Tag: grass

Mam’s making hay!

On By geordieroscoeIn Health4 Comments

Way-aye, Roscoe here as usual.

Well, after that quiet (boring) week, this was right eventful!

First off Mam had some friends round and they said hello to us, then went for a walk. Then later that day Mam went down the steps from our grass to look at the bottom grass. We heard her say “Ow, ow, ow!” and a few other things, and she came back and sat down next to us. After a bit she got up and said, “Well, that was lucky, chaps.” She limped back into the house. Then she limped back and got us and put us in, and said her ankle was hurting more now, and maybe she’d better sit down.

Well, next time we saw her, at supper time, she had a big white bandage on her ankle. She wasn’t limping, but she was hobbling, holding onto the door, or the furniture, or just the wall for support. :O

Mam's bandaged foot

She told us she’d hurt her ankle (we could see that) and she’s put ice on it in the other room, and resting it. Later on she went to bed but we could see that she turned her light on a few times in the night, so I think it was hurting her.

Next day she went out and saw some horses! She said it wasn’t hurting so much, and she didn’t need to use it to drive, and she took a stick with her to lean on.

Apparently this is Elgin, all dressed up in his fly-protection outfit

Well, I was surprised, and I think she was too, because she told us later it had hurt a lot in the night, but provided she stepped carefully, it didn’t hurt much to walk on. She said she’d been very lucky. Next day I heard her leave a message for the gardener chap who’d made our grass nice, asking him to come and give her a quote for new steps.

I have to say, the service while Mam’s had a bad foot has been impeccable. Nothing’s got in the way of our cuddles, food, treats, and grass time. Yesterday she stopped wearing the ankle bandage. She said she would strap it up if she was going walking, just to give it side support. She has been resting a lot when she wasn’t out, though. She’s read a couple of books while sitting next to us in the garden, although it did rain one day, and then she sat at her desk all day.

But we still haven’t heard about the new chaps. Mam’s disappointed, I think, but then again, it was easier only having three of us when she was lame.

I’m disappointed too. I’m looking forward to meeting some new people. Maybe it’ll stop Biggles being snarky, too. He gets annoyed when I have private conversations with Neville. Especially out in the garden when we’re discussing who’s using the tent. Or eating that nice Bird’s Foot Trefoil with the yellow flowers.

But anyway, Mam went and cut some of the grass at the bottom of the garden yesterday, long and medium bits like she usually gives us when we can’t go outside. But this time she’s laid it out in the open air to dry, which should turn it into hay. She says she hopes she gets it right this time, because last time she tried it, nobody would eat any of it.

Well, I’ll give it a go, Mam. It can’t be that hard to make hay, surely?

See you next time, and I’ll hopefully have photos of Mam’s hay.

love

Roscoe xxx

We’re all exhausted!

On By geordieroscoeIn Birthdays5 Comments

Way-aye, Roscoe here, as usual.

Sorry about the late start today. We had an exhausting day yesterday.

It was Mam’s birthday. so of course we had to celebrate it with her. This wasn’t easy because several other people came over during the day, and they mostly sat in the garden, keeping two people-distances apart, chatting and having tea and sandwiches. Then when the kids arrived, we had to go out and see them too.

It wasn’t too bad. Seren decided not to have jelly and icecream that Mam had made, but she wanted to pet me. Well, she’s a bit heavy handed at the moment. At one stage Mam showed her how by stroking her hair, then she was much better.

She also fed us grass, but kept taking it away again. I think she thought I’d bite her finger. I wouldn’t do that, only if I didn’t know where her finger was. And when she moves it, that might happen. Mam noticed and suggested she hold it out flat on her hand and let me eat it, ‘like with horses’ Mam said. Well, if that’s what horses do, it works for us, too.

Anyway, after everyone had gone, Mam let us stay out on the grass for a bit longer, while she had a nap. It was quite a long nap, but we forgave her, and we were fine in our run, tents and tunnels. The grass was nice, too.

Roscoe on the grass

Then Mam spent quite a long time on the computer talking to Auntie Sophie, who sent her some pictures of lovely looking chaps. Bit too much competition for me, I think, but the Sheltie and his mate the ginger one with the white hat looked nice. Mind you, the pink-eyed whites looked nice as well. Auntie Sophie said they were very clever. More competition.

But Mam eventually decided that it really was too much for her to drive up and back in one day, and to do it by train means going through London, and that’s an avirus place, so she’s not going there. And even more important, she really wants to get to know the guinea pig people near here, so she has her ‘support group’ whatever that is. So she’s going to email them again to see how things stand.

