The Ice Man Cometh

Yes indeed, we have post! I am thrilled because:
My papers have finally arrived from America. They are beautiful and well worth waiting for.
My December stamps have come from Little Claire Designs. They are little elephants and very, very sweet. I can't wait to start using those.
My pack of envelopes has come, so I don't have to panic about not being able to make square cards.
Crisis over then. Still no photo for Mr O, though. It's been nearly a month. We've decided to wait until Monday and if it hasn't arrived by then, he'll be contacting them.
Now if only the dustmen would come...
This morning I have woken up and there are patches of solid ground visible in the snow, patches of black and green, and unfortunately lots and lots of dog poo. We won't go there. There is supposed to be a thaw over the weekend, but it's supposed to go down again next week, which is going to be very, very depressing!
Barnaby is, strangely, being an absolute sweetheart while this bad weather is going on. It reminds me so much of when he was on box-rest because of the broken pedal bone. He got a bit stir crazy and used to help Mr O muck out at night. I am making sure I groom him every day, and he absolutely loves it. He has increased his actual 'scratch me' time to twenty minutes. He just loves that time with his rug off, to let his skin cool. I am his only opportunity to mutually groom. Have you ever been goosed by a horse?
He has also started doing something he used to do with Mr O, but has never done it since we've been here. He walks down to the field carrying his own leadrope in his teeth. It's very sweet. And the biggest thing was that when we came back from shopping on Saturday, he did his deep whinny as soon as he saw me. Mr O had already gone in and he didn't do it to him, he did it to me. My heart absolutely leapt. Pathetic, I know.
I tie him up before I go in to his stable and he does what I call wiffleing (I just had the big decision there of how to spell a made-up word!) He wiggles his muzzle over the leadrope and undoes it. I really don't know how it works. He can also wiffle on your jacket pocket when he wants a mint. So it occured to me, that that makes me Wiffler's Mother, doesn't it? (Snigger!)

Here comes a bit, that isn't for the faint-hearted (or vegetarians). If you are either of those, or both, you may want to wander off and come back tomorrow, and not read any further, although if you didn't blanch at the dog poo comment, you can't be too feeble!
As you know, we have chickens. And this year, they have hatched quite a few eggs. It turns out that chickens hatch 60% males. You only need one cockerel and his name is George. Unfortunately, three of the four chicks Penny had in her first batch have grown up to be fine, handsome cockerels, too. This presents a problem, because they are beginning to do what healthy cockerels do best (and it isn't eating!)
Missis has tried to source someone who might come and take these chaps off our hands, but we can't find anyone locally who can 'do the deed', so Mr O has bravely volunteered. Obviously we weren't entirely sure how to go about it, but last weekend we watched a video of a man who did it in a very calm and humane way, so we have decided this Saturday will be the time to do it. I've debated about putting this on my blog, but the whole point of it is to catalogue our experiences while we're here, and this will definitely be one of them. I'm just so sorry I've named one of them Arthur.
So think of us on Saturday evening while you're enjoying yourself at the cinema or a Christmas party...