I should have done George’s anti-midge pour-on yesterday but never mind, he got it today instead.

The only problem was that Poppy was in a mood and was scowling ferociously at poor George every time he showed his nose in the yard, so he hid in the big barn. I didn’t want to walk in there in case Poppy followed and chased George out, and anyway, he’s such a big lad I like to have him stand next to something I can climb up so I can see what I’m doing at his rear end! Normally I get him to stand next to the yard fence.

I tried opening up the double doors at the other end of the big barn, and George eagerly stuck his head and neck out to say hi, so the first dose of pour-on was easy to apply along the roots of his mane. After that I measured out the second dose and wondered how to get him to turn round and present his ample behind for soaking.

That was when it occurred to me that George knows a signal for ‘turn around’, which is the hand-circling-in-air gesture he picked up on me doing the other week. I tried it. He took a slightly puzzled look at me, then tried turning his head right round away from me.

I clicked that, since it was a move in the right direction, and after he’d engulfed a fibre nugget we tried again. He moved his back leg a step over that time so I clicked and gave him a handful of nuggets, increasing the reward to encourage him to do it again. He did the head-turn-away instead, then shifted his back end round in the opposite direction. It was still movement of the back end, so it got a click anyway. Suddenly, he stepped his bum round and lined up against the gate, so I gave him several big handfuls of nuggets and masses of praise, then asked him to take just one step forward to get him perfectly positioned. He stood like a rock for me to climb up the gate and pour the Switch along his spine from croup to tail-root, so more handfuls of nuggets went his way.

I tried the whole thing out again later on and he gave me the same responses – first the head turned right round away from me, which I’ve not seen him do before (which is interesting!) and then the back-end stepping round. Needless to say he got loads of positive reinforcement for that!

He’s really coming on now, starting to think for himself without worrying about whether he’s right or not – and of course he’s never specifically wrong, just not quite doing what I hoped!

The others all had good sessions today, too – Abe had some mat-work and then lots of leaning over him from the block, Dancer walked right up to the road gate and back with me and Poppy did the same. Interestingly, Dancer doesn’t mind being left behind with Abe and George but the moment Dancer went out of sight and Poppy was left behind, Poppy called. I’m still thinking about that – whether it’s better to keep Dancer within sight of Poppy a bit longer or get Poppy used to Dancer disappearing for a minute by taking her round the corner more often…

After my comment yesterday about not putting so much as a tea towel on Dancer’s back yet…. today I took a tea towel out with me! It was a bit of an anticlimax on Dancer’s part, since she didn’t care a hoot what I did with the towel provided the treats kept coming. I held it up for her to investigate, draped it over her shoulders and back, even flapped it gently against her shoulders and haunches, under her girth and along her ribs.

Poppy was a little more cautious but accepted the towel on her back, held up to her nose and gently patted on various parts of her shoulders, ribs and haunches.

Abe and George, of course, ignored the towel completely.

Abe had a session in the yard and spent some time exploring the acceptable boundaries around the mounting block – if I move my feet here, do I still get the treat? If I stand like this, does that get a treat? What if I move round this way? He kept coming back to the position he found yesterday that earned him treats, so he knows what he’s doing – he’s just finding the boundaries of the acceptable ‘horse stands here’ space next to the mounting block. He let me lean quite firmly on his back when he’d done his exploring, anyway, so that was all fine.

George had a great session too, since I’d put up a tent on the verge of the yard to check it was in good condition (it was). He had no worries about the tent and grazed around it happily, poked his nose under the fly sheet and was generally excellent. We also did some manoeuvring around the mounting block – I’m not trying to line him up at all, just standing on it and letting him arrange himself anyway he likes around it, including moving as he likes. He’s quite content with me going up and down the steps or standing on top of it now, and he’s stopped looking cross when I climb up the yard fence next to him, too, so he’s coming along very nicely. He’s developing the habit of checking on me with a nuzzle every few minutes – which is preferable to his nervous seizing of sleeves in his teeth! I left him grazing at one point while I refilled my treat bag and he went looking for me, failed to spot me lurking in the depths of the feed room and went round the barn,  but when I went out and called he nickered back and came straight to me – very flattering, considering all that tasty grass and clover he could have been eating instead!

I went into the ferret corner this evening to find Rambo in the topmost bed, Angus in the nest below it and Fido coiled up with the girls in the lower hammock! Considering they’ve only been with me a few days, they’ve made themselves totally at home.

