New spinning wheel and unwanted visitors

It's been two years since I built Susie's spinning wheel, She's now a very proficient spinner and my homemade wheel has started to show wear and tear and squeek and creak! So time for an upgrade. The Schacht ladybird wheel is beautifully designed and manufactured, silent and smooth!

Yesterday a small grey fox came a calling. He tried to take Flocon our white Sussex hen, but i gave chase and he dropped her trying get through the fence. Flocon sought refuge in my office and apart from a few less feathers, she's fine. We'll have to stay vigilant. It's a difficult decision as to whether to build a secure run around the hen house. The chickens are way happier free range but if the fox returns we have no choice. I m hoping he was an itinerant, temporarily displaced by the hunting dogs who came through earlier that morning. 

Then this morning another attack this time by a male martin. Again I ran down to the hen house where he was wrapped around Tiffany our red hen. I managed to pin his rear foot to the floor with my boot and she escaped unharmed. The martin squirmed unable to escape, but I was not going to attempt to pick him up and I couldn't reach a stick to "teach him a lesson", so I had to let him go. 

As if that wasn't enough at lunchtime we heard another squawk...Susie ran outside and this time Tiffany was pinned to floor again having yet more feathers pulled out by a Buzzard - which flew off as soon as it saw Susie.

Chicken run construction is now an urgent project. There was a mouse population boom in spring but it has now crashed - neither cat has caught a mouse in months, so I m guessing the martins and foxes are looking for other food.

I was hunting on Saturday and bagged a huge wild boar of 80kgs...unfortunately it seems it's the predators that causing damage at the moment.

Last week's snow

 

Tractor

I finally got the manuals (in English) and it turns out that the gearbox isn't synchro-shuttle. But I still couldn't get it to stop stalling nearly every time I pressed the clutch?? After much head scratching and trial and error I worked out that the problem was that as I pressed the clutch, my weight on the seat reduced and triggered a safety feature that cut the engine. It's designed to stop the tractor in the event that the driver is knocked out the vehicle or injured...rather annoying as the tractor will stop if you get off it, to open a gate for instance. Anyhow, first of all I thought it might be a faulty sensor but then after adjusting the seat suspension to almost the lowest setting (I weigh 70kg and it had come set to 120kg), the problem stopped. A big relief as it's been snowing heavily on the hills (25cm at 2100m) and we even had a few flurries here today, so getting firewood in was high on the agenda.

Tractor finally arrives

So 5 weeks after I bought it, my tractor finally arrived yesterday! It took about 45 minutes to work out how to start it and and get it to move, the owners manual was missing and it has a synchro-shuttle gearbox which I've never used before. Eventually I got it moving and drove it the 5km from the Castet (where it had been delivered by an enormous articulated lorry) to the house. This morning I got to work changing the wheel hub/rim arrangement so that the tractor is as wide as possible for the steep slopes in the fields. Hopefully I'll get the manuals e-mailed to me shortly. The heavier weight, more powerful engine and generally more modern everything, should make lightwork of the haymaking and allow greater loads of firewood, hay, etc to be moved in a single trip. It's also a much quieter and cleaner engine. The large twin mirrors, adjustable steering and seat suspension should be much kinder on my arthritic neck.

 

Anna

Our friend Anna has been staying with us for the last week en route from Portugal to the UK, with her two dogs Mucks and Sugar. The weather has been mostly good with the last of the autumn colours, so We took Anna and the dogs on a few local walks - Joubac and Cap de Bouirex.

Joubac

Crazy hats found on Bouirex

No significant snow yet but the mountains are starting to look wintery 

The tractor was supposed to be delivered last Wednesday, but the lorry carrying it from Italy broke down somewhere close to the French border and then had to be towed to Volvo HQ in Bergamo to be repaired under warranty. Delivery is now scheduled for tomorrow - fingers crossed!