....And a Happy New Year

The last day of any year is always a good time to get stuck in.....

and clean out some dross so that the New Year starts on a 'tidy' footing. Hence, I've plucked the last brace of partridge and pheasant for the year (and half-froze into the bargain! Dumb.. that!), thrown out half the clothes in my wardrobe .... mentally if not yet physically... and promised to set aside some time each week to tidy up the paperwork in the study. So far so good! And just one other New Year Resolution - to lead a cleaner, healthier life for the next twelve months.

And that's probably a non-starter from 01/10.... "healthier" may be possible, but "cleaner"??? Not a chance. Not with the combination of Rectory Reserve Residents and Acts of God (i.e. weather conditions).

Actually,That's probably being a little bit unfair: after all, Puddy Cat would take offence at ever being considered in the least bit dirty; and the spaniels are not too bad (apart from when TBDiatW has been working); and, actually, the horses are frequently quite clean and, whilst on the subject, the ducks take great pride in their daily ablutions (so much so that the big white lame duck had a special Christmas pressie of her own - a large tin bath into which she is carefully deposited for a while each morning...) and even the chickens mostly avoid anything mucky.

So what we are really talking about here are the thirty dirty pigs...... We have 32 on site at the moment. Thirty are diabolically dirty. They have developed mud pie making into the coarsest and most spectacular of art forms. Where Acts of God have turned their pens into deepest, gloopiest goo, they have rootled and burrowed and found the dry earth below: were you and I to take a shovel to remove the gloop, we would undoubtedly be overcome. They with their incredible snouts have simply shovelled the lot out of the way and found the place where the bugs and worms hold court: and have removed them! But it is not a pretty sight (or site for that matter).

Thus it is that, thinking to end the Old Year on a good note, I sign it off with a couple of pictures of our two pristine pigs: Whiskey and Brandy, in extended quarantine, indoors and, in Curly Coat splendour - indisputably, CLEAN. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, we have only a tiny foothold, but we'll hang on to it for all we're worth!!! (It'll probably last just about as long as my resolutions..... .. So? Yours last longer than a week???)

A Happy 2010 to you all.

P.S.

Many days after writing the above I realised I had mis-counted......... my 'stock-take' had omitted to include Delila and Clyde in the Woods..... we actually have 32 dirty pigs ........

Merry Christmas

Every creature at Rectory Reserve would like to wish all our followers around the world a truly blessed, happy and merry Christmas and a healthy and exciting New Year.
As ever, we have no idea of how the coming months will unfold: I know for certain though that the deeper and better The Big Boss plans and thinks, the greater chance we all have of weathering the ups and downs.
So, I am happy to say that, after a Very Unusual Christmas Lunch (centred on Coot and Waterhen!!! --- thanks to the Bestest Gundog in all the World) he is now relaxing by the fire and planning the strategy for 2010.
All I can say is watch this space......
Good Fortune, Good Health and Peace from all of us here to all of you out there........




P.S.
I'd like to wish a special Happy Christmas to Melanie: the chaotic confusion of the season (or maybe just old age...) means I've lost your address...... but it'd be great to get together again in 2010 after 15 years....... look forward to hearing from you!!!!

The shortest day...

Just two weeks ago - or even one week back - it seemed that our pigs - virtually submerged in gloopy mud - would never be pale and curly again!

Since last Thursday though the Wolds have been transformed into a Winter Wonderland and it seems that it will never stop snowing.

The Curly Coats have returned to splendour and all the brown gloop has been replaced by solid white.

And solid ice... which means humping cans of water around all the pens two or three times a day. It's not that the pigs drink a lot and they clearly get a certain amount of moisture from the snow; even so, they do need to keep their fluids up and appreciate a decent slurp.
The extra traipsing to and fro eats into the day - which today was particularly noticeable. Hardly seemed that there was any gap at all between the morning round of feeding, mucking out and watering and the evening round of feeding, mucking out and watering.
The horses enjoyed their first turn-out in three days and frolicked and rolled like foals under the midday sun.
And the snow scenes have been complemented by some glorious evenings with magical sunsets and night skies adding to the seasonal atmosphere and sprinkling the world with a touch of almost-forgotten childhood magic.

It's almost as if Christmas has arrived early......

