Deaths in the family

September will never be the same again. Just as my oldest friend's birthday has been forever besmirched by 9/11, September is now also the month that my Mother died, and that I lost my beautiful companion, Mopsa. There in the photo are the two of them together, ten years ago; Mopsa a young and pint sized puppy, and my Mother, the most youthful of 82 year olds.
Seven years after a stroke, and for at least three of those having had enough of life, my Mother finally got her wish on the 2nd of this month. At 92, her life had been long and in many ways troubled. Naturally vivacious and social, she had a bitterness and anger that soured a number of long term relationships, but she also inspired great admiration; she was never boring, always lively, impeccably elegant, the best company.
The bitterness is easily and devastatingly accounted for. A Polish Jew, she and her elder brother were sent by their father from Poland to England to stay with his brother, just before the outbreak of WW2. Her parents and much loved younger brother, for whom I'm named, were to join them later. They never made it. Murdered by the Nazis, memories and a very few photographs were all that remained. And an anger and hate that weaved through her life for more than seventy years. Holocaust was never an historical or distant word in our family; it was the reality, an evil that had robbed us directly, palpably. Just one step removed, I can still hardly imagine what it was really like for my Mother, although the anger that was so deep in her, has now, via the blood of the womb, transmuted into another, less understandable, innate fury in me.
My Mother had requested the sparest of funerals, wanting no fuss at all, and certainly no partying. She asked that my sister, her neighbour of more than 30 years, my husband and myself were the only mourners. Accompanied by Rabbi Melinda, Elgar and Bach, we said our goodbyes. The overwhelming emotion was of guiltless relief; she had had enough.

And then, there's Mopsa. Mopsa has been part of my life for more than ten years, an almost constant companion, and my love for her is simple and real. It will always be so. As soon as I started working from home, I was planning to have my first dog, and I learned all things canine from her. She taught me the wonder of holding her head in my lap as we sat on the floor together, sharing secret looks like naughty twins; the terror of kennel cough caught at puppy classes as her brown eyes looked at me fearfully and trustingly; the excitement of walking through woods and fields as new scents drew us on; the feeling of never being alone when she was with me. Oh, and so, so much more. So big, so beautiful, so warm, so individual, so loving and gentle mouthed. I can never thank her enough for the wonderful pleasures she has given me; everything has been so much more fun with Mopsa there to share it. A walk on the beach, sitting in heaps of drying hay, evenings at home (so very many evenings) when I could drop my hand and stroke her lovely head. I'd tell her she was a beautiful dog every day, because she was, and to have that much beauty in your home and your life is a privilege.
Mopsa did not have a troubled life; she had a perfect doggy existence with people to love, her half sister for company and a farm to play in. She had cats to box and cox with, all kinds of livestock to stalk and eye up, people to lean on and pat with her paw, hands to thrust her nose into and lots to interest her.
But a Bernese does not have a long life, and Mopsa was nearly ten and a half, a veteran. The last few months have been quiet ones for her; no long walks, but days sitting in the farmyard watching all our comings and goings, a few strolls through the orchard, one last trip to the river, and another to the beach. And suddenly a more fastidious appetite, deciding that only steak or roast chicken would do, where absolutely anything was fine before. I was happy to indulge her. And then, two weeks ago, she could no longer walk and I knew that we wouldn't have her with us much longer. We carried her about, came running if she called, spent hours sitting with her. I had to work in London for a few days and phone calls home were decreed as Mopsa-free conversations; I knew I wouldn't be able to work if there was bad news. I drove back from the station late in the evening and there in the doorway, lit up and tail wagging, was Mopsa, welcoming me home. I finally let out the breath I'd been holding in for hours, days.
I wanted, so much, for her to go quietly and in her own time, but yesterday I knew that she had finally had enough, so the vet came, and in my office, where we'd spent so much of our time together, I held her head and crooned to her, telling her how wonderful she was, as she gave her last breath, puffed into my hands for safekeeping.

Snow hund

The web is chockful of images of animals in the snow, but there's no harm in adding more to the heap. Here's Fenn, in her element. It's what Bernese Mountain dogs are made for. Snow, sharp cold air and someone or something to play with. Watching her zoom through the powder, creating her own mini mayhem, is a delight. She's happy as a Bernese Mountain dog in the snow.
The only peculiarity about the weather is that it makes the dogs more protective; I've heard more nuanced growling than usual when visitors and deliveries make their precarious way down the track.

