Millie reminds me of a meerkat

IT was a clever move to leave the sunroof on the car open whilst we had lunch. We watched the rain bucket down and I never gave it a thought until I got in the car to go and do some shopping. Soggy botty syndrome.

But the rain is much appreciated. What a lovely fresh smell permeates the air and everything look so green. It will do the pastures no end of good.

No smells (other than the normal ones) within the house, but a lot of cheeps instead.

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The clutch of bantam eggs that I set in the incubator has hatched out. These chicks are a few days ahead of a clutch of eggs under one of our few remaining bantams.

Their numbers were ravaged by a daylight raid by a fox.

The hope is to slip these chicks under their foster mother when she has hatched her own brood. Normally works.

The cows this year had continued to surprise us with a late calf or two down the fields.

It was the perfect situation for them to calve in. So much more stress-free calving out in a field rather than in the crowded fold yard.

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It is not so bad when the cows first go in in the autumn, but by the time the cows and their calves are due to leave the foldyard in the spring, it seems claustrophobic in there.

The cows probably consider it cosy. We finished lambing with a triumph of twins at the end. All doing well.

The pet lambs, though, were pests. The three of them, twins whose Mum had died, and a triplet pushed out by its more aggressive siblings, bowled you over if you had to venture out into their paddock.

Unfortunately I had to go through it to get to the hen house.

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Add to this they managed to ruin the gate into the hen run by pushing to get in when I go to pick up eggs and check on my broodies.

John put a lamb creep in the paddock so they could feed ad lib from protein pellets, but the lambs would still rather have a bottle.

When we cut them down to just one bottle a day they were very peeved pet pests.

Recently I have been walking the dogs through a wheat field that is as far inland as I can get on the farm in the Landrover. I go there because it is away from any stock and the dogs can run freely.

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It is most amusing to see Millie, the Jack Russell trying to keep an eye on the other dogs so she can keep track of them.

The wheat is getting on for two foot high and once she is in amongst it, she is invisible. And so are they. To her.

To see, she stands on her back legs. She reminds me of a little meerkat balanced on her hind legs with her front legs crossed across her chest.

comparethemillie.com in her case.