it's not rocket's science

Rocket has recently been asking  if he could be a scientist 

 as well as him having his usual profession of being a prince - as he's heard so many people refer to his so called science. I personally think that when people say "It's not rocket science" they don't realise that actually rocket science is in fact incredibly easy.  In fact the whole thing is a misdemeanour.

Above is HRH Rocket in his normal princely role of dispensing bon mots to the lumpen proletariat or suggesting that people ate cake. After all rocket science is the testing of rocket propelled missiles which he's very good at testing.

                                  

Here is Rocket with his newest favourite toy Scrappy Nelson named after a terrier's blog that he follows. He has had endless fun with Scrappy Nelson - shaking him, throwing him in the air and racing round the house with him all in the service of Rocket's Science. All rockets, no matter the size must have a body, a nose cone, fins and a propellant system.

                                     

Unfortunately Scrappy Nelson no longer has any of those.

 Rocket now looking rather sheepish as Scrappy Nelson doesn't want to play any more.

 Here is one of the Mrs Walter's coming in to see if Pixie has left any food in her bowl.

I asked Pocket (who said that apart from the fact I'd got it wrong and it was Pocket Science ) if he had anything to say on the matter and he looked into the skies and said "I have seen things you people can't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I walked C-beam's gutter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All these moments will be lost in time like tears in rain."

Really? I said So when did you get into space? Sounds as if you've been watching Blade Runner. Are you a Replicant?

He gave me his superior look and disdained to discuss the matter further though I did hear him mutter Replicat as he washed his paws.

Nancy, who rarely features on this blog suggested that we had a show and tell table. I thought this a brilliant idea and set one up for everyone in the lobby. So far on it is a rabbit's foot, the chewed remote for the tv (I wonder who is going to tell about that) what looks like the liver or kidney of a small rodent, a set of someone's whiskers, my missing slipper (also chewed), a dug up tulip bulb,  the remains of my cheque book and a set of keys.

 Pixie who insists she has nothing to do with any of it tells me that her interesting fact is that now Rocket has had my cheque book I'd better watch out he doesn't start ordering things off the internet and hadn't I wondered why a box of dried pigs' ears had arrived on the doorstep. Apparently he'd even forged my signature though he couldn't help himself adding AKA  HRH Rocket .

First They Came

Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Communists

 And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

 Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

 And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

 Then they came for me

 And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

claws, caws and sore paws

Pixie wanted to be first on the first blog post of the year

She has reminded me that last year we didn't think she'd be with us this year due to her stupendous age (10 in three months time along with her sister Charlie and possibly several more from her litter) and the complications with her lady bits (her words not mine - I wouldn't be so coy)

Anyway she's still full of vim though not so much vigour as her back legs are giving her a bit of jip which she assures me is ipso facto (look it up)

Rocket posing for his happy new year photo which so far hasn't been so happy for him. The other day he went for a walk (err hum - a lurcher rarely walks anywhere) with his new friend Kit and managed to cut his pad on the treacherous flints that abound our fields. There was a lot of blood and he didn't want either me or the vet to wash it. He whimpered and wailed and hid his head under my arm and this was before anyone had even touched it. Yet when it came to the injection and he was told "This is going to hurt" he didn't flinch one bit. He now feels sorry for himself, mainly because of the silly boot he has to wear and for not being allowed to go for a walk.

Here is Pocket during a lull in the Christmas lunch proceedings. I think he thought we might be eating turkey.

Rocket feeling not so  happy new year.

I must be diligent this spring with the duck eggs - I've lost count how many ducks we have now. Here's a batch having their first water experience in the bath,


The rooks are cawing down the track - they'll be moving twigs soon and the jackdaws will be blocking up the chimneys again. A few years back a magnificent tiny (is this an oxymoron?) plastic soldier circa 1960 fell down the bedroom chimney followed by a few twigs and a feather. I was glad to see the chimney was well guarded though obviously not any more. I wrote a poem about it - see below.

Pocket doesn't spend all of his life lying down though a good part of it. He's difficult to photograph when on the move as I tried the other day capturing him on our walk. The picture was blurred. He likes to accompany us in the gloaming when we go on our evening outing. He trots along behind, his tail bolt upright giving little meowing noises to remind us he his still there.
And wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey. I heard him chant. When questioned if he'd been reading WB Yeats he trotted past us, looked into the sky and told me to watch out for the buzzard.

I didn't have to ask Pixie for her interesting fact this time.  Oxymoron is Greek for pointedly foolish
she tells me. I'm sure she added that she thought that was what I was but when questioned she denied it and said did I know that garden snails had 14,000 teeth?

a reminder that soon all this too will flower

       Free as a Bird  (new government laws for birds on leaving the EU)

 The plastic sergeant guards

the jackdaw’s nest against

insurgents, cuckoos and the rest

of its kind.

Yes – the fear of terrorism

has crippled the bird world.

No eggs to be left unattended

Or they will be aborted

Birds can only fly with twigs

ten millimetres or shorter.

Nests must conform

to uniform nest size

No flamboyant features,

only utilise

sticks, feathers and torn up

copies of the Daily Mail.

