Competitions aren't my thing

 "I am a fearless, hard driving working dog but when it comes to competitions - all those people standing around and watching - I get all discombobulated and shy. (Here I am with a team mate - so-called - he pinched one of my retrieves before I had a chance to notice so I got marked down!). I can do anything and find anything but with all those people looking and the tension they create I just crawl inside myself and go into 'safe' mode. She tells me what to do and I do it but my mind is distracted by the strangers; it makes me think long and hard and that makes me go slow (and just a little bit deaf).
 So there we were last Sunday with a load of smart labradors trying to show us up ... and they did. Me and my spaniel friends were jolly good but we don't think and work like labradors -they seem to be single minded whereas we look around for other opportunities..... and one of my spaniel mates flushed a pheasant that had been sitting there  (in the bushes next to the pond in this photo - though you can't see the pond) throughout the whole morning and none of the labs had noticed it and he didn't even get extra marks for it.
Anyway, I don't mind. I go where she says and do what she says. She told me to do all sorts of things in front of these strange people so I did my best. She says that meant I came second of all the spaniels - the labradors were much much better  - but the first spaniel was a professional performer so She was not disappointed.
She'd like me to show everyone what a fast dog working dog I am but I'm not a show off and competitions just ar'n't my thing so I can't. Anyway it doesn't really matter - she said - cos it's only a fun thing and we all know who the best dogs are....... This lady here is receiving the prize for the best performing labrador - and she said she'd been out partying the night before so had to "leave it to the dog" to get on with it. Well there's a lesson then... there's hope for us yet.
Anyway, last year we got the prize for the best dog on a non winning team and the dummy throwing. This year we were upgraded to the A team so the professional spaniel was the best dog on the team and She completely fluffed the dummy throwing. And she didn't even win a raffle prize. So we came away totally empty handed and just a  little deflated (she said). But next year We Will be Bestest of all (cos She says I'm gonna take Speed Bubbles beforehand!!!!!!!) But Competitions ar'n't my thing.....so I'm not so sure...

R I P Precious 26.11.07 - 22.6.12

 Such a sad miserable Friday. Cold, rainy, more like winter than mid-summer.
Not a good day to say 'good bye' to a favourite creature.
Precious has always been my favourite; "You smell like spicey pepper" I used to say to her. She really did have a peppery scent about her. And those big curly-haired ears - the best of the whole herd. And a character.

I'll always remember the first time she left Samson of her own accord: late on a summers evening, there she was trotting around the Church Field trying to find her own pen, She'd climbed over the fence to get away from Samson, trotted down the
bridleway and through the hedge and then back down to the Church Field. No mean feat. Then earlier this year she did it again. Middle of a Friday afternoon it was "Cheerio Samson" and away she went, through the hedge, along the bridleway and down to the field, where Con, the handyman/gardener opened the gate to her pen and in she went. She was an excellent mother but always pleased to see the back of her litter when the time came. Pragmatic. She loved grass as much as she disliked veg. Most evenings when I went out to shut up the chickens she'd be calling from her pen asking for a stroke and some grass. She was certainly a character... there was the time we were putting her back to Samson and she galloped up the field to him, missed the gate, doubled back and was in to him like a rocket and then they were all over each other like rabbits. We laughed but they didn't care. They were in a zone of their own.
She was fit as a flea and her normal demanding self last Saturday. Sunday she was off her food. And that was the end of it. We thought she'd get over it. Sadly she didn't. The vet came today and helped her on her way to the happy sty in the sky. Rest well Precious pepper pig.... missed already

Just going for a short hack...

 Meet ex-racehorse Razor (on the left) and Larry - the laid back cob - on the right.
I met them this weekend when they 'borrowed' the Pine Tree Pasture for a sleep-over on Sunday night between days 2 and three of their mammoth journey along the recently opened Lindsey Trail - a circular 75 mile 'ride' across some of the most beautiful countryside in Lincolnshire.
"I'm sorry to drop in on you like this and I hope you don't think I've got a cheek but is that your paddock up the road and if so could we put our horses in it for a night" said Wendy one evening just over a fortnight back. We'd only just got back from an event doing the Pork Provisioning 'thing' so I was a bit tired and didn't really take in what Wendy was asking so said I'd get back to them.