It would be nice to get that other run filled with some new friends. Then again, we can’t go on holiday to a cottage somewhere once there’s more than four of us. Although… Mam did used to say ‘more than two cages worth,’ and we’ve been in three for ages. Maybe she’ll change her mind.

So that’s this week’s news, and an explanation of why I’m late posting. Oh, I didn’t really explain that, did I? Yes, couldn’t get on the machine last night, because Mam was talking to Auntie Sophie, and this morning… well, we’re all still exhausted.

See you next week

love

Roscoe xxx

It’s good for the Grass!

On By geordieroscoeIn garden2 Comments

Way-aye, Roscoe here.

I thought I’d tell you about our grass today. We have several types, but mostly you can divide it into that which Mam picks (or cuts) and brings into us, and that we graze on when we’re out in our run.

We’ve been going out in our run a lot, and it’s been quite hot in the last week or so.

Of course, Mam has been watering the grass with a little pointy spray thing ever since she realised her new grass needed it, back at the end of March. The trouble is, this spray doesn’t reach everywhere, and some of the grass, including the bit where the first veggie patch is going, has sort of lines between it.

The woodpigeons under the pointy spray

Mam said to me it was where the bits that had been laid edge to edge shrank, so now there’s a gap between the edges. I don’t see it myself, but I’m sure she’s right. She has got a plan for it – she will spread soil with grass seed in it where it needs the lines filled in when autumn comes. But that’s a long way away. Mam has plans for everything, as you’ve probably noticed.

Then she got a new water spray thing which she tried out on Friday. It waters everywhere at once, forwards and back again. And the shed roof and the neighbour’s wall… But it works for the whole of our grass and the top of the flowers beyond, which is good.

Saturday it rained nearly all day. Well, showers. Heavy ones.

Anyway, the grass. We eat the new grass. and it’s very nice. That’s ‘very nice’ because it’s not good to seem ungrateful… The bits she cuts for us with her scissors, or just picks and brings in, are much better. They are richer and lusher (and longer). They have flowers on them, the proper grass flowers, still in their long sheath, and those are really yummy.

The old grass at the bottom of the slope in early spring. It has daisies in it now

That grass grows down in the older part of the garden, where it’s damper and shadier. She hoped we’d be able to go and eat it ourselves occasionally, but there are lots of buttercups and daisies as well. I wouldn’t eat those, Mam. I’m not silly. Okay, you can’t guarantee that the others wouldn’t.

But we only get that when we don’t go out. It’s a sort of conundrum. Go out and have quite yummy grass, or stay in and have extra-yummy grass.

Mam’s been reading up on poisonous plants because she was worried Bertie ate horsetail and it poisoned him. There’s lots of horsetail at the bottom of the garden and it turns up pretty well everywhere else, which she pulls out. But she found some growing in one of the places we’d been grazing, so she wondered whether that was why Bertie died. Then she discovered that he would have to have eaten it for several days for it to have started to have an effect. So that can’t have been it.

It’s good, this grass

You know, that’s one of the reasons our Mam is the greatest. She really really tries to do the very best for us, or at least the best she can in the circumstances. When we get out of lockdown, Mam’s hoping to get some other pigs who need a home. I reckon they’ll be very very lucky pigs to join us here.

See you next week, when it’ll be June!

Roscoe xxxx

Grass is good – and long!

On By bertie bootsIn garden1 Comment

Hello, Bertie here.

We’ve been out on the grass again, nearly every day for lots of hours. I hate to say it but Roscoe was right. Our run moved back towards the wooden hut called the summerhouse, and Mummy cut the rest of the grass with the orange machine. It’s ready to cut again, though. Mummy says she’ll do it today.

Biggles and Roscoe demonstrating the grass mowing arrangements

Apparently it’s going to be cooler this week, with rain as well. So we won’t go out. We’ve done a pretty good job on the grass, even though I say it myself. The bit we had this weekend was really lush. Mummy put the shade tunnel over it to encourage us to eat it.

Then she put the big rails up and I thought we were going to get a smaller pen, but no. She did it just to put the shade cover up for us. And while we were mowing under that, she put a thin white curtain up to give us some protection from the early morning sun. She thinks of everything, doesn’t she?

So that’s everything from me, apart from a ‘get well soon’ message to Digby.

See you next time

love

Bertie xxxx

the palace

Our palace is finished

On By geordieroscoeIn Happenings4 Comments

Way-aye, Roscoe here again.

