And they were gone! It only struck me the next morning, as I usually got an early visit from little Emil, who would come struggling on his not too steady yet legs over the field, and then went straight to the cookie tin for his before breakfast snack. I felt so very alone!
But my self pity did not last through the morning, as I noticed that both Sheila and Danny's bally chickens were scrubbing away in my onion field. The poor onions had such a hard time already, and to be scratched out at this stage was just sacrilege to me, so I grabbed my catapult, and loaded with a bag of good sized ammunition I shot outside, and started on operation killing if possible!!! This two troops were actually in such a competition to get to the biggest earthworms first, and there was such a lot of wing flapping and crowing and cackling, that I got quite close to them before they realized that they were under siege, and took to their heels, cackling and crowing even louder, and making one heck of a racket. I am pleased to say that my aiming was up to high standards, as I actually got a few good hits!
Some of the onions were actually quite big enough to harvest, so I pulled them out, but a lot of them were still too small. As they were unearthed, the chickens having scratched out their roots too, I decided to pickle the smallest ones! But I was by now quite fed up with the neighbors and their livestock.
I then decided to put a work bench that Jan had given me into my small lean-to, but the thing was so heavy that I took out two small lavender bushes, and a lot of smaller flowering plants, dragging it all around the house to it's allotted final resting place! Must say, I would have liked either a strong man's help, or a pair of manly muscles on my own arms, but said poor body was beginning to sag in quite a few places, and where there used to be some muscle, it was now just a tiny bit wrinkly!

I was singing away on a jolly song, when something black and long and thin came wriggling from underneath a piece of oilcloth that I had laid to put a bag of cement on, in the hope that it would not go hard like the other bags before it. I was at first quite unable to realize that a snake was coming at me. Well, I suppose it only wanted to escape, but when realization dawned, I grew a pair of unseen wings, as on my own two feet I could never move so fast, or jump so high! The snake, still quite young, was quite beautiful, with dark markings down its body, but I think old enough to prick some poison into you. I don't know what kind of snake it was, have to look it up, but as we have a lot of dangerous ones, I decided to become more cautious!
Snake disappeared using the strawberries as an escape route, and self stood shivering just a tiny bit!
Standing there wondering if more surprises were lurking underneath the oilcloth, I noticed Sheila's male peacock walking a beat up and down in front of my house, and knowing that he was spying things out in connection with my just ripening strawberries, I picked up some more ammunition for the catapult, and waited patiently!