Timberdogs

Today I decided to chop some of the logs that I bought a few days ago. If it's a nice winter or autumn day, chopping logs is quite a nice occupation, it's all sort of rustic and homely and gives you an immensely good feeling when the logs are all stacked up by the fire. Strangely, when I have lots of coal, lots of logs and lots of oil in the tank I feel quite wealthy, it's a good feeling, no matter how much money there is in the bank.

So, while chopping the logs the dogs have to of course get involved. This means hanging around me, sniffing logs I'm picking up and then progressing to sniffing the big log that's used for chopping on and then even more dangerously, sniffing the log that is being chopped. They then all hng around me while I piled as many chopped logs into my arms and took them inside to stack beside the fire. Whilst stacking them, all three dogs watched intently as every log went down and the next was places beside it. I was then followed back outside to start the process all over again.

It's funny how dogs watch your every move with such instense interest sometimes. I was once told that although us humans spend quite allot of time watching and learning about our dogs, we will never equal the amount of knowledge the dogs have about us, they watch us all the time and know our every move even before we know it, that's how while thinking about taking them out for a walk as soon as you've finished washing up will mean that you'll come accross the dog bouncing about wanting to go out as soon as you've pulled the plug. Dogs are fab, really fab and although mine sometimes drive me nuts they all look angelic laying in front of the log burner which is currently roaring away with the chopped logs and a bit of coal inside.

Chicken Feed

Yesterday while cleaning out the chicken house I noticed Henry was being unusually quiet. Whenever I do anything with the chickens they tend to hang around me like a big chicken gang which Henry really wants to join.

After half an hour I went back into the garden to do something else and saw Henry emerge from the store where the sack of chicken corn is kept. What made him look so suspicious was that he was trying to keep his mouth very still while little bits of corn fell out the sides! He honestly looked like a wee boy who had been caught eating sweets and was trying to look like he wasn't eating anything. When I went into the store he'd tucked in to about an eighth of a sack.

Now why on earth would a dog want to eat chicken feed? I do feed him honest, even though he is a skinny dog, but chicken feed? I just can't see anything remotely attractive in it for a dog apart from the fact that the chickens eat it so therefore Henry wants it.

What I do know is that this is going to make for some interesting poop scooping later...