“It” is goat food. Everyone is crazy for it.

Inca and Malachi look up at me expectantly when I lift the lid on the goat food bin – they hope a few morsels will fall onto the floor when I scoop out the delicious muesli-type mix. Not only does it look good, it smells good.The full scoop goes onto the wheelbarrow, along with vegetable scraps and an armful of fresh hay, and the three goats watch as I wheel it over to them. Also on the alert are the chickens, which race over to the goat pen, usually before me; they anticipate the greedy goats will squabble over the feast, which invariably they do, and groats and grains come flying out of the pan; and the chooks and the dogs are there to oblige with cleaning up operations. Even the nasty cockerel that chases me likes goat food – he goes inside with the goats, in the hope of fairing better than the better mannered hens.

I’m convinced that Harry the pig, aswell, would love goat food but he has his own pellets and vegetables so he hasn’t tried the feast yet (to my knowledge).

llamas and alpacas love goat food even more than their special pellets (they have run low and goat food is more than acceptable!). Furthermore, they adore me for bringing it out to them. Where once they were a little shy of the newcomer to the farm, now they line up by the fence and flutter their long lashes at me; and as soon as they see the goat food they move in, sometimes ignoring the pecking order. Incidentally, these pretty animals have velvety soft mouths, and although their teeth are rather large, they never bite.

Even the little sheep that was thought to be dead three days ago – her left eye pecked at by birds while she lay on her side in the field – even she loves goat food. Happily, she is making a good recovery and ate the goat food with great gusto at breakfast-time this morning.

It appears that the only one on the farm, apart from me, not interested in goat food is Horsey, who is, of course, a cat.

Don’t you just hate staying in day after day? Don’t you get fed up with the short days of winter, especially when it’s cloudy and rainy, and so dark indoors that you need to put lights on? Indeed, my sore throat had necessitated some preventative cossetting and keeping out of the wind and rain, which is all very well and good on miserable days; but what is one supposed to do when the sun beckons?

You fancy that your throat is better, you don a colourful coat, a warm scarf and sunglasses, and you greet the outside world with the same pleasure as a holidaymaker visiting your home-town for the first time. You notice the birds in the trees, the animals in the fields and funny little dogs with balls in their mouths; you love the red cliffs against sky blue, the sun sparkling on the sea and the passing trains in liveries of yellow, or blue and purple, or silver and red ; you wave, even at the smaller local trains – and even they (the drivers) wave back or toot (by accident). And you meet your neighbours and friends – all smiles and bonhomie – mostly wearing colourful coats… and scarves… because they have “a bit of a sore throat”.

Yesterday, when my nephew, Robert, and his young family came over to see us, I thought I was taking straight shots for the family album; little did I know that various jokers had other ideas (I should have gone to Spec Savers again!). It was the same on Boxing day and, come to think of it, our friend David struck a funny pose the other day! Chris tells me that this strange fad is now all the rage and is called ‘photo-bombing’ – but I expect you knew that already.

I’ll add some sneaky ‘normal’ photographs I took of them just to show that my relatives are not gurning constantly!

Our friend Roland (alias Birdman, from Brisbane) is crowing with delight. You see, he has become something of a bird magnet (if not a magnate, although he has qualities of great magnitude, not least the ability to draw in the birds). Many a man of Roly’s age would quite likely be jealous of his prowess with birds. As if it wasn’t enough to have them eating out of his hands, his latest victory has gone to his head; in fact, as you will notice in the photograph, recently he had two in the bush – probably his crowning glory. I expect you’ll be wanting to know what he does for a crust…

And this is what Wikipedia has to say…

A feather in your cap

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the English idiom. For the symbolism surrounding the giving of a white feather, see White feather.

Crow’s Heart; a Mandan medicine man

Gessler and Tell – complete with feathers in their caps

The term a feather in your cap is an English idiomatic phrase believed to have derived from the general custom in some cultures, of a warrior adding a new feather to their head-gear for every enemy slain,^[1][2] or in other cases from the custom of establishing the success of a hunter as being the first to bag a game bird by the plucking off the feathers of that prey and placing them in the hat band.^[1][3] The phrase today has altered to a more peaceful allusion, where it is used to refer to any laudable success or achievement by an individual that may help that person in the future.^[4]

It was cold – below freezing – and I put on my new Christmassy-red coat and a white scarf for our walk into Dawlish; we had to go to the Post Office with the last of our Christmas cards for sending (the English ones) and, while we were about it, we thought we’d hand-deliver some of the local ones. We walked by way of the sea wall, past Coastguard Cottages, and walked up to the Strand from the railway station (if you happen to know Dawlish).

