On Saturday night I went out into the garden with the dog just before bedtime and was most impressed to hear what sounded like an extremely good guitar practice at a house down the hill about 400 yards away. My appreciation was soon shattered though when a plinky plonky, one fingered version of "Scotland the Brave" began, accompanied by the said guitars and I sadly realised that it was an electric organ with a recorded guitar backing track. Still everybody has to start somewhere so maybe one day they will sound as good as their backing track.
On Sunday morning I finally got round to trying to identify some of the wild flowers in the garden. I had found one particularly lovely flower and had just managed to find from my books that it was Heartsease when the dog calmly walked up and ate the flower.
I would put a photo of the flower on the blog but this is not possible without disemboweling the dog, maybe not a bad idea.
On Monday morning I was going to phone the council to check why our planning application has not been sorted out. Fortunately I checked the councils planning website before I phoned. The website said that our planning permission had been granted, so I was saved the embarrassment of accusing the planners of tardiness only to have them tell me that it had gone through. Today (Thursday) we still have not recieved any official notification but I suppose it will appear in the fullness of time unless it is a cost saving measure for saving stamps.
More interestingly we had a short eared owl quartering over our fields for quite a long time before drifting off down the hill. They are a surprisingly big bird and very good looking.
I took the aforementioned flower eating dog for a walk over the top of the hill and down to Echna Loch. Just before reaching the loch there is a smallholding which must be the dream of many people. Ducks, geese, chickens, several shetland ponies and a small flock of sheep which includes 2 North Ronaldsay ewes. I did not know that anybody except Simon Brogan on Auskerry and the lady at the Woolshed kept North Ronaldsays.
Tuesday was a bit of a non-day, threatening to rain all day but not actually managing it.
We went into Kirkwall to get the timber for the picnic table (bad idea) and I got the wood cut to size. Guess what I will be doing tomorrow.
Now we arrive unerringly at Wednesday, every week the same, Tuesday Wednesday, Tuesday Wednesday, I think it is time we had a change, maybe have Sunday midweek.
I got the table almost finished and Pam painted most of it in between making jam and scones so I may well be eating green jam for some time.
I managed to find, identify and photograph a Magpie Moth which the dog did not eat, she must be improving.
To be fair to Molly dog, she did actually impress me. I took her for a run in the fields and she got into the bit that is fenced off for the ducks. She immediately stopped being a foolish puppy and rounded up all the ducks and put them in a corner. Remarkably she never bit one of them even when her nose was 6 inches from their beaks, just giving them a good sheepdog stare. When I went into the pen she fetched the ducks towards me and put them in the corner nearest to me. All this without any training. The instinct that collies have for herding is remarkable.
Maybe she will turn out to be a really good dog after all. I think that I may give her a few more chances yet.
That's it for tonight as it is past my bedtime. I will finish catching up tomorrow so look out for more exciting episodes.
No comments:
Post a Comment