It's that time of year again! We've just been snowed-in for two weeks, with our only way out through Woolhanger. I bought some chains for the Land Rover just before Christmas, thinking that now I'd bought them we'd have no more snow for a decade, but I was wrong and they proved to be worth their weight in gold (well, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but we'd have been in a muddle without them). The snow was very pretty, but the novelty's now worn off (ice everywhere, frozen taps, fractious underexcercised horses, lots of cold, hungry animals to feed, Mum having to miss appointments with the doctor and the physiotherapist, the Atkinsons having to cancel their holiday in the self-catering cottage....yes, the novelty wore off some time ago!).
The ferrets (yes, Shannon, I promised you pics of those ferrets) have been behaving like delinquent teenagers on Red Bull, because the only way we could stop their water dispenser from freezing up was to add several spoonfuls of sugar to the water. It worked but it made them very naughty. Chris looks as if he's been at the ferret water, too - or perhaps it's that Edradour Single Malt Whisky I gave him for Christmas:

Hopefully George will come and get The Devil Children (as they're affectionately known) before they take over the house completely. Sarah has given them to George as a Christmas present, but we still haven't worked out how to get them up to him in Scotland, especially as he's really-and-truly snowed-in up there.

Stags coming over the hill, ready for breakfast!
Some other uninvited guests which are in danger of outstaying their welcome are the deer. Chris counted over 30 on the farm yesterday morning. We wondered why the high-energy licks and large round bales of hay we've been putting out for our animals have been disappearing overnight, and now we know. A few deer are a lovely sight, but feeding 30+ is like having another herd of cows.

Stags lying in the field we call Opposite (the field opposite the farmhouse, which you look out on from the holiday cottage)

Ziggy and his mares scoffing their hay before the stags steal it!

During bad weather we're glad we have Exmoor Horn sheep. They're much tougher than some of the larger, leaner breeds.

The Exmoor ponies are so well insulated that the snow often stays frozen on them.

The Exmoor pony geldings on the moor came as fast as their little legs could carry them when they saw Sarah and Chris with a bale of hay....or were they just coming to check out what the coolest farmer on Exmoor is wearing this winter?!