PhotocatsEyes

A new year is lurking...

Today is not different from yesterday. Still the same squirrels in our garden. Same pheasants. Same sheep. We take someone’s word for it that we have entered a new year. I never felt special on newyearsday. Not like people who find a special exitement on this square on the brand new calendar.

But to stay in order and polite: I wish al my readers a good 2010, with in the first place a good health. As that is the most important thing we all have to gain or loose. All the rest comes in second place.
My best wishes come straight from Knaresborough to where you all might live, spread over the globe. I have readers from Australia to China. Honest.

Knaresborough for now is still covered in snow, nice enough to be on a post card if you ask me...
And since we are talking snow, I have to cover our sheep in our back meadow.

It looks romantic and fairylike, but I am still wondering why the animals do not get extra food. It seems that the farmer is feeding them. well, if he is, I don’t see it. Nor did the person who came and inquired in name of the RSPCA.
I did call animal wellfare in the beginning of the week, as I could not stand it anymore to see the beasties scrape the ground for food.

The lady from Trading Standards said that the grass is not that rich in nutrition value, so they DO need extra hay and vitamins, especially since they look pregnant and have the served sign on their back. They have been served by the tup who left a paint mark on their back.

It’s not that I enjoy reporting farmers, but I reckon that I better warn once too much then once too late. Me nor my neighbors have seen any feeding going on for the last fourteen days for sure, if not longer.

It must be said in the same go that most farmers around do take very good care of their animals. Lots of meadows with pens filled with hay, the Alfafa kind...
It is a lovely view to see the sheep huddle around the pens, always one brave who dares to jump on top of the hay. The best feeding place in the world.

Lets hope that by now the farmer got the message that he has two crossed families watching the sheep being without food.
Once we see food the calm will get back.

Then we will be able to go on with our life, as in packing for the trip. The living room table is starting to look like a sales yard...
More later!

I hope you all have a great first day of 2010...

A pouting squirrel

Is the result of a fierce battle. The day started well yesterday, with a squirrel eating his daily breakfast. On our feeder. He was surrounded by other animals, sheep and the female phaesant hen again.

They all want their share of the food. Although we must admit that the feeder is meant in the first place for the furry brown faced squirrels, big in tree climbing and fence sitting/runnig.

Claude shouted down that the hen had to get lost, he was eating his breakfast and was not having any interruption. Cappice????

The hen had not cappiced it, and a second later she was on top of the feeder. Like we know her now, sticking her head in the feeder, and picking out the goodies. She had not taken in account that Jimmy is a cousin two times removed from Claude, and family sticks together. So Jimmy tried to hunt her away.

Without much luck. The hen looked up for a minute and went on with the nut plucking.

Jimmy tried to get her to leave with another tactic, how about going up via the basement, and give her a little push in her angelic but, that should take care of her...

It didn’t, and the hen got slightly confused as Claude came back. The hen is not a big light in multi tasking. Keeping an eye on one squirrel is one thing, but two of the treerats is too much.
“Treerats” is the very ugly word phaesants use to point to squirrels. I have told them on several occasions that I do not want to hear the TR word, but do they listen? Nope...

Claude is being very brave, and goes frontal... The attack almost works, almost is not enough... The phaesant wiggles for a moment and find her balance back.
She continues to eat.

Claude is feeling extremely p*ssed now, and backs off. He tells me that he will be back in an hour. He’s had it with that phaesant...

He goes to pole nr 3 and sits there pouting. I decide that I better leave him be, a pouting squirrel is not good company. He is muttering and I hear a lot of not repeatable words...
I will have to give him time out... On the other hand, I can believe that he is crossed. It is his food bunk and he can’t access it till her ladyship decides to move.
Claude does not believe in communication either. If it were me, I would talk about it, but he does not. He goes the childish way, pouting and hoping that the phaesant will budge and move.
The phaesant can’t be bothered though, she does not give one little bit of something about the squirrels, so the pouting goes unnoticed and leads to no solution.

Inside my living room table is still claimed as computer repair store, bean stalk finally can connect to the internet, can finally hook up to my computer on our network and can finally watch the Surf Wise video that I got him two years ago.
For some odd reason he had lost the original, did not care to watch it on my computer, so we hooked up his computer to our network. Sigh. It all worked a charm, except for my living room table that is covered with cables, disks, hard disks, laundry ready to pack for our trip next week... I forgot what it was like, having kids in the house. Hogging up all the empty space and filling it with “things”.
But since he is only here for four days, I can live with the chaos. We can have our empty living room table back next week.

And since I am working on my grand daughters scrapbook, I can’t deny you all, my blog readers, a little picture taken back in 1956 (on the right) and some of the pics I took in November 0f 2009.
Does anyone see what I think I see? I am doing a page about family and how we all connect...
Some more packing to do now...

One carry-on per passanger, how will I fit my 17 inch laptop, D300 and D5000 plus two lenses in one bag??? I know, the pressure is on... As both camera’s need different chargers, flash cards, batteries...
It will be interesting next week Monday in Manchester. I will keep you all posted!