June 2023

20th

Our kitchen garden's perimeter fence was finished today; the back portion had been exposed for nearly two weeks due to a wire shortage. Charlie will have to make the gate for me. Furthermore, a hundred yards of mesh and posts were acquired to encircle the farmhouse paddock.

The nets have sagged, so Charlie is going to run wire across the top. He saw that part of the stone walling had been destroyed by the storm on Monday, and pieces of it had rolled down the steep slope of the paddock, making us worry about the lambs.

19th

Overheard pigeons on my balcony, opened the door and two pigeons flew away from their nest. The nest, built recently (no eggs) was swept away, hours six hours later another nest appeared.

They were kicked out without much of a fuss or guilt.

18th

We decided a week ago to go for a drive today, we picked up our friend in Hawick and drove to Ettrick.

The Ettrick valley is beautiful, driving along a twisting narrow lane, passing a monument to James Hogg, the Ettrick Sheperd, we noticed a gaggle of sheperds wives gathered to observe a sheep dog trail below. The end of this public highway became a car park, before forking into forest track. Bewilded to see this gravel road go to Over Phawhope Bothy (MBA) 55.361°N 3.293°W; as I stayed a night there. Kept asking myself this question: why oh why was there no walk for me, through the Ettrick valley, exacting reception of inherent worth.

We had planned to revisit the Gray Mares Tail waterfall but altered course to Samye Ling, Europe's largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Eskdalemuir, as we figured this location would be of interest to our friend. Seeing her take lots of pictures reminded me of myself, except this time only a few pictures of pretty flowers appeared on my phone; must state, among this enrichment of nature, there is an admiration of this sangha's spinach cultivation, very impressive. Usually, amidst ego kicking lamas, there is apprehension leaving this peaceful sanctuary, but not so in this instance. We departed with incense, two key rings and a memory of two warming Tibetan smiles; oh why does the oriental past have to be so frightfully jaded and to know they celebrated the world's most prolific mass murderer, Mao Zedong after the famished death of millions, until the puppet regime's condemnation of the "Four Olds". I took refuge and bodhisattva vows almost two decades ago, with Kagyu tradition; whilst no regrets, if world history were known, at the time, bearing over instance of initiation, this would not have been so. Samye Ling has not be left unscaved by this legacy, which still prevails to destroy the Tibetan people today. Remembering the exploitations of the "open door" because for every opened door there is a "closed door" in the western world; remembering there is no "forever" within the maya, if we are to attain Moksha, liberate from Dukha cycles of Samsara; there can be no absence of Dharma; ignorance must never be accepted as bliss if we are to attain enlightment as sangha. Martinism is corrosive and incompatible with Buddhist teachings, being historically contrived from those wishing to debase Christianity, reaping reward from systematically cultivating human failures.

17th

Woodburn Farmhouse.

At Sunset.

16th

Today was my day off, but in the evening I decided to keep Charlie company whilst he did the jobs at the farmhouse.

Every time I revisit the farmhouse garden I see beauty, today I was in awe of bright blue catnip flowers, and have only now just realised the honeysuckle hedgerow.

15th

Was at the farmhouse the entire day, Charlie found more flex for the strimmer, so I strimmed and weeded the garden; looking alright now. The farmhouse still needs a lot of cleaning as the place is still very dusty, and there is black mould in some rooms which needs to be treated and walls painted.

Charlie came back late, we took the dog out for a walk, and noticed how many midges were about now! We enjoyed pizza in the evening, I played Super Tux Racer, having unlocked extra players and racetracks via editing the game's XML files.

14th

Back at my flat today, the drive, returning from the farmhouse, was pleasant. We found different lamb pellets at half the price of the ewe nuts we usually buy, both lambs and ewe find them delicious; result! We stopped at Borthwick water to admire the view, it's a calming place at length from Roberton to the Craik Forest, and the slow flowing water is clean; I am on a lookout for a rare kingfisher sighting; there are plenty of small fish in the shallow depths of this here water. Recieved an incoming weird high pitch, fluctuating tone through the speaker of my mobile phone, almost as if the phone line were screaming at me, whist attempting to ring Scottish Borders Council. I hung up the line and retried with success seconds later.

13th

Charlie had the day off work, we drove to the first grass keep to shear a dozen sheep. From the beginning he did not appear to be up to the job, but his perseverance saw half a dozen sheep sheared before his mechanical shears stopped working. The first sheep kicked his right shoulder red, and catching the 4th sheep dragged him twenty feet through dirt and broken stone, leaving grazes on his forearms.

The last sheep had to be sheared by hand. Emptying the pen of the remaining flock, we felt, but didn't actually realise how much we hammered the morning through until several hours later. And today I learned through experience, that black sheep are more bold and aggressive, more edgy, tetchy paranoid than white sheep who are roughly the same admixture of breed.

In the afternoon we visited Berrick-on-Tweed and walked Spittal shoreline; relax upon the absence of people, and felt safe among the few that were around to enjoy this wide open space. During the summer month, I enjoy the breeze of the North Sea.