"Any news on whether we can overnight the horses?" she reminded me a week or so later. Having finally decided that we would not be spraying off the weeds in that field till after a crop of hay for the pigs had been taken off it, I mailed and told them we'd be delighted to let them use it. Since it is directly on the route they were riding it was particularly suitable. When I did the rounds last thing Sunday night it was clear that Larry and Razor thought it particularly suitable too - they were noses down and chilling after day 2 of their 3 day journey.
It's not just for the heck of it that a couple of young girls decide to ride 75 miles.
A while back Claire had a bad fall from one of her horses and had to be airlifted to hospital.

Initial diagnoses showed that she had severed one of the vertebrae in her spine which would result in her not being able to ever walk again.
Yet she managed to walk out of the hospital some 10 hours later - a stroke of fortune which she puts down to the speedy response of the air ambulance in getting her to the hospital before the damage embedded itself irretrievably. So she and Wendy  trained up over the past few months in order to raise money for the Ambucopter (see www.justgiving.com/lindseytrailchallenge). They're the first to have ridden the whole 75 miles in one 'go' - no mean feat, requiring physical fitness on the part of horses & riders as well as logistical planning and support to ensure that back-up, food & equipment were in the right places at the right time. It's a challenge made all the more rewarding considering that when Claire first 'found' Razor 4 years ago he was a 13 year old, broken down, dangerous ride/serious project.  She's managed to turn him 360 degrees and give him a whole new lease of life. Maybe inside she feels that's what the Air Ambulance did for her. 
I suspect between the four of them they've issued a challenge which others will aim to rise to over the coming years - if not months. "Just going for a short hack...." could take on altogether different connotations in this part of the world (or do I mean Wolds) from now on......

...to see the Queen ....

One thing about these Curly Coated Pigs - they do provide opportunities that might otherwise  not come our way!. Thus it was last Wednesday saw us at Burghley Park for a special Diamond Jubilee picnic with HRM.
Burghley was built between 1555 and 1587. In the late 18th Century 'Capability' Brown supervised the construction of the Stable Courtyard, the Orangery and the Lion Bridge over the lake as well as landscaping the gardens and the park. It is a truly magnificent corner of England and is still lived in by the descendants of William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley. Many of us today know it mainly as the home of the Burghley Horse Trials, one of only 6 four star Horse Trials in the world, attended by in excess of 150,000 people each September.

A place fit for a picnic for a Queen then. The Lords Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Rutland,  Northamptonshire & Lincolnshire hosted an invited audience of 10,000 for the occasion. Marquees were set up showcasing the 'best' that each county has to offer and a full programme of 'entertainments was laid on - Bands from the Royal Yeomanry, the Royal Air Force, Community, County & Schools, Bhangra music and Indian Dancers, aerobatics displays from the world renowned Red Arrows and the BLADES , the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters, Re-enactment and Country Skills Groups, the Leicester Tigers (the most successful rugby club in the country), The Coronation Crown carving and much, much more. The weather was almost kind and people

turned out in all their finery - hats and all - to enjoy a picnic in the park and, if lucky, to catch a glimpse of the Royal visitor. It was a wonderful occasion.
RectoryReserve were invited to participate in the Lincolnshire Marquee, showcasing some of the best foods from the County. Since it was a Special Occasion, and a picnic to boot, we decided to do something completely different. A bit of a risk, which played havoc with our planning skills, but more fun than our ventures to farmers markets. We decided to focus on our now-3 year old Air Dried "Holy Day" ham and designed the "RectoryReserve Special" - a bamboo Gondola containing Air dried ham on a bed of crispy lettuce and a medley of exotic fruits ... to be eaten there & then or film-wrapped to take away. Complementing this was an array of packed  Air Dried ham to take home. Continuing the charcuterie theme we also offered packs of our new

Huntsman salami - a tantalising amalgam of our Curly Coat pork with Lincolnsire venison. There were a few anxious periods when we thought we would sell nothing - then sell out - then have too many Gondolas left at the end of the event! It certainly kept us on our toes! The complements regarding appearance and flavour more than repaid the hours of planning, worry and preparation. We'll be offering 'RectoryReserve Special' gondolas at a Food Fair this weekend - and at events thereafter if the success continues to build! It's so exciting to take a leap in the dark and offer something totally different - almost as exciting as seeing the Queen in person. And if you ever get the opportunity to see The BLADES aerobatic team  - shown here performing a synchronised loop - do go;they are A-ma-zing. The lengths some people go to to see the Queen........