As you can see, I tested my new, but old, mobile camera; unfortunately, I forgot to clean the lens so the shots are a bit misty; also we lost the light – night was falling. We called in with a card for Hazel at the Vivian Gallery (they sell some of my miniatures and prints) and had a chat.

“We’d better go now, before it’s completely dark,” I said.

At this point we all turned to look through the shop window at the world outside – it was pretty dark already.

“Well, judging by the look of it, I’d say it’s about…,” Hazel paused for dramatic effect.

“Three-thirty,” I chimed in with her and we laughed.

Hence, here are some photographs of Dawlish at night… at three-thirty or there abouts.

Instead of painting I spent most of this short day removing a rogue number from my new Smart phone. The number, obviously planted in my phone to extort money at a premium rate, had already gobbled up six pounds of my top-up simply by me touching the “Home Number” inadvertently. Consequently, I had to remove all the contents in my phone and “reset”; even so, the number reappeared and I can’t tell you how I managed to eradicate it finally – think I pressed everything possible. By two o’clock I had reinstated all my contacts and reloaded Whatsapp (the free instant messaging app).

My head ached from eyestrain and over-concentration. My head ached even more when I bashed my forehead on the mantelpiece as I bent down to water the pot-plants. It was one of those days.

A walk in the fresh air always clears the head, especially when the air comes from the northerly direction. On our way home from Dawlish Warren via the sea wall we met several of the men in orange who were about to finish, or had already ended their shifts and, despite being cold and tired, they smiled or spoke to us; some even let me take their photographs. They are icons (not acorns). And the sun started going down quite beautifully… at around three-thirty. So glad we don’t live in Greenland!

Yes, I was up early today – twenty to eight instead of eight o’clock – because I had an appointment with the chickens on the farm. As you may know, I’m standing in for Mary while she’s away in Australia so I’m the farm-sitter down at Rosie’s farm, therefore I’m the one who has to let the chickens and ducks out, and feed all the animals.

In spite of my early start, and a decided lack of make-up (who’s going to see me on the farm?), I’m ashamed to say that I still managed to be ten minutes late, something which that fancy rooster obviously wasn’t tremendously happy about. Having opened the hen-houses and given the chickens a generous helping of their special meal mix, I was coming back from the stable tap with a bucketful of fresh water for them when the bigger of the cockerels, the brightly coloured cock, made a bee-line for me. As bold as brass, he ran up to me and jumped onto my thigh. Luckily, today I am wearing incredibly thick jogging pants (not too attractive – alright, ugly – except to that cockerel) and his talons failed to make a deep impression – no blood.

“Get off,” I screamed at him whilst running and still holding the bucket of water in front of me.

The bucket was a shocking pink “gorilla” bucket, one of those large two-handled buckets that builders use, thus I was unable to free a hand and push off the nasty cockerel. He was too heavy to hang on for long – he was off… and off, quite literally, chasing me! He caught up with me (I was wearing Wellington boots, otherwise he wouldn’t have had a chance in hell) and he leapt onto my thigh again, briefly.  He continued to chase me until I had filled all the water receptacles in the chicken run.

Did he hate being cooped up that much? Was it because last night I had let one of the white chickens (from the other hen-house) stay with his brood? Was she really that bad a sleeping companion? Did she repel him? I asked myself these questions and more… Did he not recognise me in that large pink coat, which I’ve never worn before because it was too big, but which fits a treat over five layers of clothing, three of which were heavy jumpers? (It’s quite cold of a morning on the farm.) Perhaps pink is a “red rag to a bull” to him?

Whatever his reasons, shortly I shall be sure to be more careful to house the hens in their proper abodes; I’ll never again carry the water out in the pink “gorilla” bucket (no matter how practical it seems); and I’ll find a coat of a different colour to wear on the farm. Following our little run-around I had my own back by chasing the cock with my camera; but truthfully, I don’t think he objected – he strutted his stuff “as proud as a peacock”.