The Geordie Smallholder

A quick set of catch-up posts from the post in 2023 to Summer 2024.

Art in August

GSH and AiR go to art class so I decided to join them one week. It was fun painting our interpretation of a local castle.

September

Being Batty in October

Autumn Break

Nearly every summer in these northern climes is colder than we would wish for, with short growing seasons where it is actually too hot for our crops to thrive, but this year we only had about 6 sunny days spread over 3 months. Here’s a quick recap of May to September:

May

June

July

August

September

We had a celebrant and a few of the guests were asked for words of advice to us starting out as a married couple. Some of the advice we received during the announcement, planning and the wedding day itself ranged from:

Don’t do it / Are you mad? / About ****ing time / Is Geordie Smallholder pregnant? / Share the remote control equally.

Good advice, that last one

A great time was had by all. Fabulous dinner, great music for jigging to, teaching Italians how to Strip the Willow, in bed by 11pm. Well, we are farmers after all, that’s late for us!

I thought you might like to read about how a smallholder can holiday at home without it being a bus driver’s holiday. So I’ve given a blow-by-blow account of our recent week off. Having survived the June heatwave we thought a holiday at home would be sun, cocktails on the deck, and as little work about the place as we could (the animals always get looked after I hasten to point out). See what you think.

Day 1. Millie treated us to a slap-up lunch whilst GSM inspected a hospital. She reported that the staff were lovely and it was both efficient and effective. Lunch was good, I had fish and chips, delicious. It rained. All day.

Day 2. Can’t remember, oh yeah, food shopping. I took Superdoofus for a long walk, pictures below. In the rain.

Day 3. I shampooed Dora and rinsed her with fly repellent. I also cleaned her bridle and saddle. It rained a bit. We didn’t go out, because, well, rain.

Day 4. Our lovely horse trainer came to help develop Dora’s stable manners. I’m to work on being boring and not handing out cuddles every time Dora looks for attention. She’s to get praise and cuddles when she does what is requested of her. We worked on backing up in the stable, moving over, standing still, and getting her tail brushed out. We also trimmed her tail as it was so long it dragged on the ground. She could pull something if it was under her and she tried to get up. Also, I was getting fed up untangling the roots, branches, jaggy bits, etc that got caught in her tail as she walks about the field.

And it rained. A lot. When we took the cat and dog out for evening walkies, the clouds were in the valley below us. It was very Dickensian.

Day 5. I went to give the horses breakfast and was met by an agitated Tim. He had been scratching his head on something and had managed to flip his headcollar over one ear. It was now hanging down across his eye. He obviously thought he had gone blind and was very worried. So worried that he wouldn’t let me near him to fix it. I managed to get close enough to flip it further up the other ear. For a minute Tim thought he had gone both blind and deaf. I put his breakfast bowl down and he stuck his head in the bucket. The chewing action managed to work the offending headcollar all the way over his ear and it pinged off like a giant elastic band. Panic averted. Tim could see and hear again!

Purchased vermin control tool. GS and GSW went out for lunch and discovered a factory shop we didn’t know existed. Smallholder bliss. It rained.

Day 6. Went to the fencing supplier and came back with gates for the solar farm paddock and the garden. We were in Big Red for most of the day, so obviously the sun shined.

Geordie Smallholder and GSS put up one of the gates in the evening, supervised by the Assassin.

Day 7. Boiler service, GSM hairdo, and a trip to the local museum of country life, as recommended by Millie, who had visited recently.

It was raining when we arrived. We went in and it being lunchtime, settled into a table in the cafe and ordered soup and toasties and paninis. After we inhaled these, we made our way to the ground floor display of Edwardian dresses and accessories. There was a large doll’s house on display.

We had to leave GSM sitting on a chair after admiring the mainly black and ivory dresses because the rest of the displays were upstairs. On the higher floors were farm tools including ploughs and harnesses that Dora’s ancestors would have worn. The rest of the mill workings were also on display along with various rooms set up as late Victorian through to 1930s domestic settings.

On returning to the ground floor to collect GSM, we were perturbed to see her being entertained by a stranger showing off the contents of his drawers. He hadn’t even taken her out for dinner first! It turned out that this was the museum owner and the drawers held ladies’ accessories such as tortoiseshell hair combs, opera gloves, and beautiful scarves.

We went back to the tea room for afternoon tea, there was lemon sponge, treacle scones (other varieties were available), coffee cake, and chocolate sponge, all delicious. Another low-calorie trip for the Smallholder family lol.

Day 8. GSS took us to see the latest fantasy action film. It wasn’t meant to align with our experience of the laws of physics on this planet, but it was a ripping yarn. Thank you GSS.

We had a pizza party at night, yum. It rained all bl**dy day.

Day 9. Food shopping then I spent the afternoon sleeping. Took Superdoofus for a long walk when I eventually woke up. It rained a bit but was too hot for wearing a waterproof.

Day 10. Got ready to go back to work, sigh. Clothes washed and ironed. Not line dried because, surprise, it was raining. Millie came over for dinner so we had lasagne and tiramisu.

It tasted better than the photos lol. So I’m now relaxing with a glass of wine before doing the dishes, feeding the animals, and going to bed. Work tomorrow! The forecast is “fine and sunny, light breezes”, so GSH and GSS will be able to do outside jobs around the farm. I bet they are looking forward to it more than I am, thinking about returning to the office.

You may already know this, but horses need regular dental checkups as well as we humans. They also have baby teeth which are replaced by adult teeth between the ages of two to five years, and the adult teeth keep growing all their lives. This is where the phrase “long in the tooth” comes from. If a horse’s teeth don’t line up exactly, then parts of the tooth will not wear down and will become ragged. This can cause mouth ulcers and all sorts of pain, so we get the dentist to check at least annually. If he finds any issues, he will grind the rough edges down or clear out any gaps in the teeth to stop tooth decay. I’m sure you will agree with me that the last thing anyone wants is a horse with a toothache.