I mentioned anniversaries. It’s exactly a year today that George came to me! I bought him an apple to celebrate.

 

I’ve just had a lovely session with Abe, two great ones with George and a short but excellent one with Dancer. Poppy opted not to join in, but engulfed a few treats in passing.

George came in when he saw me, so he got a long session before the others arrived (he loves that kind of thing!). We did a lot of leading practice, halting, turning and standing, he let me go up and down the mounting block without flicking an ear and lifted all four hooves for me politely while grazing.

I put him back after that, with some skilled evasion of the gate on his part (he just gets between me and the gate so I can’t open it and then looks smug!) and persuaded him to let me get Abe out for a bit. George disapproved of this but with some persistence and luck manoeuvring around the yard, we managed it. I got George away from the gate and opened it with my other hand while continuing to decoy George’s attention away with the other, and Abe padded quietly out behind George’s tail!

Abe accepted his bridle with a slightly surprised air, then reluctantly allowed me to put his saddle on (he swivelled around so he could keep his nose on the saddle rather than letting me step alongside and sling it over him, the monkey!) As soon as the saddle was on his back he took a deep breath and held it! It didn’t really matter as I had no intention of sitting on him, but he’s a crafty beggar.

Once saddled and the girth acceptably tight-ish for groundwork, I took him for a walk to make sure he was comfortable, then we headed for the mounting block. Abe tried the swivel here, turning to face me, so I did nothing. He thought about this, tried lifting his nose and poking me to see if that got treats. It didn’t. He tried taking a step back, but no. He took a step forward….no. He poked me again, but it still didn’t work. Even his best kissy-face didn’t work! I gave him a clue at this point by turning so I was standing facing the same way and him, clicked and gave him a treat, then turned back. He hadn’t quite cottoned on, so I did it again, and this time when I turned back, the penny plummeted and he swivelled around to stand parallel to the block, perfectly positioned for me to mount! Lashings of praise, handfuls of treats and loads of clicks told him he’d got it, and he stood like a statue while I rocked the saddle on his back, patted it, patted him and finally leaned right over him so he could see me from his outside eye, which is normally where he starts getting edgy. He didn’t this time – he was watching me, certainly, but he’s definitely got the idea firmly in his head now. We did it again on the other rein and this time he didn’t need clues – he lined himself up and waited patiently for the silly human to go through the rock, pat, pat, lean routine again – with handfuls of treats to underline what a fantastic boy he was being!

I got Dancer out next, though we stayed close to the fence and Poppy. She did very well sniffing the saddle and even twiddled the girth buckles with her nose – very daring, as they made a noise! – but I haven’t put so much as a teatowel on her back yet so lumping the saddle any closer than sitting on the block was far too much. It stayed on the block and after a few minutes nuzzling it and tinkling the buckles, I popped her back out.

Poppy had had enough by then so everyone went out – except George, who was eager to have another go in the yard.

I took the girth off the saddle and let him nuzzle it, then held it up against his shoulder without any reaction, so then I slung it up over his back. Still no reaction! Excellent horse. It stayed sat on his back for a couple of minutes while we did standing practice, then I took it off, gave him a few minutes to graze on the verge and then got him back through the gate (on the second attempt!) and he accepted that fun was over for the day and went off to join the others in the field.

This is one of the things I really like about only using positive reinforcement – George can’t quite cope with being left to think things out for himself and gets frustrated if he can’t see what to do, but that’s probably because he’s still just a baby. Abe was definitely reasoning for himself today, though, and trying out various of the things he knows I sometimes want to see if I was just being obtuse before he caught the clues and put it together to hit the reward jackpot. Because he thought it out for himself, it’ll stick in his memory far better – experiential learning, rather than being taught by rote.

I went out to feed the horses tonight to find the partition in the stable shed hanging by a nail – literally! It was so askew, only one nail was holding the whole thing up and it was swinging to even the lightest touch! I didn’t see what happened but I’d put my money on Poppy chasing George into it somehow. He’s been trying to make friends with her over the past day or two and she’s not having any – I suspect she finds his size intimidating, though he’s the gentlest of horses. I even saw him carefully pushing a chicken out of his way with his nose this morning!

