Without a doubt, we did! It did not seem possible that so many things could happen on one small farm. Something was always happening. If not the horses, it was the cows, and if not the cows, then it would be the pigs. And if, by chance, it was not our own animals, then it would be some belonging to someone else.
I remember one Sunday (Sunday again, as usual) when, fairly late in the evening we happened to look across the pond to the island. The only way of getting to this island was by means of balancing along the trunk of a tree which had been felled so that it just reached between the bank and the island. And, if course, the geese had to choose this island as a nesting place. That evening we saw a movement on the island, and Mrs. Pick realised that some goslings had hatched. So we got a large basket, and made our way to the tree trunk. As we went across it, we saw the gander sailing towards us, very much on the warpath by the look of him. We reached the nest at the same time as he did, and had to grab him by the neck and remove him from the island by force. Then Mrs. Pick held the goose, while I collected the goslings in the basket. Meanwhile, the gander was returning to the fray, more determined than ever. Mrs. Pick said 'Throw something at him, Mary!' The only thing available was a goose egg which was rotten, so I threw that. It hit him well and truly on the top of the head, and I have rarely seen anything as funny as his expression as the rotten, green egg ran down both sides of his face and neck. What it felt like to him, or whether he could smell it, I don't know, but we could have done with our gasmasks on.
However, it did the trick, and he fell back into the water more quickly than he had come out of it, and there he stayed, giving vent to his feelings by hissing at us from a safe distance. We returned to the land, taking with us the goslings and the goose. And it was no easy matter getting across a tree trunk over more than twelve feet of water with a large goose under one arm. But we were soon on land again, and before long we had the goose and the goslings settled into a new nest of straw and safely locked up for the night. And the gander came up to be fed as usual the next morning, as unconcernedly as if nothing at all had happened.
Incidents like this certainly added a spice of variety to life, as did also the time when the cows got through into the cornfield, or when two pigs got out and made a combined attack on the old sheep dog. In one way or another we seemed to be often having trouble with the pigs. Coming back from the fields one day, we found the door of the meal-shed open, and a large sow and two young ones dining royally on calf nuts. Calf nuts were rationed, of course, and very scarce, and they had pushed over the sack, spilling the contents across the floor, and lying down in the midst to have a good tuck in. They didn't stay there long, as you can imagine, and we soon had them running down the lane towards their own farm. The old boar pig from this same farm was always a nuisance. He seemed to be continually turning up where he was not wanted, and had to be driven back home.
The only time I can remember when we really did want him, and I went with Mr. Pick to fetch him, he was determined not to come. By dint of much dashing backwards and forwards, we would at last get him down the track and out into the lane, heading in the right direction. Then at some point down the lane, in spite of our vigilance, he would make a sudden dash for a hole in the hedge, and there he was making a bee-line for home across the field. So then we, too, had to scramble through the hedge, gathering a good collection of scratches en route, and head him off, when the whole business would begin again. By the time we did get him where we wanted him, we were just about laid out, and I for one was very glad to see him go when later in the day he trotted out of the gate and up the lane, making for home as quickly as he could go.
Thinking of pigs, I don't think I ever laughed so much in my life as I did on one particular day at the farm. Mr. Pick was somewhere up the fields when a man called to see him. He came in a car, pulling a trailer which contained two pigs. Leaving the trailer in the lane, Mr. E went up the fields to find Mr. Pick. Some five minutes after he had gone, Mrs. Pick and I heard a great splintering of wood, and saw the horse who was in the field jerk up his head with ears erect, and look in the direction of the lane. We though we had better investigate, and going out we were met by the sight of a broken trailer and a pig just wriggling under the bottom of the fence into the field. The second pig followed, and made straight for the horse. Mrs. Pick said the horse would most likely kill it if he caught up with it. And sure enough he set off towards it with hooves flying. So there was the pig careering round and round the field, with the horse after it. And there we were, vainly trying to do something about it. As often as we could manage to get between the pig ands the horse, he would take a wide sweep to the side, and circle round us. Fortunately for all of us, Mr. Pick saw from a distance what was happening, and came running. He arrives before any damage was done, and soon had the horse in the stable. And then the fun began! Mr. E himself was enough to make us laugh, and after trying for ages to head that pig off while he dashed wildly around, making grabs at it and always just missing it, we were almost helpless with laughter. Once he caught a hind leg, but the pig dives through a convenient hole in the bottom of the hedge and disappeared from our vies, followed by the front half of Mr. E. For that was as far as he could get – from the waist down he remained of our side of the hedge. After a good deal more hilarity on our part we finally made a combined and got the pigs back into the trailer and securely fastened.
The hens, chickens and geese were the cause of quite a bit of exasperation at times. During the summer, when the evenings were light, the hens and chickens thoroughly disliked going to bed! And as we could not go to bed until they were fastened up, we would sometimes run them in to the houses. Having put them in, and fastened the door, we would be going home when round the end of the shed would come a chicken! He would be run to the house and put in, without any of the others getting out again (if we were lucky( and then as we locked up the door, out from underneath the hut would scramble another one, and off we would go once more. We were often tempted to leave some of them out for the night, but we never did, so far as we knew. In spite of this, two were taken by a fox one summer night. I woke to hear a sudden uproar from the hen-house, accompanied by sundry bumps and thuds, and looked out of my bedroom window to see a fox trotting across the field with a hen in his mouth. Before he had gone very far, Mr. Pick was out with a gun, and the fox dropped the hen and made off. We found another dead hen in the field too.
I had a perfect picture of the fox standing in the moonlight with the hen drooping from his mouth, one paw uplifted and his head turned towards the farm. And in spite of the hens, I must admit to being glad he got away unscathed.
The geese, too, had to be put in a shed at night. And even though they came up of their own accord from the ponds, and congregated in the field, they had to be driven in from there.
There was a piece of wood across the bottom of the entrance to the goose-house, and in all the time I was there I doubt if I ever saw a goose go in without tripping over it. Night after night they went into the same hut, and one after another they fell over the same piece of wood and tumbled in. It was just the same out in the field. If there happened to be a brick or a stone or a branch in their path, they would stalk along with their noses in the air, and fall over it in turn.
We had two geese at one time who disdained the company of their fellow geese, and always insisted on sleeping in with the hens.
One of the most awkward jobs I have come across was that of trying to get a goose into a hut in the middle of a field, if it didn't want to go in. It is not so bad if you can get it in a corner and drive it along a wall to the door. But if the hut has space all around it, it is almost impossible to achieve it single-handed. The goose will go in front of you around the hut, pass the door without a glance at it and go down the other side. If you dash back trying to head it off, it will turn round, pass the door again, and go down the side you had driven it up! And so it can go on indefinitely. Very funny it is to watch - if someone else is doing it!
Such are the ways of animals. I am convinced that they see the funny side of some of these things themselves. And they certainly kept us on the alert, besides giving us a good deal of amusement.