Rachel Wise: Fluffy feathery and footsore freeloaders need not apply

Rachel Wise. Communities editor at Hawke's Bay Today. Staff. 31 March 2016 Hawke's Bay Today Photograph by Paul Taylor HBG 25Feb17 - HBG 04Mar17 - HBG 18Mar17 - HBG 25Mar17 - HBG 0

Sad times. The rescued baby hedgehog I was trying to save didn't make it.

He chugged along quite happily for a couple of days, but on the third morning I went to check on him only to see that someone had written RIP in black Sharpie on the lid of his cardboard box.

"I checked on him at 3am and he was just ... gone ..." said my daughter, sniffing back a few tears.

She was sad, but not sad enough to want to join in digging a hole for the internment. That was left to me, so I was grateful that he was just a very tiny hog.

One of the chooks also shuffled off her perch last week, so there's been a bit of mileage put on the shovel. Or should that be "diggage"?

Speaking of chooks, the rest of mine - the five that are still on their perches - seem to be nothing but a flock of freeloaders at the moment. I feed them wheat and house scraps - from our household and the neighbours' - water them and let them free range and in return I'm getting a miserly two eggs a day.

Nothing to see here...

That's if I collect them. If the grandboys collect them I get one, or none.

"Nannie, that egg I took inside got a hole in it."

"How? It was fine when you got it out of the chook-house."

"I don't know. I just picked it up and it had a hole in it.

"Picked it up from where?"

"From on the ground. Because it fell."

The rooster - Everson - is the only one that has a decent work ethic. His job is to behave indecently with the hens and to crow. The indecencies are occurring on a very regular basis (look away, children ...) and the crowing is, well, incessant.

He does love a good crow, does Everson.

He crows in the morning, then in the early afternoon, then the rest of the afternoon, then in the evening. He crows in the wee small hours as well.

No one seems to mind, but I do wonder if his hens are getting enough sleep. Maybe they're too tired to lay?

They do, however, have enough energy to scramble over the fence and head towards my vege garden several times a week, and plenty left over to run and dodge when I come after them with my leaf rake.

But not all of the freeloaders are of the feathered variety. There are furry ones as well. Specifically one big brown furry one that has expensive taste in shoes.

Since I had an accident last year, ending up on the wrong side of a large horse (I've since been reliably informed the rider is meant to be atop the horse, not the other way around) people tend to ask me if I am riding again.

"No I'm not," I reply and they say, "Good, probably for the best, you don't want to get hurt again."

Nope. I'm not riding because the big "quiet" horse I fully intended to be riding this summer has a limp. A small but persistent limp. Every now and then he trots down the paddock like he's completely fine. Then he sees me looking and limps theatrically, sneaking a look to make sure I'm watching.

Chalkie wasn't always a freeloader....

What gets me is why are all the other horses - the ones I am not intending to ride - perfectly fine?

I have no intention of riding Philip the Mini, because I would squash him. But he's fine.

I'm not riding Nigel No-Mates either, although I do fully intend to lash him to a pony cart some time this summer and make him drag me about. But for the moment, he's fine too.

Sunny the Welsh pony is also fine. Very well indeed, actually. Fairly bursting with fine-ness (and too much grass). I'm not riding him, although the odd brave child does.

Bryn, who I do fully intend to ride, is in the peak of health. I need to be a little fitter and get a bit of practice in before I venture on to him though as he's ... bouncy ...

And that's where Chalkie was meant to come in handy.

It seems Chalkie sees himself as more of an ornament. With a bit of luck this week's visit from the farrier will sort him out and he'll make himself useful again.

It could be worse. He could have gone the way of the hedgehog and the sixth chook. That would put far too much mileage on my shovel.

So Santa, if you have space, can you bring me a spare leg for Chalkie, for Christmas?

No? Okay I'll have a new shovel then. Just in case.