It's all gone a bit biblical....
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♥Oct. 3rd, 2013 // 07:18 pm♥
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About forty minutes ago, I went to give the boys their haynets and thought "that's a lot of lightning". The pooch fled back to the house in terror, and when I got back I called Mike outside to admire it, with a brief interlude of power cut in between. It was 15C, at 9:45pm in October. We live in a frost hollow: we had our first ground frost about two weeks ago (admittedly, it's bee the only one to date, but I suspect that's mostly because it's kept away by the mist that rolls down the valley most nights).
About thirty minutes, and a couple more power cuts, ago, the rain started. The pooch lay quivering on the carpet: we closed the curtains, and became suddenly grateful for the fact that there are unlikely to be big firework displays nearby. I checked the boys, and found them to be slightly stressed.
About ten minutes ago, it started to die down and I went for another look at the boys. Their beds will be horrible in the morning, but I don't think they're going to do themselves any harm. I was pretty sure GB would be ok, but worried about the baby, who is anyway unused to being in a stable.
Pooch is currently lying between my end of the sofa and the window, where she never usually lies (not enough room plus wishing to not be in the way). I'm intermittently typing left-handed, which is sub-optimal, as she goes through waves of stress when she needs my hand on her head in order to stop shaking. I suspect I'm not going to be getting her to come outside for her late-night wee tonight.
In other news, we have been Foraging, on the local common: a couple of bags of apples, most now juiced and the rest (pronounced by Mike to be Russet-ish) to be crumbled along with a bag of blackberries. We also found a few elderberries, so I've made a couple of small bottles of juice from them: doesn't taste hugely, but is quite pleasant nonetheless. We could have got more, but Mike's patience for foraging is limited, which is why I usually leave him at home when I go out for blackberries. I was glad we did go, though, as when I went and inspected our trees later I managed a grand total of half a dozen apples, which isn't worth getting the steamer out for: the trees are a bit old and sad, and efficiency probably requires that they come out some time soon. And be re-planted in such a way that you can get at the back of them without climbing through a shrubbery. (We have lots of sloes, though. I tried a couple on the common, and they were very close to ripe. Ours aren't yet, though. Will be soon. Gin is waiting.)
Yesterday, a not-really-a-neighbour turned up at the front door. I suppose that she technically counts as a neighbour, in that she lives in the first house that you come to if you follow a particular route away from ours, but it's a good mile or more away. Anyway, she had (by osmosis, presumably) become aware that New People were living here, and that they Had Horses, and so had very kindly come to let us know that the Hunt were meeting this morning on one side of the valley and on Saturday afternoon on the other. I thought I'd play it safe, and we kept the boys in this morning (I think GB would be fine, but I'm fairly certain that the Baby has been hunted in the last few years in Ireland. This assumption on my part probably means that, in reality, the Baby would ignore it completely while watching GB leap over the double fence and head off into the sunset). I filled the time when we'd normally ride (and when Mike had a nap) by poo picking the field, and heard not a single sign of them, which is a little unfortunate as we were planning on going out on Saturday if they'd been ok, but now we don't know.
Being a Nice Person, I let Next Door know about the hunt and then, being a Good Neighbour, I also called the WWOtV. "Oh, yes," she said, "I've known for a couple of weeks. They always call to let me know, in case they stray onto my land." It would, Next Door and I mused, have been nice if she'd troubled herself to let the rest of us know. Note to self: get in touch with the Hunt and ask them to call me....
Phew: pooch has calmed down, there's been no more thunder for a bit, and the rain even seems to have passed off. |
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