However it happened, it was an object of curiosity to the youngsters, and they were even more intrigued to find out what I was going to do about it. I managed to push Abe and Dancer out, and then Poppy came through from the barn and scowled at George, so he retreated as well. Dancer came back in. I pushed her out and then shooed the chickens away. Then I pushed Dancer back out, turned back to retrieve a chicken again, back to Dancer, back to chickens…. it felt very like doing pantomime!

Eventually they all took the hint and stayed out, particularly once Poppy decided the field was a good place. I managed to get the partition down onto the floor instead of swinging about from the roof without squashing any chickens – just in time for George and Dancer to come back in again!

Dancer stood in the doorway and let George investigate, which he did in his usual fearless manner. He stood on the flat partition, wound himself around the hanging lick, stamped back across the partition and studied the way I was tying a rope around the thing, ready to pull it out of the way, with close attention. I feel sure he was criticising my choice of knot.

Actually getting the partition out from under his hooves was a different matter. I persuaded him to stop walking backwards and forwards on top of it, and then I had to convince him to move out of the way so I wasn’t attempting to pull it into his legs. At the point where I started to heave it out of the shed, George grabbed the rope in his mouth and tugged on it helpfully! I tried to explain in words of one syllable that, although he clearly wanted to help and was sure he could, he really needs to be further on in his harness training and he’s just not there yet. Eventually I managed to persuade both Dancer and George that the best place to be was the field and they went off obligingly.

Hurriedly I grabbed the chainsaw and lopped off a couple of projecting timbers, then set about hauling a very heavy partition out of the way. With great effort I managed to drag it out of the shed and through the big double doors into the big dairy shed, where I dumped it. It’s out from under everyone’s hooves, anyway, and I’d run out of steam! I went back with a hammer and managed to break off the L-shaped iron bracket holding the partition to the floor, then hammered the remaining bolt down flat and level with the floor safely.

I wish George could have helped – with his strength he could have walked off with the partition without any trouble!

After all that, I did haynets, fed the other critters, mixed up the feeds and called the horses back in.

They all came flying up the field at a brisk canter – it’s amusing watching the Arabs with their long flowing strides while George does a lovely bouncy-ball rocking-horse canter but, for all that, when they reached the top of the field the Arabs all stood and stared across at me and it was George who led the way in via the walkway! He has more common sense than the three hot-bloods put together.

I really must get George back into his harness and push on with his training! He’s clearly eager to work with me, he just doesn’t know how yet.

Not in the sense that I’m putting anything aside, merely that I’ve spent the afternoon assembling shelves and putting stuff away on them! The first set is up in the pantry, which means the floor is now clear of boxes as their contents are on the shelves. The boxes have been disassembled and put in the car to go to the tip tomorrow. There’s a set up in the spare room, though not yet attached to the wall nor laden, and two sets in the lounge, which means I’ve moved everything off the top of the dog crates and onto the shelves, then moved the crates through to my bedroom. I may get a full night’s sleep for a change!

Also attached to the car is the trailer – I enlisted my mother to help load up some big items that I’ve been wanting to move for a while, a couple of old double glazing units and some old wriggly tin (translation from smallholder jargon – corrugated iron roofing sheets). I had to cut the wriggly tin up with the jigsaw to get it to fit into the trailer, so while I was at it I trimmed down a set of coat hooks on a wooden mount which is now attached to the wall outside the kitchen door, low enough my mother can reach to hang her coat up; the mount was quarter of an inch longer than the space available.

In amongst all this I’ve strimmed down the dead clover flowers – with luck they’ll come back and give another harvest for the bees, and cutting the grass down will thicken that up nicely – removed an old ‘deep’ bed (why do the commercial ones seem to come only 8 inches deep? That’s not ‘deep’ enough for a deep bed – but it’ll make an interesting obstacle for the horses to step into and out of), pulled all the rugs out of the house and thrashed them clean of dust and bits of hay, and planned where and how to build a bench-seat in the lounge, together with a breakfast bar that’ll hinge flat against the wall when not in use and all with a nice view, too!

Tomorrow we’ll head off to the tip and dump it all, then I have some washing to do. At least the hot dry weather means my washing dries quickly on the line I put up the other day!

Though not in the usual sense.

