It’s elementary …

 

 

First blossom of spring - Prunus serrulata `Prentice Dancer'

Arthur Conan Doyle has always been one of my favourite authors. I guess it all began when I was 12 and started reading his series of stories about the swashbuckling Hussar, Brigadier Etienne Gerard, and his (sometimes heroic) exploits in the Napoleonic Wars. On one memorable occasion in my first year at boarding school, I recall being caught reading instead of revising for a maths exam. The teacher unloaded on me, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was rubbish at maths and better seize every opportunity to better myself.  It only took about 10 years to recover any kind of affinity with maths after that tongue lashing!

But, I digress. After completing my adventures with the heroic brigadier, I started on Doyle’s more illustrious if somewhat melancholic protagonist, Sherlock Holmes. The beauty of these stories is that, while dated, they are littered with some absolute gems that very often reflect the realities of everyday life quite brilliantly.  I thought that a few utterances from Holmes summed up recent events on the farm quite nicely.

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for last.  

(The Adventure of the Red Circle)

 

 A major recent project has been to fence in one of our bottom paddocks. We assembled corner H-braces, which eventually will provide the stays against which to strain the wallaby proof wire mesh, by fixing in treated logs using a mixture of fine crushed rock and dry cement. This mixture takes some time to soak up the water from the surrounding area but when set it does a really good job. Notwithstanding the efficacy of this mixture, local folk lore suggests waiting until the dry summer period, when the ground is rock solid, before straining. In the interim we have a set up a rather fine-looking electric fence that will certainly contain our sheep and hopefully help to keep at least some of the local fauna at bay.  The relative ease with which we accomplished this task made us realise how much we have learned about fencing in recent months.

 

 

 The lower paddock waiting to be fenced with the silver wattles looking particularly good this year

 

 

How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of nature. 

(The Sign of Four.)

 

We have been quite successful in setting up a reliable flow of fresh free-range eggs from our hens. We have recently discovered that our success may be due in part to the presence of an unkindness of ravens that has taken up residence adjacent to our top paddock near the veggie patch. Apparently, ravens are very good at protecting hens against goshawks, with some commentators even going so far as to recommend leaving the odd egg out for them as compensation!  We have not yet followed this advice, although we know the ravens have filched the odd egg from us.  But not even the benign presence of ravens can prevent the stealthy and deadly attacks of the apex avian predator, the fearsome wedge-tailed eagle. The other day Cath and I were in the shed when our four resident guinea fowl raised a strident alarm. We rushed out to see a magnificent wedge-tail eagle calmly sitting in the middle of our paddock with hen feathers scattered everywhere. It turns out that the eagle, who we surmise was an adolescent, had struck one of our hens but had not secured a good enough grip to be able to carry it off. The hen had lost a lot of feathers from her back and rear but was still alive. While we try to be constantly vigilant against the threat of raptors, we can’t help but marvel at the magnificence of the wedge-tail and we feel privileged to have a family of them nesting in the ridges above the farm.

 

 Amazing how many feathers a hen can lose and still survive

 

Finally, who can forget Holmes' recount of the  the dramatic events surrounding his encounter with the arch-villain, Professor Moriarty, at the Reichenbach Falls:

 

We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been useful to me.

 (The Adventure of the Empty House)

 

Well, I don’t have any knowledge whatsoever of baritsu (but then neither did Conan Doyle because it is apparently correctly spelled bartitsu) but a few days ago I surely wished that I did. Our six Wiltshire horn ewes have graced our lower paddocks for just under a year now and we are in the process of getting them checked for worms and preparing for a round of drenching. The first step in this process was to clip their hooves – a job that should be done annually if not more often. My role was to grab a sheep by the horns, wrestle it into a reclining position against my legs and keep it subdued while Cath did the clipping. I will admit my method needs some work although it wasn’t made any easier by mutterings from the good doctor about the need to watch more YouTube videos to acquire the proper technique! I ended up bathed in sweat and smelling appallingly like a wet sheep, but the hooves were all successfully clipped. My respect for sheep shearers has increased dramatically.

 

After we finished the hoof clipping, I tried this line on Cath:

 

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor.  (The Dying Detective)

 

Predictably, there was no sympathy to be had. She merely smiled and mentioned that there was a trench requiring to be dug and a water pipe buried …

 

 

 If you have to dig a trench you may as well have a view

 

 

Trench complete; moving on to digging up more huge rocks