Happy Halloween (again)

Horatio and Bailey have asked me to pass on their Halloween greetings to you all…

Bailey - 17 October 2008

Horatio (devil cat) - 18 October 2008

Happy Halloween

T’is the season and all that!

Happy Halloween

Oil bandits on the take again

I’m sick and tired about hearing people moan about the amount of tax we pay on fuel when it’s reported that:

Oil firm Royal Dutch Shell has reported a 71% jump in its third-quarter profits, helped by record high oil prices earlier this year.

Shell earned $10.9bn (£6.6bn) between July and September – up from $6.4bn a year earlier.

Crude oil prices reached a record of $147 a barrel in July, but have since fallen back sharply.

Earlier this week, rival BP reported that its profits during the same period had more than doubled to $10bn.

Source: BBC

SIX BILLION POUNDS? SIX BLOODY BILLION?

ARE THEY HAVING A LAUGH?

DROP THE PRICE OF FUEL, YOU BASTARDS!

Not as young as my teeth…

… but they feel one hell of a lot older than me right now! For almost a week now, I’ve had a constant, nagging toothache that has every so often stretched all the way from my temple down to my neck, detouring to include my eye and ear. Needless to say, I have not been a happy bunny, so my apologies to anyone who has been caught the sharp end of a particularly throbbing moment!

I have tried several means of beating the pain down, from ibuprofen to (and I can’t believe I did this, yuchy yuchersome yuch yuch) lemsip. Then B suggested getting some soluble paracetamol and gargling that around the affected area. Asda didn’t have any paracetamol but they did have asprin for 24p so I’ve been gargling that since yesterday morning (not the same glass, you understand) and lo and behold, it seems to be doing the trick. So long as I drop another couple in a glass every six hours or so, all is good. Huzzah!

I’ve got an appointment with my NHS dentist in November so will hang on til then as I don’t fancy trying to find an earlier appointment anywhere else. I mean, where else is there?!

One small step for a cat…

Watching the boys leaping about the place now, it’s hard to believe that there was ever a time when they couldn’t manage the basics, such as jumping in through the window. But it was only this time last year that they first plucked up the courage to give it a go:

Hey, look at me! I made it! - 29 October 2007

How did you get up there? - 29 October 2007

Waddya mean this ain't the way *you* did it?! - 29 October 2007

Er, so how do we get down? - 29 October 2007

Awww, bless!

Unregistered Kune Kune piglets for sale

UPDATE: All the piglets have now been taken. I’ll put up another post when I have got some more for sale. Comments are therefore closed.

UPDATE #2: As of 31/12/09, I have Kune Kune porkers and adult sows for sale: click here for more information!

I have two litters of unregistered Kune Kune piglets for sale, four aged 10 weeks, and another four aged 7 weeks. There’s an uncastrated boar in each litter, the rest are gilts.

Winter is coming

Well, I keep saying I hope it will be a cold winter, not a wet one and – for now at least – my wish seems to be coming true. I know we’re not getting the same weather as much of the country, but it was a cold start this morning, with ice covering windscreens (not mine! I have found the perfect frost-free place to park!) and generally making the morning a bit brrr-chilly.

This was how things looked at the farm this morning:

Frost - 29 October 2008

This is why:

Thick ice on Bailey and Brini's water bucket - 29 October 2008

But things soon warmed up in the sun and I was able to take my welly off for a bit of mutual itch-relief with Scratchy:

Ah, that's better! - 29 October 2008

Is Brini preggers?

Blimey, that sounds like a bad headline for a worse soap opera! I am, of course, referring to my Kune Kune gilt*, Brini, who I bought at the start of July and have been waiting ever since for her to get knocked up by Bailey. I’m still waiting but a friend who bought Brini’s sister, Brusco, from me, had an unexpected surprise a month or so ago and the four additions to his fledgling herd are proof that there’s nowt wrong with Bailey’s side of things….

Of course, Brini could have gone on fertilization strike on account of what happened when she first came hogging** when Bailey well, got things the wrong way round…

Bailey gets the wrong end of the stick. Poor Brini - 8 July 2008

Bailey did manage to get things sorted out and covered her properly later that day and today is Brini’s first due date from then. However, she’s come hogging every 3 weeks without fail and they seem to have enjoyed every minute*** but this waiting lark is getting a bit tiresome!

Having said that, I’m quite glad she’s not in pig just yet and if she wants to wait until December, that would suit me down to the ground as she would then farrow in the spring.

The bad news is that she may well be infertile but I’ll cross that bridge another time.

* Gilt = female pig who hasn’t had her first litter. A sow is a female pig who has had at least one litter
** Hogging = when a sow / gilt comes into season
*** I’m not a piggie perv, it’s just that they’re not exactly discrete!

Kittens take on the grass

Another photo of the boys from last autumn, this time when they started to gain their confidence outside and wanted to know what the green thing on the ground was and why those funny brown things that make a rustling noise looked as though they would be fun to chase about.

The boys examine the grass - 28 October 2007

I miss having kittens!

Incapacity benefit

I haven’t read the proposals for the changes to Incapacity Benefit so I have no idea what the specifics are but it has always been my feeling that too many people are written off by the system when they can and want to work but are classed as incapacitated. And there are others (admit it, we all know at least one person) who fiddle the system. I know two cases of “bad backs” that don’t seem to get in the way of DIY projects such as building extensions and farming. Those that genuinely cannot work should get a hell of a lot more than they currently do (and a much simpler system; I tried to find out the different rates of entitlement and had to give up as I couldn’t work it out!) and those that can work should be given help, support and training to get them into the best possible job.

Of course, in an ideal world, benefits (with the exception of incapacity benefit) would meet the basic daily costs we all incur but the national minimum wage should be set at a level that far exceeds the basic living costs so that we don’t penalise people who are on benefits, we instead reward people who work. That way, we can all put poverty behind us and can afford life’s little luxuries such as heating or food.