Pet philosophy

As Claude the cat bounced from floor to bin lid to windowsill and sat stolidly over Fenn the dog's head, Fenn ducked a little nervously but refused to move.
The three cats are boys, the dogs both girls. What I want to know is, do the boy cats know the dogs ARE girls and vice versa? Do they care? Does it make any difference? Would an all male or all female pet household for mayhem make?
Do they show each other little hidden courtesies? Do they have different sets of rivalries? Is this the most steaming heap of anthropomorphism?
Just curious. Perhaps the answer is at the end of the rainbow.

TPLO

My love, my darling, my wondrous hairy beast. There you lie on your cushion, like Cleopatra or Caligula on a good day, receiving nibbles of banana and general worship. Your leg is shaved, soft and bare, vulnerable and naked, a neat stitched wound on either side. I smear on iodine gel, treacly and thick. As soon as my back is turned you lick it off with toddler glee, no sign of the geriatric years. Even the vet said he couldn't believe your age; like my mother you've been fiddling with the date on your passport.
I carried you home early, knowing you couldn't abide a night away, and there you lay, stiff, sore, drunk on anaesthetic, sleeping unnaturally, doped up, suffering. Your whole back end was unstable, the good leg twisted askew and I lurched inside; had they done something irreparable to you? In the middle of the night I crept down to check on you and your tail wagged, my fears of paralysis daft, unfounded. By morning you were willing to have a go at standing, by the afternoon you were hopping about gamely on three legs, brain clear, eyes bright.
A month lies ahead of taking you outside on the lead just to go to the toilet, absolutely no exercise allowed. For two further months it's light exercise on the lead only. It'll be mid-February before you can hurtle round the farm, roll in snow, leap with Fenn. By then your hair will have grown back, and you will be my shaggy haired monster, not my delicate girl.

More on TPLO here and here.

Mopsa, Elizabethan style

Mopsa is not a vain dog, although she is undeniably the most beautiful dog on the planet... (pause for remonstrations), so she wasn't bothered by a couple of eye warts. But then they started to scratch the surface of her eyeball and they had to come off.
Whilst under the double whammy of miraculous but ghastly anaesthetic, her teeth were seen to and one was removed with its associated epulis.
Poor old girl, it seems as though warty growths find you irresistable. But then, so do I. Even in a plastic Elizabethan ruff.

What animal am I?

One fledgling spadger sits precariously on Hard Hattie. Considering the incredible monsoon weather, Hattie is about the only warm, dryish spot for miles. I'm sure she can feel the wee bird, but what can she do? Her arms aren't long enough to swipe at it. She can't run fast enough to dislodge it. It must be like having a hugely irritating boss to whom you just can't speak your mind, no matter how much your nerves are screaming "I've got to DO something about that squirt!".
But I suppose to be a tortoise is to be calm, accepting and philosophical. Taking life slow. Munching thoughtfully on greenery, nothing too rich to stir up the blood or humours.
I am nothing like a tortoise, notwithstanding my increasingly wrinkly hands, tortured by farm stuff and gardening. If I had to choose, a Bernese Mountain dog would, obviously, not be far from the top of the list, but in truth? My inner self is one of these. My outer self is one of these. And my aspirational self, definitely one of these.

What's next?

One ewe left to lamb, but it's a hurly burly of activity all the same. As I traipse from barn to field, to duck huts to pigs, round and round, back and forth, I stop mid tracks and look up. Where was it I was heading? What's the next job on the list? Have I forgotten to feed/check/water something?
I try to head for the top of the farm and work down so as not to miss anything, but some mini problem or distraction usually puts that idea out to grass. A sheep who's drunk her water bucket dry, a sleeping lamb that I need to check is just snoring and not ailing, a clot of blood on the grass from a ewe I know is healing from her birthing or is it something more sinister, a pig with the trots...on it goes.
Throughout the day I'm checking the egg filled incubators (last night the power in the barn where the incubators sit, tripped and I have to make sure that doesn't happen again) and that the heat lamp over the ducklings is working properly; casting an eye over newborn lambs and mums to be; peering at the back end of the sow to make sure she has taken from her serving by the boar and isn't coming back into heat; watering the seedlings in the polytunnel as there is a danger of frying in there; answering calls and queries about ducklings and posting off hatching eggs...and still on it goes.
And in between that I'm trying to sort out new work arrangements, transferring phones, broadband, banks, and talking to all those companies you really hate dealing with (if I get put on hold one more time, emailed stuff in non-English that's both unintelligible and irrelevant to my question, or told six different stories from six different reps from the same company I'm likely to decide on (very) early retirement instead (I wish!).
The dogs are looking particularly mournful as their walks have been curtailed and ad hoc but I have promised them and me a trip to the beach as soon as the last ewe has performed.
I'm not complaining, honest, just in a bit of a springtime whirlwind, and would relish a couple of days in complete slut mode with nothing to do but snore, breathe fresh air and read a new good book. Any reading suggestions for when I come out of the maelstrom?

