were going to be donated to Max the Pig to recycle. 

And there, right at the back of the stack of pots, was the last pot of Plum Jam. Gone un-opened because it was thought to be  Elderberry Jam which was not liked at all by Hubs because he said it was too pippy. Fair enough. I didn't pick the elderberries early enough, so they had manufactured some stirlingly strong pip seeds inside themselves, such that the jam pot only really comprised sugar and pips. 

Anyway, opened the jar of jam, dipped my finger into it to see if it was still pippily awful, and no! No pips! Just pieces of gorgeous plum. Now forgive me if I am going on, but after finishing off the last of the homemade jam several weeks ago, this was a divine delight. So: a cup of tea, a slice of toast (note: homemade bread) with homemade Plum Jam. Wahooo!!!

Re: The Sheep Scrum:

And here is a small example of the scrum I mentioned. This time the sheep are in a line, with their heads all down rather than being in a proper rubgy-type scrum, but I  wanted to show you what I was talking about. This scrum seemed to be more about putting their head together rather than up each others rear end, although the ewe on the right is in that position. 

Also, on the subject of docking (cutting the tails off at birth). None of ours have been done, and I was worrying lest this be something we ought to address. Docking is supposed to keep the rear end of the sheep clean, do that when they poo it does not get stuck to their tales. But on observing our sheep, I have noticed that they use their tails as flyswats, flicking them to and fro to ward off the flies. Therefore, in my opinion, they do need their tails. And I don't mind that this means extra work for me when it comes to cleaning their fleece prior to spinning it after they have been sheared. A bit of poo is no problem. After all, it is only recycled grass. 

And a thought: Is this why they put their faces beneath each other rears: To have a free and effortless flyswatting service? 

Things to do before the day is done: Go and have a lie down to think about life. It is, after all, very hot here. Go and pat Max, to let him know he is going to have a friend soon. Explain to Gus that having his undercarriage sorted out will be good for his Jock Rash. And to say thanks for visiting.