It's been cold this June! I suppose after such a mild start to 2016 the arrival of winter finally, would be a shock. However it feels colder! We've been on the farm for 16 years and it's been a number of years since I've felt so cold. The rain is welcome though and the creeks have slowly started to trickle water onto the dams. My stock of dry wood in the shed is going down as we are burning it all day most days. We'll have to go out and cut some more but it'll be damp so never burns as well. I spend most of the summer preparing for now.

I've grown up with dogs, my parents were partial to Golden Retrievers! I've trained Australian Shepherds for agility and tracking, but also just to be lovely family dogs. So I thought when I was told about a 'special' Border Collie what could be any different. Well it's been a roller coaster ride! Any thoughts that I may know what I was doing as a trainer have constantly been dashed! I've told everyone I wouldn't have another. She's pushed all my buttons, I can love her and hate her at the same time, and now she's been diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma on her back lower leg. Is it just Border Collies but they get under your skin? They start offering a behaviour before you've shown them anything, then they cock their head to one side giving that look, yes I knew what you wanted. However now I have to make difficult decisions about her future.

The chicken and duck sale was held in a tin shed lined with cages, from the floor to the roof. Between was a narrow aisle which we had to squeeze past the others also looking at the chickens. We came with an idea of the breed we wanted and in the end bought four Australorp batams, beautiful black birds, which when the sun catches their feathers give of a green sheen. Once home the main worry was how our older two ginger coloured chickens would accept them. They were kept in the main coop for a week but after we'd found one was flying out we let them all to free range. In the end nothing happened and all six chickens just wander around, scratching for things to eat. The young ones live in the coop, while the older two have taken over our wood shed!

Next the new chooks had to learn how to use the pop up feeder. We use this feeder rather than the others to keep the sparrows away! They quickly learned, being hungry speeds up this process.

All this of course leads to having your own eggs and for these we had to wait a few more weeks and then there they were!