Christmas is over

Well it is now Boxing day evening and Christmas is well and truly over. We had a lovely Christmas day with my son, David and family. Christmas lunch with all the usual trimmings, lots of presents followed by a walk round the farmwith our dogs and David's dog who often stays with us. We checked on the alpacas who did not seem to know it was Christmas. It was great that my Mum was fit enough to join us for the festivities, although she was very tired at the end of the day.

Our Granddaughter was fascinated by the kittens and we enjoyed games of pass the parcel and charades before David, Jane, Zach and Tara set off for home. We all agreed that if the East Devon Council allow us to build a proper house here it would be lovely to have all three sons and their families rather that one at a time. It is not so bad in the summer because we can overflow outside but in the winter space is very tight.

Today we planned to have an easy day, although by the time we had got everything back to normal and done a few small jobs it was lunchtime and I am not sure where the afternoon went. We were quite chilly by about 4 p.m. and went indoors to sit in front of the fire. The kittens came in and lay in front of it preening themselves. The dogs all settled well, and it was the most relaxed the whole pack had been since the arrival of Polly and Souki. Their antics are very entertaining but rather too exciting for our collies and lurchers.

Sales in our shop were very good before Christmas so it will beinteresting to find out if we get any customers from now on. After Easter it will probably perk up again as we get quite a few holiday makers calling in over the tourist months.

We are going to concentrate on halter training the weanlings from now on. We only have three cria still with there Mums now so we had better get on with it in timefor the shows starting March.

The hens are still laying well and Millie is still doing the egg hunt every day. She did break one yesterday but I am hoping it is a once off. The dogs steal the chickens' food so today I put their feed bowls on top of the wood pile but Romie (my young greedy collie) still managed to climb up and dig in. We will have to revert to plan A which is that we feed the chickens when the dogs are shut in!! I had a bit of a panic this evening because I was reading and did not notice that it had got dark. I went out with a torch and luckily they had all put themselves to bed so I just locked them in. I would have been very unlucky if any of them were still out as they are black and would be hard to see - although I am sure that a fox would be able to smell them!!

Still all is well that ends well.