Squirrel hounds

There's a small oak and ash copse at the far end of the farm, and Tarzan and Jane live there. They do. Honest. They swing from tree to tree, effortlessly, gracefully, competently. Usually.
Last week I watched them engage in their usual acrobatics when there was a thump as Jane (or was it Tarzan?) fell fifteen feet to the ground. Being a squirrel she/he was back up in the tree tops before I could pound my breast and alert the jungle to the news.
But now the dogs know they are in with a chance. The hollow tree from where the mighty had fallen has lots of holes and nooks and crannies and is investigated by large, damp, quiveringly excited snouts. No hidey hole is left uncharted, no bit of bark left unscraped. It happened once, they think. It'll happen again.
I do love the optimism of dogs.

No invitation to the ball

Someone had a party and didn't invite me. No reason why they should, but leaving celebratory markers to push the point home seems a little unfriendly.
I'd spent the morning cleaning duck, goose and hen houses and plucking a couple of cockerels for the freezer. I put some of her much loved tomato out for the tortoise, admired the KPs (kitten pusses - sorry), and watched the dogs stretched out in the autumn sun waiting for my call.
The lambs have been split into groups, with the ones destined for the next butcher batch chewing the best meadow grass by the river, at the furthest reach of the farm. This means a daily trog to the river no matter the weather, and the dogs love it. Starting off across the orchard I could see something cobalt and artificial bobbing about behind some gorse. I thought it was a rambler picking a few blackberries, and then decided to go and check just in case it was something that needed dealing with. Much of the helium had leached out, and trapped tightly between bramble and old fencing, this sad little offering wasn't going anywhere without a tug. There wasn't even a note attached to the long streamer. A bottle without a message.

A breathing barn

Weird. After three years I finally have an inkling of what the roofless barn will look like with its hat on. That extraordinarily high tech breathable membrane pinned to the rafters may look oddly modern, but it will be entirely hidden by local reclaimed slate and ensure that moisture doesn't drip onto the floor and that any wet in the building will be able to escape through the roof if it hasn't run out of the doors first.
That's not so daft as it sounds. Yesterday the river below the farm burst its banks spectacularly and caught folk unaware. Fenn swam for the first time, unable to touch the ground as the water reached tall human thigh height on the road. Twenty minutes previously it has been an inch high, but turning to retrace their steps, dog and dog walker communed with the African Queen experience.

Mopsa makes hay whilst the sun shines

Don't know what it is about hay but the dogs just adore it. They roll in it, burrow through it, toss it about and play with it. They drape it over their ears and stick their snouts deep into it. It's as if they inhale life, summer, pleasure and delight with every happy whiff. Puppy behaviour is at the fore. It's wonderful to watch and be part of.

Yodelayheee!

You learn something new every day. Have you ever heard of a Tyrolean flicker gun? Yes? Well it's a first on me. What with the Bernese Mountain Dogs and tools more familiar with lederhosen than American workwear, this is turning into mini Switzerland; all it needs is edelweiss and cuckoo clocks to complete the cliché.
Splat, splat, splat they've gone all day, coating the external cob with lime render, smoothing (not too carefully, the base isn't MDF ) the splats so that the limewash will take.
And there may not be edelweiss, but there are marsh marigolds and wood anemones dangling at the waters edge. But I do have a cowbell hanging from a hook in the kitchen that gets shaken to call the workers in for refreshment.