Just in case you were wondering how the other animals are, here are some pictures of the chickens and Superdoofus, who likes to sneak in and eat all the cat crunchies.

That’s all for now folks, have great day!

It had to happen. Despite our best efforts, GSH and I have contracted the dread lurgy which changed the world three years ago. So I thought I would use the time to go through our photos and tidy out the bad ones. I’ll start with recent events, then if I find pictures worth re-sharing here I will add them as well.

Millie came to see up recently and we went for a walk up the glen. In a month we should have bluebells, but just now winter is still biting. Here’s the proof below, icicles at the river:-

Old Pictures (2019)

Geordie Smallholder was caught red-handed on Friday when I came home from work with a chainsaw in one hand and the pine hedge cut off at the knees lying at his feet. In my defense, said he, you left me alone with the chainsaw. So it’s my fault. The birds were upset that the trees with easy access to the bird feeders were coming down. For the wood pidgeons, GS reminded them the clue was in their name, the wood’s over there, birdies.

Tim and Dora are getting along well. Dora is a very kissy horse, she also has a mustache, which explains some of the faces the family pull when a giant Clysedale puckers up and gives them a big smackeroo.

Highlights from January: we all went out for afternoon tea, a present from Millie (thank you, it was yummy) and one of the chickens laid a huge egg – that must have hurt, it was double the normal size.

February highlights: fab sunsets, Dora settling in, the Assassin glaring, snowdrops and primroses, maybe Spring will be here soon.

We’ve also had birthdays, log splitting, painting, fixing the road, weeds and clear but absolutely freezing nights.

Bittersweet post this time, and it’s taken me ages to get to the stage where I can write about this. But let’s update you from the last post and hopefully bring you up to date.

We bought a Clydesdale in November!!!! Her passport name is like “My Lady of Aquitaine”, so I was going to give her the moniker of “Mlya” (get it?) but during her first days with us she proved to be super good at escaping our electric fences and helping herself to the untouched standing hay we were saving for the deepest winter. So from now on she will be known as “Dora the Explorer”.

And here’s Dora:

Tim loves Dora and so Cushy was a bit pushed out (see the photo above where Dora is literally getting the bum’s rush). In November we had a glut of pears so all the horses got lovely tasty pears for after-dinner snacks and I made pear chutney by the barrel load. I ran out of jars and ended up pouring it into plastic containers for the freezer.

For real this time:

Full story: The Assassin had been fighting. We have seen a little black cat going around the place, so we think she might have been seeing off the intruder. She was walking with a limp and holding her paw up. GS caught her and I tried to see if there was an obvious cause for the lameness: there was no heat in the leg, no obvious cuts, lumps or blood, except I found a jaggy white thing in her fur which I pulled out. Which we now know was a claw.

Mystified, and thinking it might be a sprain, we left it for another day to see if it got better. The next day, GS contacted me at work to say he thought she was getting worse. If you can catch her and put her in a cat carrier, I will take her to the vet”, I said. A few hours later, I received a text, which simply said, “done”. I wondered how much blood GS had lost getting the Assassin into the carrier.

Arriving home, I phoned the vet to give them advance warning that we were bringing in a semi-feral, grumpy cat called the Assassin. I could sense the vet nurse tensing as she took the call. GS by this time had to gaffa tape the cat carrier shut as said grumpy cat kept making attempts at breaking out. We placed the shaking receptacle in the boot of my car and we set off to the vets’ surgery. The Assassin howled the entire way. I was somewhere between annoyed at the sound and sorry for the pitiful songs she was singing.

At the vet, we had to wait as an emergency came in, it was a poodle that had had an accident whilst out on a walk. The Assassin kept mewing pitifully. Eventually, the surgery was clear and Heather the vet came to collect the noisy cat. Three of them went in to help. In a short time, Heather returned, she was not used to being sworn at in cat language, but the Assassin seemed to know they were helping her and forbore scratching them to bits. (Aside, she doesn’t pull any punches with us when we are trying to administer wormer and flea meds.)

Heather told us it was a puncture wound that had become infected. To keep costs down, she asked if we wanted to administer antibiotic pills twice a day for fourteen days. I said I might be successful the first time, but didn’t rate my chances for the next 27. Heather then offered an injection of antibiotic, so relieved, we said, “oh yes please!”

Ten minutes later, the Assassin had her wound treated, antibiotics and painkillers and was wrapped in a cozy towel and back in the cat carrier. She was a lot quieter. The vets were very relieved to have no scratches or damage and were chuckling at having successfully treated an Assassin. She now has a medical record with them under the name Assassin Smallholder. Anyway, the vets asked if we could keep her in at least overnight to keep the wound clean and let her recover from her ordeal.

And that’s the story of why we had to lock up the Assassin for fighting. Don’t resort to fighting dear readers, violence is never the answer.

Leaves me with a wee problem, the cats are due to be wormed soon and I don’t think I’ll get near her….

Last week, we got another dog. Meet SooperDoofus, Doofus’s new pal. The Needy Blonde likes him too. SooperDoof is a 5-month-old black labrador off hunting rather than showing lines, but we all think he is very handsome. He is now Geordie Smallholder’s shadow. Doofus is a bit jealous, but has to admit there are more walks, more treats and more games now there is a puppy to entertain and train. The cats and horses don’t like him because he is very rude and doesn’t understand cat or horse language. Tripod runs away when she sees him coming and Tim was offering him transport into next Wednesday courtesy of his back legs kicking him there.