Sophie our lovely young WWOOFER has sadly left the Ranch and gone back to the “real world”. We really enjoyed her exuberance, ever ready smile and miss her singing around the barn…think she was trying to drown out my Country Music !! Sophie will be remembered as she created imaginative name plates for the horse’s stall doors. The project was however not without incident and the no blame policy was quickly called into play when someone…somehow…..managed to leave the lids off the paint cans and I do believe more surface was covered in black than had been intended ( and not by the paintbrush, smile)
Cody, Song, Alissia and Acorn our goat family are also sorry that their young friend is no longer around to cuddle with. Thank you for choosing our ranch Sophie and good luck in the Middle East, we know that you will make anything you try a huge success.
Jeff, on shore leave from the US Navy ( and friends with Dan The Man who spent time here earlier in the Summer) chose to exchange his patriotic duties on ship for possibly much more arduous and certainly much less clean “fun” on the farm ! We have had a lot of fun with our unlikely unpaid farm hand and are sure that we will NEVER forget the rendition of Scotland the Brave on bagpipes in bare feet in my kitchen !!! Sadly, Bran is clearly no enthusiast for our musical WWOOFERs !!! After hearing Carla convert a saw into a musical instrument, the border collie with attitude and no ear for a tune gave her a resounding paw down. It would appear that bagpipes were actually more than the dog could bear, certainly off the canine Richter scale and, after positively lifting off the ground all four paws at once, with a look of pure horror on his face, he bolted through the kitchen to make a valiant attempt to try to hide under the refrigerator ( about 2”). It appears that I also have little musical ear as, when Jeff played the last note of what turned out to be Scotland the Brave….I smilingly commended him on his treatment of the traditional Sea shanty ( aka drinking song), “What shall we do with the drunken sailor ?”…duh, can’t take me anywhere. Hey, just googled it and I’m not crazy ( well, not quite as crazy as I thought earlier, smile) it IS the same tune. Jeff will never think of it quite the same again !!
Well, tomorrow I leave Greg and the farm team to go back to England for two weeks. It will be my first trip with my blue passport and my first trip for three years. I am entrusting the Almost Daily Diary to sub editor Greg and my Guest Editors, the girls. Better go and see what else I can squeeze into my suitcase !!! Take care, keep safe, M