Five minutes peace

I can't believe how tired I am, and lambing has only started and there are just a couple of dozen ewes to deal with; how friends with 500 manage, I can't even start to imagine. Either way, you're in and out of the lambing shed like some crazed self-winding clockwork toy, checking behaviour, changes in eating patterns, signs of water bags, general atmosphere, and topping up one set of triplets with bottled milk as their first time mum hasn't really got enough of her own. Neither me nor far more experienced farmers I know have ever come across a first-timer having triplets - what was she thinking? Luckily the lambs are evenly sized and full of energy and survival instinct, so no larger bully is benefiting over the others.
Mini and major dramas are enacting themselves all over the place. The first batch of incubated goose eggs are starting to pip, so I am hoping there may be goslings under the heat lamp in a couple of days. One of the geese is sitting on her own full nest, au naturale, as proud and protective as can be. An Aylesbury duck suffered from a prolapse of the oviduct, so she has been dispatched, plucked and is in the freezer, my clean lambing Dickies boilersuit now covered in white down. A ewe gave up trying to lamb after some sterling effort, and intervention brought out one malformed lamb that had blocked the cervix causing another perfectly good lamb to die, leaving the mum with one good healthy ram (this run of triplets is ridiculous - that's three sets so far). Saddest of all, the matriarch, Mrs Longtail, succumbed to pasteurellosis, something the flock had never suffered from until last year when two ewes were also lost to it in the final stages of pregnancy. They are all vaccinated against this lethal pneumonia, have been well fed and are in a well ventilated barn, but you can't avoid the inevitable stress to the body caused by lambing or stop cold windy weather. I'll have to discuss future planning with the vet.
My old cat is getting scrawnier, but still eating, drinking, purring, strolling, mock-hunting, and as you can see, happy to share a bed with Mopsa on a filthy welly-boot dirt strewn kitchen floor. And I am off to check on the ewes, again.

I'm a llama - let me out of here

No, this is not an image of the remaining traces of an escapee llama. If you walk along the fence line there are numerous catches of his hair where he has stretched his extraordinary neck to chew on some succulent shoot in the hedge.
The fence also has rubbings of fleece - black from the Torwens, white from the Torddu. And now I am finding a different kind of black, white and chestnut fur where it shouldn't be.
Fenn, the young Bernese Mountain Dog, has decided that she is in fact a steeple-chaser, and is leaping five bar gates and barbed wire fences with impunity. All physical obstacles put in place to dissuade her from this potentially dangerous feat have failed. The cast iron spike by the preferred "show-jump" has been wrapped so that she doesn't impale herself.

Wishing for otters

From time to time when there are no sheep in Second Lower Moor (no, not an inspirational name, but historically correct), I let the dogs play there by themselves whilst I slip through the gate into the adjacent copse and check out the otter holt. I peek into the entrances and lightly poke about the area looking for trails or spraint.
I get a physical surge of excitement just at the prospect of otters choosing to live on the farm. I have seen very few wild otters ever, the sightings don't yet make a handful, and I have yet to see one in Devon although I have smelled their presence just a short stroll from here. So when I saw the picture of Lotty in this Saturday's Western Morning News, I was to be found stroking the newsprint in a quite pathetically wistful manner.
I now have the cutting pinned on my noticeboard, next to my computer, and I gaze at the seven week old beauty, with her black button nose and her black button eyes with something akin to adoration. I wish she'd come to stay.

The elements

I wondered why the barometer manufacturers had bothered with those extreme gradations so far below the "bloody awful weather" category. Now I know.
I kept waking in the night, hoping that willpower alone would keep the half finished barn roof in place. Having three chimneys in the house, the wind whistles and hoots through its trio of echo chambers just to make sure the inhabitants have plenty to keep them wakeful and worriting.
The blustering is as bad as ever and it's not yet safe to go and check if any trees are down or for any other damage. The sheep are ok and the dogs will have to be content with poking their noses and behinds briefly out of doors; no walks today.

Fabulous sea creature habitat

Back to the wonderful Northcott Mouth today to get a winter fillip and celebrate the neighbour's dog's birthday (any excuse). It is the most amazing place.
But what is this stuff? It looked like sesame seed snaps, extruded into cylinders and clumped together in massive boulder size lumps. Click on the image to have a really close look at the structure.


Postscript: it's honeycomb worm! Even the name is fabulous.

Self-cleaning dogs?

