Rural Life

Heat and Fire

I've lost count of the number of official heatwaves we have had so far this year.  The current one - is it 5 or 6? - has been going on a long time and still has a day or two to go, although we are past the peak, thank goodness.  Everyone is getting bored and tetchy with it all - the continual heat, the challenges of keeping the house faintly cooler than outside, the restrictions, are all wearing people down. 

The latest heatwave has brought in local restrictions on access to woodland areas and what you can do in or near them.  This is a sensible precaution as there is a breeze, everything is tinder dry, there is little standing water outside of major lakes and water courses and we still see the ravages of the big forest fire from 3 years ago.  The Prefet has therefore banned all access to woodland areas between midday and midnight from Friday 15th August to Tuesday 19th August.  This has upset a lot of people.

This is because at Vernoil le Fourrier every 15th August there is the Festival of Hunting.  The grounds they use are, I gather, rather spectacular, on the edge of a major forest and partly wooded to ensure shade for horses and dogs (and humans).  It runs from 10am in the morning, with demonstrations, stalls, exhibitions, feasting and drinking, and is rounded off by fireworks before closing at midnight.  Despite arguments from the organisers that they had lots of tanks of water around the site, that all their visitors were responsible human beings, that it was all a bit unfair and "nanny state", the Prefet was unmoved, and they could only open for 4 hours, from 10am to 2pm.  The weeping and wailing and calling it all unfair has swept across social media and the press.

Not far from the land that we rent, there is a rather splendid chapel - Notre Dame de Montplacé.  The 15th August is a bank holiday in much of Europe for Assumption, celebrating Mary's ascent into Heaven, if you believe in such things.  There is therefore a pilgrimage to the chapel, and a well attended Mass is celebrated at 11am, drawing in the faithful from a fairly wide area.  It isn't too close to woodland, but it is surrounded by fields and copses. 

When we left that area on midday on Friday (tending our plants and cats, not attending Mass), there were lots of cars parked up at the chapel, and yesterday when we left that area, we found that there had been a scrub fire at the end of the track leading away from the parking area.  Today we stopped to look and photograph the damage. 

It would appear to have been a car fire, burning furiously hot (chunks of melted metal and evidence of totally destroyed tyres), which spread into the surrounding grassland, fortunately stopped by broadleaf scrub and presumably some form of fire extinguishing intervention.  Certainly the bulk of the car has been taken away.

I'm not at all sorry the Hunting Festival was brought to a halt at midday.  If a few pilgrims can lead to a small fire, what could a few thousand people on the edge of woodland do?

The heat is doing great things for the garden, however!

This is becoming a daily standard of what gets harvested.  OK we don't have aubergines every day, but the tomatoes are becoming a challenge commensurate with the courgette problem that has been going on for some 6 weeks now.  Then there are the Victoria plums - I've picked loads, and loads have fallen off, and still the tree is overloaded!

I've made jam, I've made crumbles for the freezer, I have a recipe to try for plum fool, and I have a burping barrel in the cellar that takes anything that isn't perfect or that falls on the floor.

And while it is still only mid-August, there are signs of autumn creeping up on us.  Trees that like nice moist soils (poplar, willow) are giving up and their leaves are turning colour and falling.  The swallows and house martens are starting to think about who they want to travel south with (the swifts are long gone).  The evenings are drawing in - while we aren't allowed to water vegetable gardens until 8pm at night (and only until 8am), the gap between 8pm and sunset not long after 9pm gets ever shorter.  The smoke from the wildfires in Portugal has also shortened the light at dusk, which doesn't help any either. 

However a happy harbinger of autumn is also appearing, as cyclamen flowers appear in the lawn, hedgerows, and woodland (when you are allowed in).  Such a pretty flower!

Next weekend is the Comice and Sunday is the parade of decorated floats, and I'll be on ours.  So the blog will not appear until Monday, because I will be way too busy to do anything else next Sunday!

Wish me luck, not least with the weather, and have a good week!

 

So many changes!

It's been an odd week, with a number of changes, so I feel a bit fuzzy with it all.  The weather has changed big time - from heat and sun to mixed, with rain, cloud, cool breezes, sometimes too cool, and unpleasantly sticky conditions from time to time.  In the past week we have had more rain than we did in the whole month of June I think!  As we are always being told to beware of providing conditions for tiger mosquitoes to breed and take hold, I was amused to see what could catch and keep rain!

