The walnut gathering has now begun in earnest. 16 trees worth of walnuts all to be picked up by hand , at least up until now. A very satisfying task which no doubt goes a long way to unleashing the hidden forager apparently lying within us all from way back when gathering nuts & berries was the key to survival.

It does pays havoc with a weak back though and this week I gave in and , most unlike me, bought a gadget! A rolling wire cage originally designed for collecting golf balls & now used by most of the local community for collecting nuts. A mere 70 €…ahem…Emma & Alistair were aghast. ” 70€ for a cage and a pole? You must be mad…” and Alistair just had to add, ” And you won’t buy me an i-phone…? ” Personally I didn’t see the logic in this last bit but have to say I did think twice about the value of the cage & pole.

But this was what convinced me – to all of the aging local community round here, “un sou est un sou” (every penny counts!) & yet nearly everybody had parted with their hard earned cash and were happy so I reckoned there must be something in that. And earlier this week we happened to see an old man using one & stopped for a cheeky free trial run.  He had supposedly collected 7 buckets of walnuts in the time he would have normally done 3 – I was sold!

I have to say I am not disappointed – half the time saved, no sore back, no black tannin stained hands and if it can multi- task and collect golf balls too, so much the better… 70 € very well spent!

Potential Christmas dinner...

This week we also got the news that after 3 years of orthodontic treatment Alistair has now got to get 2, possibly 4, wisdom teeth taken out – on the 21st December. Just in time for Christmas. Great. Looks like we’ll have to purée the Christmas Dinner. Which leads me quite nicely into the hot topic of conversation in our household this week….should we or should we not embrace The Good Life to the full and dispatch the poultry? I have struggled with this even although I know it makes perfect sense to give the hens & guinea fowl a good life and then know exactly what you’re feeding your family rather than supporting someone else to do it. “What?? Eat Lolita??!” I can still hear Emma now. It doesn’t pay to get emotionally attached.

So I have given myself some guidelines

• don’t give them names.
• forget they all have their own quirky personalities & endearing ways
• don’t look them in the eye in the morning & imagine them on your plate at night
• remember that these are hens – the next batch will look & act just the same as these ones & you’ll soon forget you ate the last lot

Lolita for one will be spared our final decision as I found her yesterday morning half eaten by some nocturnal predator. I was a bit later than normal shutting up the hen house the night before so either she was having a late supper & I left her outside by mistake or she had already met her fate before I got there & I didn’t notice. Given this may well happen again over the Winter I am now a tiny step closer to being convinced that rearing our own food is the way to go…we’ll see.

This week has not been easy – not for me & certainly not for Susie.

On Wednesday morning I found her practically unable to walk – bizarre given that on Tuesday she was her usual lively self. A call to the vet resulted in a phone diagnosis of a likely case of laminitis, apparently brought on by her over healthy appetite. This was even more strange given that she has been on restricted rations since last year and this year all of our guests were very good at not giving into her noisy and endearing requests for extra titbits. I would even say that she lost a bit of weight.

Even so , I duly gave her the medicine but two days later she was no better.Another vet ( the same one featured in this post!) came out to examine her and as I feared she was a terrible patient. Our adorable Susie has never been easy in times of distress and has a huge dislike of men in long coats ,a psychological throwback to her very first visit from a vet I think.

After much struggling and protest, two attempts to bite and several more to kick him, she eventually gave in enough for the vet to ascertain that she had an abscess inside her front hoof. This was  drained & cleaned and she got an injection of penicillin. The worst part ,for me at least, was the news that she had to have 4 more injections which the vet was expecting me to administer…was he kidding??? She also had to have a visit from the farrier to tidy up her hooves.

A farrier's job is never easy!!

This I was dreading…the last time she had her hooves done it took two men 45 mins to do a 15 minute job. Sod must have been at work too as Amar is away this week and I’m sorry to say that my brute force is no match for Susie’s determination and bulk….there was no way I was even going to offer to help. Not even just to show willing…

But the farrier came alone and bravely soldiered on single handedly until the job was done. With a transformation which would make Jekyll & Hyde look like amateurs, Susie morphed into some raging beast.  I don’t think I could ever adequately describe the pandemonium which took place but the fact that he said ( among many other unprintable things) that if she were his she would be sausages, probably says it all! Still, he was good enough to give her the 2nd injection.

Then yesterday I got a phone call at 8.30am from a man in the area who trains/re-educates/breaks in horses & donkeys. The farrier had told him that I had an urgent problem with a juvenile delinquent donkey which needed 3 more injections. I had already managed to draft in some help but he came round anyway to see how he could help …our very own donkey whisperer!!

Susie was putty in his hands and I’m pleased to say that he pronounced her to be the gorgeous, adorable, gentle creature which we have all grown to know & love – she just needs to learn some manners! So, she’ll be going to finishing school at the end of the month and hopefully will come back the perfect lady!

A learning curve for me - first time I've ever given an injection! Luckily she behaved!!

Oh and in spite of it all she actually let me give her yesterday’s injection with relative ease …maybe she just doesn’t like men in long coats!!