Julie Paton: Visitors and a new family member

Mr Ed has wandered into our hearts.

The first weeks of winter were so mild that early July's frosts caught us by surprise - though I doubt anyone was more surprised than our eldest daughter, who underdressed for milking and then fainted at the cowshed from the cold, giving us all a fright.

Blankets, heat packs and a hot drink saw her recover quickly, but now she's nervous about going out on cold days and may finally be cured of that affliction that all teenagers seem to suffer - deafness to their mother's pleas to "put some more clothes on!"

We had another rescue case on our hands when Rachel, who works here, found a tiny black kitten sitting in a paddock.

She expected it to run away but it just sat and looked at her, so she picked it up and gave it to Bruce.

He brought it home - and once the kids and I laid eyes on the ball of fluff, we had another cat.

We're well on the way to crazy cat familydom now, with three felines.

The two older cats were unimpressed by the arrival of the tiny intruder - judging by the looks and hisses they aim at him - and think of him as a ball of pure evil.

Milo the dog would love to make friends but Ed the kitten is deeply suspicious of him despite (or perhaps because of) Milo's enthusiastic tail wagging.

After four weeks Ed's curiosity drew him close enough to sit on a sofa above Milo, a safe vantage point from which he can hiss at him. Milo looks faintly hurt at this rejection of his friendly overtures.

Another intruder on the farm was less welcome.

The recently weaned autumn calves are grazing out the back of the farm, with daily deliveries of meal to supplement their grass.

But it seemed the calves weren't the only animals partial to meal, as a large wild pig began emerging from the bush and tucking in alongside the calves, then shoving them out of the way and scoffing most of the meal himself.

Mr Pig grew cheekier every day, even tucking in while the person feeding the calves was still in the paddock.

It's possible, but probably not advisable to take on a pig bare-handed, so Bruce, weaponless, was reduced to sitting helplessly on the motorbike taking shots with a camera.

Our piggy visitor grew ever larger, but the calves were missing out and it had to be stopped. Bruce and brother-in-law Mark put a permanent stop to the porcine thief, and now he's feeding people.

Then there was the intruder that wasn't.

Sometimes our neighbour's bulls find a gap in the fence and visit (and sometimes ours go the other way, the grass is always greener), so last week when Bruce spotted a Jersey/Hereford cross bull out the back, he called the neighbour to let him know their bull was on our place.

But the neighbour replied that he had no bulls in the area, so Bruce was left with a mystery on his hands - where had this animal come from and how to find its owner?

A few days later, Bruce solved the mystery, very simply as it turned out.

He remembered he'd put a couple of young animals to graze out the back and this must be one of them - so it was ours, and not the neighbour's or anyone else's, after all.