Hi Guys

Well it has been ‘A Dog Of A Day’ today.  I decided this morning as the sun WAS SHINING (I take back what I said in my last blog!!) that I would really get ‘stuck in’ to the veggie gardening and get loads done.

Well I started off with pinching out’ and  tying up the tomatoes………which took awhile as there are approx 140 of them!! Then I tied up all of the onions which I have been drying for a couple of weeks now and hung them in the tunnel.

Most days when I am gardening I let one of my dogs Buddy out…..he is only 1 year old and I have been training him off a lead so that he follows me and doesn’t run away…..so whilst I work he wonders around the land hunting…..as terriers do and digging holes where ever he can…..luckily we don’t really have a fancy lawn…just rockeries and lots of meadow land so he can do what he does best…..dig dig and dig.  In order to keep a check on him I call him back every 10 mins or so……BUDDY I call……usually he is back looking for his biscuit within a minute or so……I do spend a lot of my day shouting his name but luckily for us we don’t have lots of neighbours……if we did I would probably have been locked up by now!!

We own 3 Parson Jack Russells……Ralph is the Daddy, Buddy who is 1 and Tilly who is 2 are his ‘off spring’ . Tilly lives with my daughter at college….and when I say at college…..this dog really does go to college and lectures (only in Ireland)  so she is away quite a bit. Ralph is a ‘city slicker’ who used to live in the UK and doesn’t venture out too much….unless he is on a lead……as he would run off down the road looking for a playmate….more his age….he is nearly 10.  Buddy loves to play with Ralph but he is a bit like an ‘off the rails’ teenager and is not getting on too well with his Dad…who is usually sleeping or smoking a pipe lol 😉 or watching the box (that would be everything that moves outside of the house).

So today I called Buddy as usual after leaving him wander for probably about 15 minutes…..no Buddy came for a biscuit….so I called him again and again and again.  I then looked into the field next to our land and there was Buddy playing ‘tag’ with the brown cow.  Now this cow and buddy have become very good friends…..Buddy needs a playmate and when Tilly is not home he does get a little bored and wanders more than usual……When he first ventured into the next field and met the brown cow…..he barked and ran round and round the cow……but the cow wasn’t in the least bit interested…..which puzzled Buddy somewhat…..eventually Buddy decided that as the cow would not play with him…..he would just follow the cow and eat grass!!! It is very funny to watch and the cow completely ignores Buddy…….he even lies down and lets Buddy wander around him.

So I called Buddy and he looked over at me…..and turned away…..typical teenager I thought…..then I called him again……this time he looked at me and then ran the other way….towards the sheep…….OMG…..NOT THE SHEEP……this is not a good thing…..as the farmers do not appreciate dogs chasing their sheep and have been known to shoot any dogs that are found in the fields with their sheep. I called and called and called…..in the end I gave up calling and knew I had to go into the field and find him.  I could see the sheep in the distance running for their lives…..and my buddy Buddy running after them (being a white dog doesn’t  help!)  I walked down to the next doors house which is a bit of a walk and climbed over their barbed wire fence into the field…..continuously calling Buddy.  I could see him in a corner of the field near a bush……he was jumping in and out of the bush and I knew by the antics of him that he was playing ‘tag’ with……yes…..a sheep.  I ran over and screamed at him but like any bad teenager he carried on…..the sheep was giving as good as he got.  Eventually I dragged him back to the house…….shouting and roaring at him for being such a bad dog and threw (not literally) into the yard…..with his dad….and told him he was GROUNDED 😉

Not long after this little episode it became very busy on the roads….there was even a traffic jam…….BAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!

I did give in a little later on today and Buddy did behave…….although when I was closing up the tunnels he got a little confused as to which was the way out 🙂

I did manage to get a little more gardening done and moved all the peppers and aubergines to the hot house tunnel (the smaller tunnel) which reaches 100 degrees, the larger tunnel is usually a few degrees cooler so I grow all the toms etc in the smaller tunnel.

Training will continue tomorrow 🙂

Good Night

Eve