Returning a favour

Returning a favour to our guardian angel to the west. He arrived late afternoon with a loaded trailer of 100 bales of hay, which we unloaded into the old dairy room. Tom was such a help in unloading ALL the bales from the trailer to the ground. This Friday we unloaded a further 100 bales to his home (pictured above and below). Once again, Tom unloaded each and every bale onto the elevator so we were able to stack speedily from the inside. He was treated to a swim afterwards and slept incredibly well that night as I recall!

A good afternoons work done.

The never ending paddock – ended this week! 600 meters of electric rope ran, more posts than I care to mention and most importantly, I now know why the farm was originally called ‘Shale Hill Farm’. Something that I thought would take me maybe two days, in fact took me two weeks, mostly due to the ground being full of rock and/or shale EVERYWHERE – even where grass lay atop, underneath was sure to be solid stone. The earth is really rich here, so hopefully if and when the seed takes, we should have a good two acres of pasture to start with.

Latest animal finds include brown bats, orange newts, HUGE doe and her babe and of course, more snakes and a skunk, which actually put more fear into Tom and I than any snake we have seen to date! They make foxes smell sweet.

I managed to download the last few episodes of Dr Who (THANK YOU to BBC Wales), we watched them all, back to back in total awe. It was the first ‘TV’ (via small laptop) we had watched in over a month. We actually have a TV here now, just that neither of us have cared to hook it up yet, which I am secretly thrilled about.

Still awaiting paperwork for the car to be registered in NY state and then I take my driving test No.6. Visa appointment for Biometrics is on the 13^th July – once that is done, all I need to do is find a job. Hope the household goods have arrived by then, as my shorts are getting pretty threadbare and they might not be considered correct interview etiquette (tomb raider look maybe).

The Pie had an abscess in his near hind which has come out through the bulb of his heal. Typically, it is his bad leg, so all the carrots in the world would not convince him to stand his leg in water to soak it; it is healing well with daily cleaning and antibiotic spray. We collected some heavy rubber mats for his run-in shelter today. That was fun trying to get them out of the car …. They weigh more than Tom and I together and we had four to move into place. Amazing how good one’s driving skills become fitting a large vehicle into a small barn, when needed.

I do miss everyone so much. Thank you for your great emails and updates.

Pictured the road home.