Some mothers do have 'em

and chances are we are mug enough to employ them to do something and live to realise it would have been easier if we hadn't.

Actually we had a very good tradesman over the weekend - a tiler. This guy turned up when he said he would, did a brilliant job, didn't charge too much and was no problem to have round. So Silas from Kre8ive Building Solutions comes highly recommended.

The fencing contractor on the job this week is back in our usual mould though. I will give the guy he has a great work ethic, he shows up and he keeps working steadily, so no problem with that. It's the thinking this guy does when he's not paid to think. One instruction was fence along the top of the hill (not really a hill but the highest point in some rolling land). He agreed that he understood that then spent all day putting posts in three metres over the brow of the hill on the slope while no one was watching him. His reason was the theory about stock going better through gates going uphill.... yeah whatever (what are we supposed to do going the other way through the gate then?)- we envisage this fence will be around for the next 50 years, please put it where we asked. We thought we had sorted that but his next step was to move another fenceline over just a bit (about 5 metres), no reason, just felt like it... *sigh*

This morning he's very concerned that our cow is unwell as her hip bones are sticking out. Well that's Aurora, she's half jersey, she milks off her back on the very best of feed and there is no way round it - by the time we get to weaning you can see her hip bones (jersey cows aren't noted for a good fat covering of course and hips and ribs are pretty commonplace) but she raises nice calves and she recovers between weaning and calving again. He's not convinced - he's said several times she probably has some disease.

When I want an opinion on stock I'll call the vet or the stock agent okay. And I won't expect them to do fencing.