Last night the ever watchable Kevin McCloud was in architectural heaven over paint that literally shrugs off dirt. He was as gleeful as a six year old boy as he dipped and re-dipped a piece of board coated in this clever stuff, and no matter how many times he submerged it in a vat of liquid mud it came out sparkling whilst the non-coated back was thick with gloop.
Yesterday I was on my hands and knees; that's on HANDS AND KNEES, with damp J-cloth wiping Mopsa's muddy pawprints off the stairs, landing and bedroom floors.
The building work + the weather + the season = unavoidable heaps of mud. Unbelievably copious amounts of the stuff. You open the front door and it pushes into the house unasked and unwanted like an evil relative or a z-list celebrity contrarily selling Daz. Footprints and pawprints are swabbed off the kitchen floor weekly; more often would be pointless - you might as well do it every half hour and die of boredom and drudgery. At least that can be done with a mop, the floor being covered in lino. But the stairs, landing and bedrooms are all ancient floorboarding of varying widths - the mop is not for them. So, hands and knees it is then.
Mopsa watched Grand Designs with me last night. She cast a baleful eye of recognition at the vat of mud.
I sit up in bed this morning and see the trail of huge mucky pawprints polkadotting what had been the beautiful clean wooden floor. I cast Mopsa, who is sleeping on her soft mat by the bed, my own baleful glance, wondering if it would be possible to have her coated in Kevin's miracle paint.

Sharp sight and blurred vision

This morning, leaning into the wind, I called the llama to come and get his feed. Normally he waits for me by the gate but he was sheltering behind the high hedge and although he turned to look at me, wouldn't come. What with the howling weather, I was keeping my head down and my fleecy beanie had slipped partially over my eyes, and not being madly attentive to what was happening around me I was hoping to deliver a quick feed and achieve a swift getaway.
And then a scrawny and not particularly lithe dog fox lolloped across the field, heading away from the llama and the sheep and towards the pig paddock and the ducks. I skidded after him as a frightener, and although he kept away, his less than chubby state makes me think he'll be back.
Later, walking Fenn through the wood we disturbed a red deer stag with soft, velvety antlers, about a foot or so in length, about half their potential size. The stag bounced towards me and then veered off, easily reaching safety whilst Fenn panted by my side in excitement.
Coming out of the wood I noticed that one of the Torwen ewes was in the wrong field. She was quite happy, chomping on the rushes and new shoots of grass. If she had been one of the normal flock she would have been in a state of panic, separated from the others, running back and forth alongside the gate or pushing at the hedge to get back with the rest. But one of the Torwens, although otherwise healthy, is blind, and she seems happy enough although she spends some of her time away from the rest of the flock, usually eating close to the hedgelines out of the wind. As the ewe was so quiet and clearly not bothered it was obviously her. She must have dropped through the small gap in the hedge from the field above as she wandered along; the others wouldn't attempt this jump unless there was no grazing or hay in their field.
She was unhurt, and easily encouraged up to the gate and put back with the others. She might find her way back out tomorrow of course, but the sheep can't be moved elsewhere at the moment as the newly laid or coppiced hedges in their main fields need to be kept untouched by animal until the banks are earthed up and fences erected, all of which will happen in the next few weeks prior to lambing.
Careful watch will need to be taken with this ewe during lambing; she will be brought in early and checked regularly. If she fails to mother her lambs she will need to be culled. Otherwise, all that seems to be required is watching out for her particularly diligently to ensure she doesn't put herself in danger and that she gets plenty to eat.

Sponge

This morning was apparently a brief respite in the continuing Devon downpours. I take advantage and Fenn and I explore the plashy fields whilst Mopsa wisely decides to stay in the dry.
The ground is sodden, and the clay noisily sucks at my boots making it difficult to walk at any speed. Small patches of turf give under the feet like sponge and ooze air bubbles. The ditches flow fast, washing silt and leaves further downhill and revealing a glistening stony bottom.
We head for the river which is full and fast, the waterfall which I can always hear but never see, hidden as it is by trees and assorted scratchy greenery, gushes and gurgles below our feet.
One of the trees in the big stand of oaks has fallen. It has been dead for some while and now horizontal I can rub some of its fibres apart with my hands. There may be some decent bits for making small pieces of furniture. Salvage operations will have to wait for a dryer day when tractor and trailer can be brought down here without damaging the ground.
Turning into one of the green lanes fenced now from poaching hooves, the primrose leaves that never seem to die in this sheltered spot have been joined by the first pale flowers. Fenn stands impatiently by the gate to be let through to the next field, up to her elbows and belly in mud, and streaks off as I follow, clumping in my boots.