While we have a general veterinary practice on the islands, I was thrilled to hear that an equine vet from Ardene House Vet Practice was coming up to Shetland.  These are the folk who operated on Iacs’ penile squamous cell carcinomas last year, so I booked a visit. Iacs started with a thorough examination and then light let-down sedation. Pepper was official Moral Support Officer. And Iacs “let down” allowing the vet to see what was going on. She washed everything thoroughly and found, while there were no more obvious growths around inside, there was one small one on the tip. For that ..read more

There is nothing worse than a tyre on a trailer that goes backwards fine but won’t go forwards. We tried everything. OH hit it with a hammer, jacked up the horsebox, took the wheel off, more hitting with a hammer, greased bits, put the wheel back, and yay, it worked briefly forwards and then jammed again.  It does reverse ok, though.  Most odd. Anywho, a mechanic friend is popping by tomorrow and we’ll see if he can hit the wheel more correctly with his hammer.  Failing that, to the garage with three wheels on my wagon. After messing around for too long with the trailer, with ..read more

I thought this blog should be about Ted, just in case you’re wondering if he’s vanished. He’s fine, thank you for asking. Ted’s days are spent trying to be “a proper dog”. He goes out in the morning with us to feed all the animals and is a good boy, staying within the boundaries doing his own thing.  Occasionally, he will shut himself in a shed and then say nothing when anyone goes to look for him, but that is pretty rare. Pepper is of course his best friend, Nemesis and leader into all things terrible.  As she doesn’t suffer from any anxiety at all, she doesn’t tolerate it in Ted ..read more

There had been a request from my flute duet partner, Mandy, that we record a few flute pieces together for her father, who wanted to hear us play. Now, we first thought we could just do it on our phones but then, as there is a recording studio in the house, plus a pretty expert sound engineer/record producer, it seemed silly not to put it all to use. And then there are the fans to think of….. Monster under the piano. Ted, who whinged incessantly.  He was quickly banished. And Pepper, who annoyed intermittently. Once we started, Monster left his bed to give us his judgement. You can p ..read more

I had a day out in town today.  A scheduled eye check-up first and then I wandered about just enjoying time away from my usual home routine. I did a spot of shopping…. And I even bought myself some new shoes.  I am very pleased with them and the first thing I noticed was just how comfortable and supportive of my feet they were.  So, like a very proud child,  I wore them all day, putting my old boots (which suddenly looked grubby and old) in the box! New shooooooooooes! I checked on the shop sheep in their field and was told they didn’t need anymore, for the time being.&nb ..read more

I’m feeling a bit low after the sad Baby Bunny news.  I wanted it to live so much but this was not to be. I know it was just one little baby bunny and the whole world is littered with them, but even so. I do mind.  It’s a loss. So I went to have some sheep therapy this afternoon. These two were hanging around.  Lambie and ‘Bert, the original BFF’s. You guys, those faces! And fo course ‘Ster.  The others were mooching around outwith the field hoping I would feed them treats at the front door. Sorry for the short blog.  Just not feeling it really ..read more

A lovely morning so rugs off and everyone said they wanted to go back to living on the track again. This is Silver – he is revolting. I am not going to brush anyone yet.  Winter coats are beginning to fall out but it is not all that warm yet. The rest of my morning was spent adding more green plastic poles to my electric fence or Anti-Waffle devices, as I like to call them. As my reward for lugging bags of poles around the track, I sat on a rock and had a little chat with Albie. And Newt-the-Incredibly-Cute! Late afternoon, and I went down with my two rugs as heavy rain is forecast l ..read more

I dropped by my neighbour yesterday to deliver some specialist feed syringes that has just arrived in the post off Fleabay. Although Baby Bun is not living with us as it is in the more than capable hands of my neighbour (and I would be useless), I feel totally responsible for this addition to their family – hence buying the baby animal feeding syringes and anything else they need at this perilous time. And, of course, I had to have a quick squiz at Baby Bun who is looking a lot less scrawny, and much rounder and….. and…… ears up!  Yay! Ears up are a good sign of development and being ale ..read more

After making my sheep, I usually walk up to the Ancients’ field to check they are ok and no one has colic or worse. Today I took 3 large carrots. One each, fairly distributed or so I thought.sd I am always very popular and they all came over. I noticed Haakon was standing like a giraffe! But a carrot is a carrot and everyone had their fair share. “Smile, please”, I said. And while Iacs was working on his best camera-face, I noticed Haakon was eying up Iacs’ bit of carrot that he had been saving…. Poor Iacs – he had no idea. But it was too late. The carrot was gone. By the time Iacs ha ..read more

I haven’t sat outside with my ponies for what feels like ages.  It has just not been the weather.  Too cold, or too wet, too winter or too meh. But, after putting up some more electric fence posts to strengthen the fence, I had an empty feed sack (originally had the posts in to carry down to the field) with me.  Perfect for sitting on. So I found a spot, put my bag down and sat on it.  It didn’t take long….. Albie was first up. Tiddles stood next to me. (the wind was still blowing – you can possibly tell) Albie and Silver were close by. Storm appeared too. Of course ..read more