I'm back up at the farm at the moment and our lives take on a very pleasant rhythm and routine of their own. Our friends are away, diving and walking, separately rather than simultaneously, so they've asked Em and I to look after their growing menagerie of animals for the weekend.
It works out quite well as I'm an earlier riser and Em can actually sleep past eight without Catholic style guilt forcing her up in case she 'wastes' the day. I can't get past 8:10 without an internal voice that sounds like a stereotypical Jewish mother. "You should be up by now. Are you ill, would you like me to call your friends in case they've got the sniffles? I can make some soup if you're not well? Why else wouldn't you be up?"
This goes on until I begrudgingly shuffle out of the warm duvet and into the cold cruel world with Jewish Mom's final words echoing in my ears,"and put on a sweater!"
(I should point out my actual Mum is completely different to the Jewish Mom voice!)
First job is to feed the three cats, otherwise they wouldn't let you get anything else done. By the time I've made it to the front door they are usually waiting for me. I know their real names of course but I find it hard not to think of them as Ackbar, Bateman and Pavarotti (See previous posts).
I have to fill and place the three bowls of cat chow simultaneously or the cats will start pushing and shoving each other for first dibs on the tender morsels within. I usual place a bowl for Ackbar slightly away from the younger, more rambunctious cats for which she always gives me a look that says;
"A quiet table away from the kitchen? Thank you Maitre D! If I had a wallet I'd leave a tip," before ploughing into the food.
Next up is letting the hens out. This has become a bit more tricky of late as our hosts have adopted another few birds some of which aren't accepted by the rest of the hens. The original six were battery hens and are that dun colour shape we know from egg boxes. At least they became that colour once their feathers grew through and they stopped being the cowed pathetic creatures that came form the farm.
I understand the pressures and the need for a good egg supply but if you experienced the tortuous conditions these animals had to go through you'd pay an extra 10p for free range eggs as well.
However two of the new batch of chickens are more show chickens with a much darker colouring and a comb that flops over the head like an eighties new wave fringe. Unfortunately these haven't really been embraced by the rest of the chickens.
I don't know how you'd say "You ain't from 'round here, are ya boy?!" in chicken speak but the poor creatures did get quite picked on when they were part of the main group. They were forced out of the feeding troughs and would get attacked at regular intervals.
The term hen-pecked has a very substantial source you know.
So an annex at the other end of the farm was built, almost like a quiet retirement village for the two new animals away from the raucous Hen party at the other end. I can almost imagine them together in their quiet little roost.
"Well Phyllis, isn't it lovely and quiet away from those clucking fools?"
"Yes Mabel its nice to have a bit of our own space, ooh pass the tea won't you?"
So once I've let both sets of chickens out, cleared up any damp sawdust and stored the precious eggs I have to grab the empty porridge bowls and head back to the kitchen to make some more.
The porridge is a very simple affair just oats and dessicated worms added to hot water and left to cool but all the hens go crazy for it. It's as if they'd found some way of putting crack in breakfast cereal. As I head back out the cats have usually finished their breakfast and two of them disappear to wherever cats go when you're not watching them. Not Bateman though. From this point she will follow me around the farm wherever I go, not from curiosity you understand as that can be fatal for cats, but to make sure I'm doing everything right and to help out if the horses attack me. Help the horses or me I'm not sure.
As I go into the Hens area you can hear their anticipation over their morning dose of crack, I mean porridge, two will start pecking at my boot, mistaking footwear for cereal in their frenzy, another two will start dashing around my feet and another will have already hopped the fence into the field behind and will now be frantically trying to scramble back so she too can have some food.
Bateman will be sitting slightly behind me watching in quiet amusement.
"My humans don't make this much fuss."
"Mmmm," I say, trying to find a place to lay the first bowl which won't involve me loosing a few fingers to over eager beaks. In the end I adopt the tactic of running in one direction for a bit with the hens chasing after me like they're running a carpet bagger out of town, and then I stop suddenly and place the bowl behind me whilst the hens are still being propelled forward by their own momentum.
Once one bowl is down I can saunter over to the area by the gate and as the hens form a scrum around the first bowl, I can put the second one down in relative peace just by the waiting cat.
"See Bateman? I've got this covered."
"Hmmm," she replies, not convinced.
Next up feeding the sheep. The fields surrounding the farm have a number of horses and sheep in them.
I've never really got horses. I can't really say why, My wife has a theory that nothing that powerful should have a brain the size of a walnut. Most of the domestic animals we have kept as a species were at one time used for something. Cats for mousing, Dogs for hunting and Horses for transport. All have been replaced but yet we keep them on for their affection and our tendency to anthropomorphise them. As soon as we can get an egg out of a machine I imagine Hens will fall into that same category too.
"The horses aren't ours you know," Interjects Bateman," they're just renting the space."
The four sheep are the most recent acquisitions and they are very very dumb animals, but they're pretty harmless and unlike the horses not big enough to be dangerous. Bateman barely pays them a glance as I fill their trough and they mill around repelled by me but attracted to the feed.
We move on towards the chicken retirement annex with their bowl of crack porridge in hand. I might mock the hens reaction to it but the combination of good food and stress free living around here creates some fabulously golden yolked eggs.
The path from the sheep takes in the soon to be occupied pig sty and past the two bee hives.
Bateman stops.
"Those are the bees. I don't think you're qualified to look after them. Besides which you're not dressed up like Neil Armstrong."
I look at her.
"How do you know about astronauts?"
She smiles an unsettling superior smirk and begins to preen her coat.
"My humans do occasionally watch some very educational TV," She replies whilst licked her back leg.
From there it's a short journey back to the front door. Bateman stops outside.
"You did a tolerable job, you can come again," and without another word, she pads off to torment whatever unfortunate small animal she can find.
Then and only then do I take my boots off sit down, have a cup of coffee and feel the world come alive.