We drove to Berrick, crossed the River Tweed, slowed through the town, side lining the forte, twisting and turning northwards until arriving at the dual carriageway of the A1, returning us to bonnie Scotland. The fresh, sea air had made Charlie hungry, we rested at Eyemouth harbour and enjoyed a takeaway meal of chips. Crime was noticeable and confirmed by a police scouring the area from behind a windscreen of their crawling van. Returning to the farmhouse Charlie was shattered with tiredness, I told him to go to bed, whilst I finished the jobs. Working out at the farmhouse is enabling me to lose weight, and also allowing Charlie to do more of the jobs he should be doing, that need to be done; so by helping him I'm helping myself in this instance. He knows I write this blog, but does not get involved in any way; and I'm happy with that. He is very patient and stable with my erratic, disturbed state of mind, and he just keeps on smiling, reminds me of my mascot doll Rosie, she kept smiling, through all the horror it took to get where I am now.

11th

In the morning I mucked out the trailer whilst Charlie finished nailing new hudles; allowing the flock at the first grasskeep to be sheered. We loaded up and away we went.

Charlie sheered sheep at the first grasskeep, after we errected a pen, we caught a third of the flock, baiting them with ewe nuts.

We sheered Teeswaters, the wool from a pedigree was poor quality, she had almost died a few months ago; we sheared her first because she was covered in poop.

Charlie also trimmed and sprayed violet onto two ewes hooves because they were lame. We finished early, letting ewes go, only shearing six sheep as Charlie had to go to work. The evening was quiet, after cooking fish, chips and mushy peas I settled down to do some knitting whilst Charlie bathed, he scrubs up well.

10th

In the afternoon I accompanied Charlie in his tractor rolling silage, but the tilts, left and right, and ups and downs were not great upon my stomach.

The silage hill has to be flattened to squeeze out air from potentially ruining this livestock food.

Fifteen minutes in the tilting tractor I returned to the stability of a stationary car and waited for Charlie to finish his rolling. Only one out of every 105,000 bovine births produces triplets; thats one in every 105,000.

After Charlie showed me a coos triplets, I walked up a lane to a weird tree then took some pictures.

Later we went to the 3rd grass keep to find the ewes and lambs had eaten all the grass! We returned this small flock to the regrown original field after they had been sheared. They were rounded up at the far end of the field, but a tree.

Sheep are difficult in that the more you reduce whilst processing them, the more stressed they become to reenter the flock.

9th

The farmhouse is very peaceful, and I do get some respite there from the endless compartmentalised thoughts environmentally triggered and recalled since the non-stop stalking [explained briefly above] began. Natural scents and colours from the farmhouse garden are calming therapeutic to the mind [from my consciousness being perpetually overloaded], as if bringing me around, at least for a moment, from a vivid dissociate trance. Purple flowers have bloomed from the dead nettles, they are very pretty; our rose hedge has also begun to bloom white flowers that are very similar to calm scented, pink roses I've found on the coast of Aberdeenshire; during month long rambles from the Brock to Banff, from July last year.

I've noticed considerable growth in our kitchen garden today, we almost have a complete green line of potato plants; Charlie keeps suggesting raising these beds to help the potatoes grow. We also have an additional two lines that are now sprouting beans and swede plants; surprising as we only sowed these seeds a mere few days ago! The onions we planted appear to have survived the ongoing attack; beyond scepticism, I suspect the common rider scarecrow helped thwart the attack significantly. Due to shortage of cash, from purchasing a used 4x4 car [the old Citroën Picasso required thousands of pounds of mechanic work to pass an MOT], we are yet to complete the Kitchen garden's surrounding fencing.

8th

Today the partridge eggs hatched in the farmhouse garden; I walked over to get a photograph but was immediately attacked by two partridge parents. They have been nesting in the front garden for some time, I first noticed them when I nearly chopped them to death with an electric lawnmower [I thought the topper would kill something first].

This morning I also found an empty nest in two elm bushes, I lopped the overbearing branches before they grew to reach the farmhouse electricity supply. The antifungal spray appears to have made a difference, but, somehow I still not convinced, doubting this to be fungal, but some sort of parasite infestation.

In the evening, Charlie noticed a fledgling that had been left behind, and would have died from the cold had he not rescued it. I wasn't overly keen, in fact I told him to put it back for nature to take. He turned on the heat lamp and placed the fledgling inside a cardboard box; and tried to feed it with water, then what Charlie calls pigeon milk. I could not be fussed to cook an evening meal, also needing to go out for a drive, we drove into Hawick for fish and chips. We drove down Hawick high street as stewards were taking down road closure signs then out into the wild border's countryside, reaching over the hillside we stopped and enjoyed our meal by a lake, then watched the sunset.

6th

This morning, I was communicating lucidly with a woman who was selling a Land Rover Freelander. Shortly after midday, we drove over two hundred miles south to Chester to purchase the vehicle. We left the worn Citroen picasso to be scrapped; this car never let us down but had regretfully become to expensive to put through an MOT. Returning to the Scottish Borders, we decided to visit Blackpool.