We’ve got a palace! I know Mam told us we’d have a new set of connecting runs all one level, but I never thought it would be as nice as this.

So, on the left, having a sup from his waterbottle, although you can see his back, is Bertie. He’s next to the window-door. His is a 3×2 panel run. Next to him is Neville (at the waterbottle) and me in our 4×2. And next door to us on the right is Biggles, who you can just about see having a bite of celery in his tunnel. He’s got a 6 cube run, but it’s a 2×2 with a 1×2 extension behind ours to make it the same size as Bertie’s.

Don’t you think Mam was clever to lay it out like that? She says it’s easier to get behind Biggles this way, and although his then sticks out more into the room, that’s fine.

In the cubes underneath Mam’s now put our carry boxes, spare fleeces, our tents, and stuff like that. She’s going to use the ones on the other side of Biggles for her own bits, she says.

At one time last week I thought it wasn’t going to happen. Mam got as far as making the base for Biggles, and put his cage on top of it. We were still down on the floor in our cages, although Bertie’s hardly ever in his cage if the ramp was attached. One night Mam forgot to put the top of his cage down, and he was out for a run all night, since he couldnt get back in! I suspect Mam heard him, but let him learn his lesson. We haven’t got ramps in our palace, although Mam says she’s working on it.

Working on it is something she does a lot of. I was saying, she got Boggle’s base done, and then decided she had to plan it properly, like the legendary George would. So she drew it on squared paper and starting counting grids. And counted them again. And then she said “I’m two panels short, boys.”

So then she ordered some more from Mr Amazonian, who said they’d be delivered by the 28th, which as you know is next week. Mam was a bit disappointed, but said ‘Oh, well, they’ll get here when they get here.’ And then she got a message to say they’d be here on Saturday just gone! And then she got a message to say they would arrive at lunchtime – on Thursday!

So Mam got working on it, and eventually it all got made. Nev and I had to spend the day on Mam’s bed, mind. Well, not on her bed like Legendary George, we were in our cage on the bed. Mam made our base, but put Bertie’s cage on it while she made Bertie’s base. And then she made all the top bits. But eventually it was all finished, and all the floors put down that she’d brought with her, and we moved in.

  • wprk in progress
  • back garden
  • Roscoe on the grass
  • front garden

I must says, it’s smashing. And there’s something else I thought. I reckon we’ll never have to move again. Not when Mam’s gone to all this trouble to make such a nice house. So I can relax. I’m home for good.

We’re at work on the grass, getting there slowly. Moving across the garden again. I reckons it’ll be at least two weeks before we reach the end of the garden. I wonder whether Mam will get the machine out to give it a once over before we finish. She did that to the front grass yesterday, and it looks right bonnie.

See you next time

Roscoe xxxx

The Legendary George

Grass; such an interesting topic

On By geordieroscoeIn garden3 Comments

Way-aye, Roscoe here again.

Mam’s been picking grass for us most days. Biggles has got so used to it that he gives out a big wheek when it’s the right sort of time. Mam comes along and asks us what’s wrong, and we all wheek at her and she realises. She’s good like that.

She’s been going into the garden and picking grass for us. There are different types, we can tell. There’s thick, lush grass which sounds like it’s from the wet and sunny part at the bottom. We haven’t been down there yet. Mam says there are buttercups and daisies and she doesnt think we can go down, but we’d be her easiest way of keeping the grass under control. We don’t eat daisies and buttercups, Mam, they’re bad for us. Just send us down there and we’ll do the job.

Then there’s some thinner grass which I reckon has been growing in the shade. That’s probably from the side of the bank going down the little hill. It’s very tasty, and is the one most likely to have dandelions in it.

Then there’s a little smidgin of our new grass, whch Mam gave us yesterday. It’s short and tough at the moment, but I reckon when it settles in, it’ll be fine.

Mam says it might be warm enough for us to go out this week. She’s not supposed to walk on the new grass till after Easter, and that’s this coming weekend. But she reckons she could put down a mat and stand on that to put our runs out.

She’s clever, you know, our Mam. She works out ways to do things. She even managed to hook the washing machine up to everything yesterday. She spent the whole afternoon doing washing. The machine is still in the middle of the kitchen. She’s still thinking about it.

See what happens this week. Bertie will tell all next Monday. He gets all the fun jobs. He’s put together a group of our posts to tell the saga of our move from Norfolk to Hampshire. I wrote half of it, mind.

Bye for now

Roscoe xxxx