Be suspicious of migrants

Don’t let them near you

If they’re not terrorists

they’ll be giving you bird flu.

And if you can find a plastic soldier

something supermundane

it might save your chimney

from being hit by a plane.

from my Dust Collection

merry christmas

wishing all the readers of my blog a very merry christmas.

Drawing of Rocket by Chloe @drawmelikethat.

Christmas in our house is a great source of entertainment. There is tinsel and baubles on the tree for cat attacks, wrapping paper and in some cases unwrapped presents to chew. (thank you Rocket - that bill I am compiling is growing very long particularly in the book department) Cellotape to mysteriously disappear (note to self check under dog beds) and we haven't even got out the stockings, crackers and turkey. Actually we don't eat turkey but Pixie does and the brussels sprouts, roast potatoes and stuffing but not too keen on cranberry sauce.

This is a time in the year to reflect on what has gone past and acknowledge realisations of previous behaviour (are you taking note Rocket?) The only realisation I have made is that Pepys the duckling has turned out to be a girl. I must move her come spring or she may not be able to walk again - she is in the back garden with the three boys.

So I've asked Pocket in the philosophical chair, which he likes to spend his time in and has made his domain, for a final bon mot for this year. 

He carried on with the important business of washing his paws and said
Always be yourself unless you can be a wolf. 
Then always be a wolf. 
Have you been on that Colorado wolf website again? I asked. He stared at me and sighed heavily. You don't honestly think I go on your computer do you?
I don't trust him - I've caught him watching cat videos on the internet.

This is a beautiful photo of Pixie taken by my friend Anne Clements from her forthcoming book of other beautiful photos of dogs, She's kindly let me use it here as I think it shows Pixie in a good light.
In answer to me asking her (Pixie not my friend Anne) if she had any interesting facts, she also sighed heavily.
A wolf can run at 40mph which means that being a wolfhound I can run at 41mph.
She went back to sleep and I watched her legs twitch and I honestly think as she dreamt her legs were actually going at 42 mph.

A festive photo of one of the hedgehogs, I tried to choose red towels to give them a christmas feeling. Normally of course they'd be asleep over the christmas period so perhaps the red towel might be a bit confusing.

 I'm considering wrapping Rocket up in christmas paper but have just remembered that a dog isn't just for christmas.

Thank you for reading my blog this year and a merry christmas from me and all the animals that feature on these pages and give me and others an endless source of entertainment.



Wolf Moon

by Mary Oliver

Now is the season

of hungry mice,

cold rabbits,

lean owls..

...now is the season

of the hunger Death;...

...he means to cleanse

the earth of fat;

his gray shadows

are out and running...

from cabin to cabin,

from bed to bed,

from dreamer to dreamer

the book thief

yes he might look adorable but Rocket has turned into a book thief.

When no one is looking (obviously) he jumps onto the table and steals what he can. As it's usually books on the table it is books that he steals. That would be fine if he read them but instead he chews them. I once started a list of things he had chewed with sending him a bill in mind - like my computer charger (£25) a boot (just one mind) (£40) rolling pin (£3.50) I could go on...... but the other day I had been reading a new book I was very excited about called The Dictionary of English Field Names. (second hand £15.) What poetry was in those pages. Cat's Brain Coppice, Dancer's Meadow, Full Belly Dale, Mare's Nest Meadow . I could go on .....
Anyway Rocket ate the lot. Almost worse because it wasn't mine - he ate my friend's copy of Cold Comfort Farm.

The other week on a wet windy dark night I went to put the ducks away in the old wendy house and bending down smashed my head into the top of the door frame. Concussion was diagnosed and I have now put a notice on the door to remind me -saying - DUCK.

 Now winter is upon us the hedgehogs are coming in fast and furious to the wildlife hospital. These are ones too small to hibernate and get through the winter. There is not one that looks the same - they all have slightly different faces  and they are all completely adorable.

 Here are some digital illustrations that Chloe has been doing of most of the gang. You can have your own pet drawn too - contact her on @drawmelikethat. drawmelikethat@gmail.com

 Pocket - usually captured asleep but who at least doesn't eat any books- has offered this gem for the post this month.
To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.
Oh - I said - you've been studying Monet?
He opened one eye, looked at me and said "and you are?....."

 Pixie's piece of interesting information apart from the fact you'd never catch her eating a book is that up to 50 books can be made from one tree. So by the last count Rocket has eaten half a tree at least.

The Trees are Down

BY CHARLOTTE MEW

—and he cried with a loud voice:
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees—
(Revelation)

They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.

For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as they fall,

The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,

With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.

I remember one evening of a long past Spring

Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in the mud of the drive.

I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,

But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.

The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough

   On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,

             Green and high

             And lonely against the sky.

                   (Down now!—)

             And but for that,   

             If an old dead rat

Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of him again.

It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;

These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:

When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away

Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.

It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;

Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,   

             In the March wind, the May breeze,

In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.

             There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;

             They must have heard the sparrows flying,   

And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—

             But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:

             ‘Hurt not the trees.’