Having rescued a lamb who had been savaged by dogs, we woke this morning to discover that we have feral dogs in the village, My friend Sifis had 6 of his sheep savaged and we think that it was only because of the prescence of Banna that ours escaped serious injury, or worse. You would not want to have seen the damage. Sadly, I did.

The problem now is that the "city" folk in Chania can't afford to feed their dogs and are dumping them in the villages.

The entire village is on alert and everyone has a shotgun under the drivers seat. I doesn't matter  which dog it is . They will be shot. Poisoned meat is also down in the area.

The really irritating part is that I had both dogs within 10 metres of me this morning, but I didn't have a gun.

At the moment, they are still at loose.

Only the rescued lamb, in the house, is completely safe.

The sheep will not move away from Banna. Banna is protecting the sheep.

We will see what tomorrow brings. Fingers crossed. I hope that or faith in Banna to protect the sheep will be justified. If the dogs attack Banna, I will personally scour the area and, if neccessary, strangle them individually.

The almond blossom is out and spring is here

Yesterday we went to a couple of suppliers to find some fencing staples. Of course, we  didn't find any but we did find Joey. He was a "gift" and was sitting in a cage, in the sun, with no water or food. Good choice for my mom, and we took him there and she loves him. 

Got a phone call this morning from our local animal rescue centre. A lamb had been attacked by a dog and it had been reported to them. We went to the vets, who stitched the wounds, took some anti-biotic injections and took her to the farm. She has a serious injury to her hoof and cannot walk. We applied a splint and bandage and have ensconsed her in the "spitaki" until she recovers.

"Tomorrow", in the words of Scarlett O'Hara, "is another day"

Keep on truckin'

Well we thought we'd found a 10 year old female donkey for 400 euros but we have decided that the irrigation project is more important for the time being. Another one will come along later.

Last night we got hit by force 10 winds and the Sahara decided to deposit most of its sand all over Crete. In the old days we used to at least have Gadaffi to blame for this stuff.

We woke to discover that our gazebo on the front terrace had been hoisted into the next door neighbour's garden and smashed to pieces. I spent an hour dismantling it, whilst fending off offers of tsikoudia/coffee/cake/biscuits from Maria. On the bright side, some bits might make good ladders for the chickens.

After I finished, Maria brought round some Madeira Cake, heavy on the eggs. Lovely.

The car was so covered in "red rain" that I had to wipe the windows down with a cloth just to be able to drive it. Water just turned to mud, so the only effective solution was for the windscreen.

Took mom to Kalyves to see her friend Wendy. She had a nice time. Living in the village, she has so little opportunity to speak to people. Almost no-one speaks English.

We were almost frightened to go to the field this morning, but on arrival, everything was fine. The chicken coop had somehow weathered the storm (although it managed to remove a VERY  heavy pallett with galvanised steel attached from the roof) and thanks to advice from Takis to rope it all down, the galvanised sheets on the stable were all still in place. Thankfully, the door had been blown off a few weeks before, so the biggest danger to Banna had already passed.

What a relief. Banna was fine and happy, and the sheep were all O.K. 

Viki went to feed the sheep and discovered that the sheep shelter had been destroyed ...

Hey ho. Not the end of the world. We broke it all down and put everything into the stable. 

I had no idea how much corn chickens get through every day. Scary monsters. Still not getting any serious amounts of eggs out of them. Have installed a wider roosting perch for them.

Les, the farrier, is coming tomorrow. That'll be another 60 euros then. At least its only once every two months now that Banna has the field. Its more about trimming his hooves than replacing shoes now.

The feed suppliers have now run out of cheap winter feed. 


Great.

The silence of the ............ (contains graphic images)

Warning: Contains graphic images

Well, I managed to get to 53 years of age without knowingly killing anything bigger than a spider, but yesterday was a first.

It took about 10 minutes to catch the troublemaker in the pen but I finally cornered it and got a rope around it. We took it to the outside loo and put some food and water in with it.

Viki tacked up and went for a ride on Banna

With Viki out of the way, it was time to do the deed.

Actually quite easy. A sharp knife to the jugular and then continue to cut down through the windpipe. 

I think it took about a minute and I then put hooks through the back leg tendons and roped it up into an avocado tree

Then started to skin it .........

The hardest part was removing the offal and internal organs. 

End product. Just the feet to be cut off ...

 We took the carcass to or local friendly butcher, Kostas, in Armenoi. He cut it up into chops, legs, shoulders, etc and bagged it up (free of charge). When we got home, this is what we had.

And a Lamb Rogan Josh.

Bought a couple of cherry trees the other day and have planted them close to the house. We're hoping that we'll get some fruit in June/July but the blossom is nice to look at anyway.

Sudafed cream seems to be blocking whatever was biting the horse's underbelly and it seems to be healing up now.

After a wild goose chase around Kalyves, Chania and Souda, a genuine conversation from this morning (near Agia):


‎"Hello, I would like a knife to slaughter sheep with please." 

"I'll go and sharpen one for you. They are 10 euros"

(Goes away, sound of knife being ground and an aerosol spray)

"I've painted the handle so its 15 euros"

"You said 10"

"O.K, 10"


The bad sheep now has a limited number of days left.

The weather is up and down like a fiddlers elbow. One minute its heaving down and the next the sun is out and its 20 degrees.

Bit depressing that the wild artichokes are all about 5 times bigger than ours.

Still waiting for someone to come and slaughter the pig.

Pinch, punch, first of the month

So after all that work on the olives we got the princely amount of 30 litres of oil. Enough to keep us going all year in the kitchen, so not so bad. Hopefully it will be much more next year.

We somehow managed to catch, inject and worm our sheep yesterday. Then we had a visit from our friend Brent. Wine was taken, followed by beers on the way home. An early night ..... O.K., we passed out.

This morning was another beautiful start to the day. Viki did the morning feeds while I tried to make my back work (rugby drop tackling sheep is NOT good for your back)

Went down later with Mom and Viki and took the 3 chickens from the back garden to join the others at the farm.

And then mowed the lawn with our highly efficient organic lawnmower

Then down to the river to collect some kindling for the fire

Into Kalyves to get the man to collect our broken scooter from outside the house to repair it and just the afternoon feeds to do now. We're trying to make them later as the days get longer so should be at about 17.00.