I should know better

The other morning on BBC News24 there was some southern git moaning about how he had found country living just too hard - "None of the shops were open 24 hours and in winter there was mud......so I had to move back to the city." ROTFL.....but I know there really are such people, and am sorry he missed some of the real country joys, like two weeks without water in the dead of winter because the main has frozen under the field - gosh and golly, that was fun! Carrying buckets of snow up to fill the header tank so that I could have central heating, washing in a teacup of bottled water - and I know you`re dying to know about human waste disposal. Well, you just get out there and fertilize the fields, and pray to escape frostbite......quite a philosophical experience, really. You commune with nature - well, you call it foul names and insult its mother, anyway.

Looked at a really good blog called Raised by Chaffinches - I`d put a link but am not sure how - and he brought up the old saw about skinning a dead lamb and using the skin to cover an orphan one so that the mother will accept it. I think this rates with the one about shepherds castrating lambs with their teeth, and probably belongs in Hardy. Wonderful thing, sheep lore. Told him about the Vick routine. You take the unwilling candidate for adoptive mother and shove a big blob of Vick up her nostrils. Just imagine it, folks. Suddenly her whole world is reduced to Vick. The innocent ickle orphan looks up at her and bleats "Are you my new mummy?", and she baas "Oh God, Vick, Vick, Vick......" It probably rots her brain, but her sinuses will be clear for ever.

Before I wasted my time with dogs, you will gather I wasted it with sheep. Don`t get me started on sheep......