April 28th (Tues.)
Today we had our old neighbours from the apartment around for a lunchtime BBQ party. They had move out into their own suburban home about a year before and so it was quite a surprise to see how their daughter had grown and what a pretty little girl she had become.

A long slow afternoon of eating and drinking ensued. Constantly busy with the next job and worries of if I’ll be able to do this or that it’s easy for me to forget even now in it’s half baked state the situation of the smallholding is.
So it was nice to show our friends around and see them enjoy the place.

The puppy was on show as well of course and didn’t disgrace himself by jumping up or barking. I was glad for the puppy to meet some new people.

Socialisation of a puppy
Particularly during the 2nd to 4th month of life it’s wise to expose the pup to positive encounters with as many people, animals, machines, smells, you name it, as possible when they are still very open to new things.
Although dogs are often scary to us a lot of the aggressive behaviour they exhibit is due to fear.
Socialisation provides them with the library of experience to cope with situations calmly they may encounter later in life.

Now here is something not to try at home !
After an afternoon of heavy drinking and with the guests just packing up I realised this was a perfect chance to plough the field before the sun went down. Everytime I get a chance to do it at the weekend, as sod’s law would have it, it’s just after a rain and the ground is too claggy to get a good tilth.
Anyway, I reckoned, the guests would enjoy watching and having a go which they did. I wasn’t that sozzled anyway, and walking along behind the tractor after waving good bye to the guests
with a slight chill in the air,the sun going down over the mountains and the evening calm setting in, everything seemed well with the world.