My mother used to bring me to this holiday resort; and walk me along the promenade to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Today's sight saddened me deeply to witness many derelict buildings, between viewing creations revering a once prosperous and vibrant legacy of experience that so many white British families enjoyed and treasured in memory with fondness. Reminiscent memories appearing from Blackpool's dreamy coastline broken abruptly by edginess provoked by waling sirens from several police cars, and then two coastguard cars.

My mother looked after me, as a child here, she was fascinated with a fortune-teller she often consulted when we were on holiday. Charlie observed the buildings as he drove me northwards, halfway to Fleetwood, but, after noticing we were being followed, decided to go east then north towards Knott End-on-Sea.

Stress carried here from disturbed moments at Blackpool evaporated with this panoramic view. We had planned on eating at the Bourne Arms, but overwhelming tiredness detached our plan and thus beckoned a need to return to the Scottish borders. We arrived at the farmhouse at 12:30am, shattered with tiredness I climbed the stairs to bed, and left Charlie to walk the Sam the border collie dog and feed the light naughty lambs contained from obsconding within a pen.

5th

Awoken late, with an aching stomach. We loaded two ewes (who have been bad mothers) onto the trailer, they are being sold for slaughter at the local livestock market today. One of the ewes, a noisy Texel had been bunting lambs hard during the weekend, but the Scottish blackface I questioned, she'd had birthed two lambs without any intervention.

Queasy at Charlie letting four lambs run with two ewes into the trailer, then removing the lambs from the ewes one by one, returning them to the pen. They cried for their mothers, until the bag of ewe nuts came, and thus the lambs were silenced; are not people like that? I observed a Zwartble ewe chewing cud and thought, "sheeple", that could be chewing gum.

4th

I was eager to cut down as many dock leaves with the new strimmer, two fully charged batteries ahead. Charlie started the tractor and cleared the paddock and surrounding areas with the topper. I ripped out many patches of nettles, mostly around two rhubarb patches, that have grown huge! I found wild life and then a strange oddity on the stem of one nettle.

I noticed a bright orange powdery substance on a rose bush, I researched then suspected this to be a fungal infection known as rose rust. This rose bush is located to the North West side of the farmhouse, which led me to believe this to be fungal (shady area of poor sunlight).

After a cooked breakfast we picked up a generator and visited both grasskeeps; we were dismayed to find another lamb suffering from scold; I believe this to be caused by them not being late introduced onto grass from dry straw.

Charlie sheared a large ewe throughly in seven minutes, which isn't bad for a man with health problems in his mid-fifties. We finished nine ewes a couple of hours before sundown; we drove to the farmhouse with four and a half bags of fleece which I plan to spin on a wheel. On the A699, nearing Selkirk we were aggressively tail gated, and dangerously over taken.

3rd

Our common rider scarecrow appears to be scarring off birds that are eating the leaves from our cabbage plants. We took so much effort to keep the wild rabbits out we forgot all about the birds!

I'm a little bit troubled about the wifi network at the farmhouse, our two IPcam's appear to be clogging up our BT router, Charlies offered to contact BT to request a line test as we are experiencing super lag from the farmhouses broadband connection.

My mind was so noisy this afternoon after a visit to Galashiels to pick up an electric strimmer; how can a small town in the borders disturb my mind so much? Sometimes my mind becomes so busy it's hard to focus. Observing the potato crop growing, seeing same plants grow, day by day was impossible when I was on the road, we'll raise the beds higher soon.

2nd

During this morning and mid-afternoon, I upgraded to Video JS 8 from a legacy 7 version. This involved rewrite code for every called instance; video appears clearer, and there is also a pop-up option now. Bootstrap 5 was also upgraded to 5.3 from 5.3 alpha 3 as midnight fell, ending the merry month of May.

Charlie came to collect me after finishing work, returning to the farmhouse we stopped at Borthwick water to take a few photographs. I've been wanting to stop at this location for months to take a few pictures, and enjoy the motion of the water that flows through this beautiful Scottish borders glen.

In the evening we enjoyed coffee, seated in the farmhouse front garden. The partridge is still placed upon her nest, so we are unable to cut down a dock leaf epidemic in this part of the garden until her eggs are hatched. Half an hour later an elderly neighbour came for a reminiscent chat, age is concerning I thought.

1st

Today the other missing lamb was returned to us via a neighbouring farmer, to celebrate this I have adapted a well known song:

Two little lambs went roving one day,
Over the paddock and far away,
Léonie called mare, mare, mare,
But no little lambs came running back.

Two little lambs were so far away,
Searched over the glen 'n' fields away,
Charlie questioned where, where, where,
These little lambs couldn't be seen anywhere.

Two little lambs were returned one day,
Received from over the paddock and far away.
Anderson answered, there, there, there,
And two little lambs were welcomed back.

These lambs had been gone for over a fortnight, but were eventually returned by Sidney's son. We found them placed inside their pen, they recognised us. This rhyme is written not without a sense of irony as the first verse was sung by me before these lambs disappeared, thus the rest was manifest and sung to return the two lambs!