Today I was even more weary than before having failed to get to sleep until 4 this morning. Good thing I had no jobs to attend to. I did manage to stack around 2.5 of the three tonnes of firewood, discovering smaller bits as I went and piling them into the wheelbarrow for tonight's fire.

Luckily the threatened frost failed to eventuate  as the sun was well over the horizon by the time i emerged, with a good four hours of sleep to keep me propped up.

Them next door re-arranged the horses this morning for no apparent reason, putting the stallion into the yard that contains the exercise yard. This had two effects. Firstly, now all the mares have to be led through the stallions paddock to get into the exercise yard to be exercised, and secondly I have to go through the stallion's yard to get to the yard that houses her over the road's horse.

What with all the movements of mares through his yard, the carrying on of longeing activities in the yard within his yard - the regular removal of mares to go for a stroll around the oval on a daily basis, the poor, usually good-natured stallion is feeling a bit nippy. Unfortunately I discovered this only after I had moved the bags of manure under the electric fence with the intention of transferring them over the fence to the lane. The first bag I managed without incident, but by then he had come over for a look. So I had to take him by the halter and walk him around a bit in the hopes of discouraging him. But no. Eventually I had to swing a leg over the fence, while holding him off, then get the rest of me over (without getting hooked on barbed wire) without getting bitten. So the second  bag is still there and will remain there until tomorrow when I will haul it back into the mares paddock, having walked all the way around to their place to do the job I promised to do.

Speaking of which, they seem to have assumed I would be cleaning up all the paddocks as today he came over offering me more bags to use (I am recycling the ones I am using) and telling me which paddocks needed doing. I bit my tongue and politely explained I had only offered to clean Pewter's paddock, not the lot. While the response was polite, I have no doubt they are peeved and will think of some further way of making life harder for me to do what I promised her over the road. One can but try.