Someone said the other day ‘Are you ready for Christmas?’ This always provokes a hollow laugh. I am a bit ready, the red diesel, the heating oil for the house, extra feed for the alpacas – all ordered and delivered. I have got a turkey as we had a stand at the South Molton Fatstock Show where they auction live lambs and cows, dead lambs, turkeys, geese and big chickens. The auction is hard work as large men always elbow you out of the way and there is quite a bit of confusion about which bird you are bidding for. Anyway I bought a turkey in the end, an 18lb one for £28 and a 10lb chicken for £16. The turkey still had its head, feet and innards so had to be dealt with. We sold loads of socks, drank ‘some’ mulled wine and had a very good day. Oh yes, I bought two live chickens too as I discovered there was a chicken auction in the calf house down the road. These two are very pretty, a buff laced wyandotte bantam and a gold partridge pekin, and after a week are starting to integrate with the rest of the flock. I wanted to buy a dead lamb but was worried as they were whole and I couldn’t see myself butchering them without making a pig’s ear of it – sorry. I was in the queue to pay for the all the auction stuff when I realised that two butchers had appeared from nowhere and were cutting up the lambs – hell’s bells – note to self for next year, you CAN buy a lamb.