There’s long been an understanding that if you plant certain plants together, they keep each other’s pests off, like onions and carrots each repelling the specific fly that attacks the other. In other circumstances, a plant may have a beneficial effect on any other plant in its vicinity, like clover or other legumes, which ‘fix’ nitrogen into the soil where other plants can access this vital nutrient.

In today’s case, I have discovered that the ragweed in my field believes in companion planting, and its chosen companion is the thistle. They appear to be thriving together, since the thistles are uncommonly sturdy, spiky triffids!

This may help the ragweed evade some predators but it has failed against the determined human. I may be perforated but after spending hours searching for, pulling up and hauling out ragweed, I can’t find a single plant left in my field this evening!

Undoubtedly I’ll have missed a few but having brought about a hundredweight of the stuff out in loads as big as I could carry, I’m sure I’ve got the overwhelming bulk of the stuff. I’ll keep walking through the field at regular intervals for the rest of the summer and pulling any more I can spot, but it should only be chore rather than a day’s work in future.

I don’t want anyone thinking I don’t appreciate ragweed – it’s a great bee-plant and food for about 77 different species of insect, including some rare moth caterpillars – but since it’s toxic to horses I’m afraid it has to enjoy itself outside the field and outside horse reach.

I have to say the bottom end of the field has a remarkable number of insects and a good variety of plants growing in it – loads of yellow vetchling, vetch, thistles (of course), flowering soft rush, about two dozen different species of grass, clover, silverweed, meadowsweet, yarrow, dandelion, mouse-ear hawkweed, tormentil… plus some I need to go back and photograph so I can identify them! No wonder the horses like to spend their nights down that end of the field.

The chickens are letting free range take over their lives. I have no idea where two of them laid today, assuming they laid, but I retrieved one from between two bales of hay in the stack, fished another out before the horses walked over her on their way to their dinners and had to go past George and his meal to grab another. The horses are getting used to seeing me walking around with a chicken under my arm… I am getting some slightly quizzical looks, though!

George, being a clever boy, has learned another signal! We often do ‘walk with me’ along the fence line when I’m filling water buckets and have to walk from the tap at the bottom of the yard to the buckets at the top, and tonight I noticed that when I did the tap and turned around to walk back up to the buckets I was about to wash, I signalled to him by circling my hand in the air as I wanted him to turn around. He’d noticed, too! Three treats later he had it nailed in both directions and with both my hands!

The chickens were all eager to leave this morning; they’ve been looking round my legs at the doorway hopefully for a couple of days and I decided today was as good a day as any. They’re pretty well certain where to lay eggs, they know where the food and water are… so today they’re officially free range chickens!

It didn’t take long for the initial ‘ooh….my… ooh’ to wear off.

A little later on one of them had got past the yard and was exploring down the trackway! The horses aren’t worried at all by miniature velociraptors stalking about the ground – this chicken later evaded a curious Dancer nose by trotting right under Poppy’s unconcerned tum to get back through the fence into the horse-free area!

Fido and Rambo are settling in so well I decided they could meet the others today. I put them in the playpen in the shed while I cleaned out Ajax, Achilles and Bane. All went well for about 10 minutes, then Ajax took a snit and decided he wasn’t having any. Stinks, squeals and wrestling ensued, so I retrieved the three lads and put them away in their cage safely. Next up, Angus, Holly and Ivy – and to my surprise, given Angus’s history, they all took a shine to each other!

In fact, they got on so well they’re now sharing the big cage together.

Ten minutes later I found Angus, Rambo and Ivy in the hammock while Fido and Holly were in the nest!

That’s Ivy underneath, coming up to see what I was doing.

The final tally of silkie chicks is as it was last night – two big ones, still occasionally complaining I stole their platform, while three little ones snuggle happily under said platform in the brooder box.

The saga of the car continues. I took it to the garage in Peterhead yesterday, giving them the chance to rectify the fault they’d created, and they kept it all day. I called them for an update (they’d promised to keep me updated but no…) five minutes before their closing time and the bloke told me the car was out being test-driven.

Test driven? For a software fault?

Anyway, a few minutes later he called back to say there was nothing wrong with the software, it was definitely the software cap on the sender pump in the tank, nothing to do with the work they’d done, in fact the car doesn’t even have a fuel computer.