Just-in-times taking their time

Delila's piglets may have arrived just at the right time but they have been taking their time getting out and about. Last week saw Linda marching determinedly up to the woods carrying the paraphenalia of "enticing piglets away from mum" - water container, food bowl and did I see wire cutters there somewhere? Oh, maybe not. But if they hadn't come out pretty soon after that an exit route might have had to have been manufactured. I was beginning to think that maybe they were altogether too dumpy to get out - or even want to..... They're still not getting bold in a hurry but each day sees them venture a little further afield... we have another three or four weeks in which to train them to run in the direction of the barn .... for ease of weaning. Progress reports will follow in due course....

The M(w)ating game

 Ever since he first appeared in public during his first season in the field people have been saying he's a handsome chap and  "so steady for a spaniel" that we should breed from him. Steady spaniels are a rarity! Steady handsome characters even more so. Indeed, all through that first season at our local shoot it became almost embarrassing when the Keeper kept insisting we were going to "put him across" such and such a bitch!
Over the next three seasons a number of bitches were suggested as potential mates - some whom we knew and a few who were just hearsay. For the first couple of years we didn't concern ourselves too much, after all he was too young and there was plenty of time for "that sort of thing".  Then it became more serious. Last year two of the prospective candidates, their dates being "due"

 refused to have anything to do with him. We later
discovered that their owners had got the dates wrong! Well, it happens. Another prospective candidate was proposed by a shooting colleague but her date was clearly passed by the time we were introduced.
So the fourth season started with none of the potential matings having amounted to anything. By the end of January this year two of the possible matches had 'gone away' - one unfortunately due to a heart attack and the second due to 'circumstances'.
The third we had heard no more of and so assumed she too had 'gone away'.
It seemed that a son of the Bestest Gundog was an

impossible expectation. Time went on and I began to look around for pups elsewhere. That proved to be less simple than it sounds. Not many well bred working pups come to market, most being sold by word of mouth. It even crossed our minds that a well bred bitch could be purchased just to mate with our chap! Desperate times demand desperate measures. 
Then out of the blue one day a couple of weeks back the phone rang just as we were leaving the house: "Do you still want to breed from your dog" said the lady at the other end of the line after the usual pleasantries. I picked myself up off the floor, dusted down the phone, composed my voice and responded (trying not to sound too eager): "Yes". So it was that Meg (the third of the prospective 'wives ' who had passed her due date when we first met her 18 months ago, from whom we'd heard no more and had therefore given up hope of ) came to visit.  Rory-the-trainer's advice when consulted about the affair was to "be patient". Wise words.

The first meeting of the couple did not go to plan. It was a very, very hot day and the pair of them hadn't a clue what they were supposed to be doing. We assumed nature would take its course! Nope. Not that simple. Thinking about it though  if you put an inexperienced couple in a room and tell them to 'get on with it' - 'oh, and by the way we'll just stand by and watch to make sure it all goes OK' - you could expect things to be a little bit fraught. So it was. We humans were as nervous as the dogs - wanting things to go well. It became clear matters weren't going to plan so we abandoned the idea for that day and rescheduled for the following morning. When it all looked a lot more optimistic. Nonethelesss, the couple were still being pretty coy. They clearly liked each other but Meg was bent on being a real tease and Gunner was nothing if not the gentleman. We humans began to despair. No pups after all. And then, just when we turned away thinking it was a hopeless case (clearly there's a lesson in that!)  - oops & Bob's your uncle. I don't know what Gunner and Meg thought but we humans were elated! As is the case with such matters, we arranged a repeat meeting two days later. There was no hanging about then. In fact, they virtually ignored us in their rush to get together!  Now there's nothing to do but wait. I now know how an anxious grandparent must feel awaiting the birth of the first grandchild! Hardly daring to look forward or plan but finding it impossible to not do so. As for young Gunner: he's pining for Meg (I say he's in love but it's more likely in lust!!):  He rushes to the window every time he hears a car; looks out the window then at me as if to say "Isn't she out there?";  whines & howls whenever I leave him at home. The 'affair' has not left him unmoved....... In his work he is nothing if not persistent and he certainly has a very good memory..... what that means for his 'private' life I have yet to discover....   Now there's nothing to do but wait....... 63 days and counting......