Dog Walk

-
We have two main walk routes; this is the second. It starts off uneventfully through the churchyard;




and then heads off down mud alley to the woods. I hadn't walked this way since the thaw, because I knew it would be like this:


Just as bad as I had thought, but I keep telling myself lugging that much mud around on the boots is good for my thigh muscles.
There is a terrible pigeon problem locally. I have disturbed flocks that must number in three figures, and they've wrought havoc on the crops. An awful lot of feedsacks on posts have materialised, but there is also this splendid scarecrow. So clever.









Just round this corner I saw a muntjac. Dog completely missed it, despite being much closer to it than me. She did pick up the scent when she crossed it but decided not to hurtle off into the quarry (left) to go after it, thankfully. The muntjac have been much more obvious than normal. Yesterday I saw one about to cross the road as I was driving out of the village; presumably they're hungry.





I love silver birch trunks, and there's a row of them at the edge of the churchyard.
Tonight our four new hens arrive. We've decided, after much mulling, to put them straight in with the girls while they're all roosting, and hope for the best. Up early tomorrow to police them. I hope I'll be able to photograph them but had better not promise anything in case they Do Not Get On and OH and I have to spend our weekend quarantining them into the vegetable garden, which frankly could do with their attentions.

Comments

Anonymous said…
LOVE your dog walking photo's! Dog walking is my "me" time - it keeps me mentally sane...well kind of !!! Love the photo's of your new hens too - we're down to only two at the moment and even they are making a mess of the back garden because we can no longer let them play in the woods "out back" because Dotty (a hen) was taken by a fox recently in broad daylight! Hmmm not sure any of that comment make sense - feeling very gramatically challenged these days!!! Ali
19 January 2009 at 13:28
Jane Badger said…
Oh bad luck with DOtty. The foxes seem very brave at the moment, and a friend told me she was walking up the path past the church the other day to be met by a fox, who was quite unconcerned. I've been letting the dog wander out back as she does seem to put the foxes off a bit. Do you plan to get more hens in the Spring?
20 January 2009 at 11:33
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more