I collected it this morning (and their test-drive was 20 miles, for heavens’ sake!!) and paused in our neighbourhood garage for a second opinion. Norman, the head mechanic, gave me a bemused look when I told him what Peterhead had said and asked (as, indeed, I did) ‘then why would it say fuel computer error on the dash?’ I remarked I thought I was being handed a prime load of BS (he agreed and said it definitely just needs a software update) and asked for a reputable Ford specialist to give me a second opinion (the one they use themselves when they have a problem to fix on a Ford – and have used with mine when they were having trouble with the tail pipe temperature sensor…). I found it quite amusing when I called to discuss the problem with the new garage that when I told them it’s just had the BCM replaced to be followed by this fault within 30 hours and got a sound of comprehension, followed by a very dry ‘well, that’s an astounding coincidence!’. If it is just a software update that’s needed, then I have a claim against the first garage for the failure to do their job right – and the car will be worth a lot more than if I try to sell it with an outstanding fault.

It gets a brief reprieve, in fact, but only for a couple of weeks.

We’re up to 3 new chicks – one white, the little black with white bits one that hatched yesterday (now in the brooder) and a little all-black one. There’s still one egg that looks like it might be live, though it’s not attempting to hatch yet. Fingers crossed, it’ll get itself together overnight!

Fido and Rambo have settled in well, they engulfed chicks for breakfast and mice for dinner, they’ve had a couple of sessions exploring and playing, and they seem to be settling well.

First thing this morning the sick quail was still sick, the two big silkie chicks were prancing about on top of their heater and the little bunny had died in the night. There was also a new silkie chick in the incubator, still damp and trying to work out what feet are for.

I spent three hours this morning sorting out financial problems for my elderly mother (seriously, 6 different insurance policies for 3 appliances, all of which are already covered under the house insurance??) so she’s about £100 a month better off from here on in. After that I brought the car home and set about cleaning it.

Those who know me will have realised long since that my attitude to any car is that it’s an object to get from point A to point B. I don’t like fussing with them, I don’t waste my time grooming them, polishing them or whatever. I had 4 bales of hay in the back of this one just the other day so you could cheerfully have bedded down a miniature pony in the back!

Five hours later it is immaculate. I have dismantled every bit that can be dismantled without tools, so the mats, the parcel shelf, the boot floor, the spare wheel, all the tools – everything out, shaken, brushed clean, vacuumed, reassembled and packed back in. I found three compartments in the back that I hadn’t even known there there, two under the footwells and one in the central armrest behind the drinks holders (tbh, I hadn’t actually noticed them either because I’ve never bothered pulling the arm rest down…)

Every hard surface has been cleaned with baby wipes. All interior paintwork is spotless. Once the garage have had their chance to fix the fuel computer issue tomorrow, it just needs a wash on the outside and it’ll be ready to sell.

George spent most of the afternoon watching me with a slightly baffled expression. The Arabs came and went, but I think they’re all finding it too hot to stay out grazing for long and all of them kept retreating into the barns for shade. They’ve gone through nearly seventy litres of water between them during the day – I’ve refilled the water buckets twice over, and all the bunny and quail bottles several times as well as the ferret dishes.

After all this tedious car cleaning stuff I did the evening round of critters and went off on a rescue mission.

From time to time, someone in the Scottish Ferret Club or one of the rescues centres will post on Facebook to say there’s an advert on Gumtree or some local site that involves ferrets going cheap or free. We try to get in there before the dog-fighting thugs take them to use for training fighting dogs, which is a horrible end for a cherished little ferret (not so great for the dogs, either). Last night I messaged for a pair on Gumtree in Aberdeen and arranged to pick them up tonight, so I’ve brought home a gorgeous pair of wee carpet sharks, Fido and Rambo, together with their big indoor cage, sacks of toys, litter, hammocks, treats, the works. They’re about a year old and very friendly, well-trained and lovely pets – so it’s as well they’re in my spare room and not being thrown into a shed as bait for a fighting dog.

The moment I offered them a day old chick (the dogs can cope with just one each for breakfast!) both boys sniffed, nuzzled, then grabbed and ran for it. Naturally, they both grabbed the same chick, but after some tug-of-war Fido came back and I handed him the other chick. They’ll stay in the spare room for a couple of days until we know each other better, then I’ll move them out with the other ferrets and see if they make friends or war.

I checked the other eggs in the incubator this evening – two were clear, so infertile, but two are making chipping noises when I held them to my ear and the third is dark, so hopefully the occupant will wake up and start kicking its way out soon.