New delicacies

So there we were out on the beat the other day and the young dog decides that retrieving pheasants and partridge and duck is getting a little bit "much of the same" so, on his hunting, comes across a much more interesting thing in the marshes: we are later told that it is a real delicacy of the table and far more desirable than your 'common' gamebird. Well, that day we gave over the prize to some other wiley guy who was quicker at the end of the day to spot a 'good thing'.
However, a couple of days later The Young Dog finds another in the marshes and proudly brings it out to me. "Right" says one of my companions "Keep your eye on it and take it home at the end of the day" and even went to far as to have a word in the Keeper's ear. So, at the end of a very long and tiring day, Keeper said we could take our Prize - The Coot - plus two water hens which "are the best thing you can eat with a coot" and "take 'em and skin 'em and eat 'em for Christmas". So, I've done the first two bits of the instruction and in just 10 days or so we shall be sampling the delicacies along with some more traditional season fare.... (Just to add - having never skinned a bird before, this was a first --- so yet more lessons learned at the foot of the dog... so to speak....).
And then before you know it we're off on Yet Another Adventure.......
Our very First Christmas Market (0r any market for that matter) venture. The Big Boss had been enquiring about the possibility of hiring a Stall at the Local Farmer's Market. "Don't know about that" said the young man he was talking to "Not my area" (as ever) "But if you're interested in a Christmas Market I've just had a cancellation at Boston and if you can do 'food to eat' you can have the spot".
So that was it. All our food is 'to eat' -- we just had to make it more like 'eat now'. Hardly pausing in his stride, The Boss is on to the Good Butcher and his wife and before you know, we have Pasties and Pies to die for (and to sell). And within the space of just two or three weeks we are product and packaging ready and off to market.
Our stall laden with Three types of pastie (Lincolnshire Sunburst - with sundried tomato and golden raisin, Ham & Leek, and Lincolnshire Vegetable) plus 3 types of Pork Pie (with Cranberry, with Apple and Just Plain Pork) plus Unique Gourmet Chocolate with Hazlenut-flavoured Grammel and Pure Pork lard (free if you purchase 3 pasties) was a great success and we did a roaring trade throughout the morning..... but quickly learned the (probably) golden rule of the Market -- that the afternoon is 'for browsing not selling'. Not to worry though --- it was a very useful (market) research exercise and an entertaining, if tiring, day..... And we have enough pasties to eat for a day or two..... And may even venture into the Market proper during the coming year... Depends what the Big Boss thinks.... If he has time to think about that with another Open Day - in the form of party with the Piggies - coming up next Sunday....... Just another ordinary week in the life of Rectory Reserve.......................... (roller skates at the ready everybody?..........)

Raining - pigs and ducks

It's that time of year again......Nothing but rain, rain and more rain. Mud, mud and more mud. Horses wade through squelchy globs of the stuff on their way to and from their field. Pigs puddle up their pens in ever greater degrees - yet still manage to rootle down to some dry stuff each day - not much of which is ever apparent when feeding time comes round and we wade in to find their bowls! The chickens have taken to spending most of the day in the Poultry Palace and only the ducks and young piglets truly seem to be enjoying themselves.
Despite the conditions, or maybe even because of them, The Big Boss decided Friday last was the time to move The Puddings (aka Delila's weanlings) from the stalls to the Big Outdoors. The gundog and I got home from our days' work to find the job done and the little ones safely esconced in their new quarters. Surprisingly (!??) they were not all that keen to leave the dry, if boring, indoors and a couple had to be
Linda-handled into the trailer before the rest could be persuaded! But once out they wasted no time in getting truly dirty and now they all look like little chocolate puds..... (Strangely, pigs and chocolate are a "theme of the moment"....... but more of that another day).

The brood of late ducklings too have lost all their fluffy down and grown into beautiful young birds so I decided today that it was time they left the safety of the baby-pen and joined the rest of the flock.
After some initial shyness they were quickly into the deep water and spent the best part of the day with mum paddling gaily around and thoroughly enjoying themselves. But at dusk they still retired to sleep in their familiar broody coop: it will be a few days yet before they are brave enough to join the others in the Poultry Palace. In no time at all though they will be indistinguishable from the others, although I am hoping that the lovely pale colouring which four of them have will remain as they grow up.......