Peter Stone

Friends are important and never more so than when you live in a remote location and no one is passing your door on a regular basis.  They don't have to be human; indeed that is why many of us choose pets to be our companions.  Dogs, cats, horses and birds live lives of luxury next to their humans, just so we can feel the reassurance and comfort of another warm heartbeat next to ours.  On very rare and indeed odd occasions, some prefer an inanimate object to keep them company in the lonely hours.  Puppy is one such creature.  He has a best friend called Peter Stone.  Peter goes everywhere with Puppy but sometimes he craves his own company and the blessing of peace and quiet; at these times he goes for a lie down on the rug and reflects on life in solitude.  Not the most demanding of friends, he can leave Puppy feeling a little bemused, but somehow they muddle through and resolve their differences and get down to being good friends again.  Would you like to meet Peter Stone?

Here he is...

  I know; he's a rock.  Poor dog is so deprived of stimulation he has to find things lying about in the garden to amuse him.  Peter Stone seems happy enough being part of our strange little house hold and doesn't make much noise or demand to be fed every five minutes.  Apart from almost treading on him during nocturnal trips to the loo, he is a pleasure to have around.  Soon after he moved in, he felt he also needed a companion of his own.  Puppy can be a bit much at times of great excitement, caused by events known only to him, and Peter Stone felt he needed someone a bit more like himself.  Some days later we woke to find Simon Slate had moved in.

Two bits of rock hanging about waiting for bare feet to become victims of excruciating pain is one thing, but then almost over night two became three and it began to get out of hand.  We think the third is Polly Pebble; Simon Slate's girlfriend.  Heaven help us if it gets serious between them...

The recent cool winds and cloudy skies have marked the end of Summer quite abruptly.  Not only are they responsible for sending bits of rock into the house in search of comfort, but they are gaily plucking leaves from their grasp on branches and sending me hunting in my wardrobe for cardigans and jumpers.  It feels like Autumn and it looks like Autumn.  I have a feeling that our Winter will be very cold and frosty but full of blue skies and sunshine.  I would be more than happy with that, but I'm not ready just yet.  I have noticed the hedgerows are tinted a deep red as the hawthorn proudly holds out her branches laden with ripe berries for the birds.  My mum told me today that that is a sign of a hard Winter to come.  Old fashioned hard Winters were usually very cold and very white, so we will see.

The damsons are ripening well on the trees and it will very soon be time to pick them and make jam, chutney and pies, something I enjoy doing once I have scrubbed a load of jars and got the labels off, which can take an age as some manufacturers stick them on so well that even if the label comes off, the glue doesn't.

Planning ahead for Winter stores inevitably makes me think of You-Know-What.  The cake and also the main event; You-Know-What dinner.  We usually buy a really nice chicken from the butcher and have that but this year I will be purchasing a turkey.  Not because I particularly want a massive amount of meat but because the people at the farm have got some rescued turkeys who have laid eggs and they asked me if I wanted one.  A bird reared and killed only yards from our home?  Yes please!  Buying any meat from a butcher means the experience is all fairly well removed from the living animal.  But this won't be the case.  We have met the birds we will eat.  Gulp!

Awww! Aren't they cute!  They make lovely little cheeping noises too!  Adorable.  They have been reared by a broody hen who has also taken a gosling under her wing.

Okay so I am quite good at growing vegetables to eat and foraging for fruit in the wild, but actually deciding to eat something that has a heartbeat, eyes and fluffy feathers is quite a Big Thing.  But, I keep saying I am a proper country girl, so now is the time to put my money where my mouth is.  I won't actually have to kill the turkey thank God, but I will have to gut and pluck it; cut it's head and feet off and bung it in the oven.  I feel a bit sick about all that and may have a nicely sanitised chicken in the freezer, just in case.  I have gutted ducks and pheasants before now so I'm going on the assumption that a turkey will be the same but bigger.  I reckon I will need three buckets:  one for the feathers, one for the innards and one for my tears...

For now they are fluffy chicks enjoying life in the sunshine with out a care in the world.  Let's leave them in peace.

I hope you are enjoying the sunshine, thank you for reading.xxx