Once the excitement and tiredness of the Diner Champêtre was over, I could no longer put off the day when my faithful old computer had to be turned off and the new one installed.  I procrastinated for as long as I could and hoovered all the nooks and crannies exposed by the removal of the old machine, but in the end, I had to get it out of its box and position it. 

That was when I found I had ordered a computer with a glass side!  No wonder they kept asking if I wanted to include lights in it!!  After rolling around on the floor pushing USB and other connections into the various slots at the back of the machine, it was time to press the on button. 

Quietly it sorted itself out, asked to be named, loaded up all the various updates issued since it was tested about 4 weeks ago, and tried to sort out my life in cyber world.  At this point I found I couldn't remember how to move my email files over, so had to set up the old machine again, borrowing a screen and cables from John's computer, in order to move things around properly, and find missing passwords.

I wish I could say it was all sorted, but it isn't, although most things are working, and the other issues, like loading photos onto blogs, are down to the internet connection I fear.

The change in weather has brought wind, which has done for the path between the Orchard and the Meadow.  The dead walnut tree by the gap is shedding branches which have brought down the hedge growth on either side, effectively blocking the gap.  In the autumn we will have to get in there with chainsaws and strimmers and clear it all out.  The wood will at least keep us warm this winter!

July is a funny time of year to be picking blackberries, but that is exactly what I am going to have to do tomorrow, to take advantage of the bounty of this year's crop.  It is an amazing year for fruit and it is rare to get enough blackberries to do anything worthwhile with them.  This year I will have to decide between jelly and liqueur unless we have a good, long season.

There are loads of plums around, although sadly my Victoria plums seem to have all been infested with bugs - I have yet to eat a whole plum without a bit of extra protein!  The quantities are such that we have two burping barrels going in the cellar, one for generic plums of any sort, and one purely for mirabelles.  It won't be a huge amount of product, but it is a rare opportunity to try for such a specific eau de vie.

Friday sees Vieil Baugé hosting Convivial'été - a local festival that over a period of three Fridays in the second half of July, goes around the villages.  The commune pays for a couple of reasonable and fairly local bands to turn up and provides a certain amount of kit, and the local Comité des Fêtes provides the food outlets and the bar.  Next week is our turn, for the first time in a number of years (it halted for Covid of course).  So that's going to keep me busy, before, of course, the final rush to get the float ready for the Comice in August.  It's all go!

Have a good week!

 

Respite!

This photo was taken (not by me) in our garden on Tuesday afternoon at about 4:30pm.  This was the height of the latest heatwave and I have to confess to being slumped on a sofa, in front of a fan blowing air over 3 5 litre cannisters of ice.  The weather was uncomfortable, the Heath Robinson air con worked!

I finally went outside at about 10pm to lock the chickens away and do a bit of watering, as well as my regular stroll to the top of the hill in front of the house.  I was rewarded by a lovely sunset.

Today that all seems like a distant memory, with rain, soft, gentle, wet rain, and much cooler temperatures.  It won't last but today we are enjoying the change!

Yesterday we were in Chinon for dinner.  Next Sunday morning, the town will be the focus of the cycling world as the Tour de France sets off from there, for its ninth stage, heading south towards Chateauroux.  Naturally we will go along and see the spectacle, although how much there is to really see will be interesting.  We saw a stage finish once in Tours, and it was 2 to 3 hours of standing around for 10 seconds of whoosh!  The town is festooned with yellow bunting, flags and other decorations, and a line painted on the road for the official start line when the four jerseys line up behind the lead car.  The real start is about 10 kilometres out of town, but it is all about the spectacle in town.  One of the pharmacies had a suitable window display.

On Thursday morning, a bunch of us braved the metal convection oven that is the Comité des Fêtes storage barn to crack on with the float for the Comice.  My illness and successive heatwaves had slowed progress considerably, but we are on a deadline and fortunately a strong team of 7 were able to do all the panels that were prepared.  I have checked the photo and I'm not giving away any secrets when I show our admirable team at work.

One more session is all we need to get the panels finished!

A combination of heatwaves and the arrival of a new computer have encouraged me to deal with a trail camera - down in the corner where the Meadow meets the Plantation.  I was delighted to see that the hare uses this corner quite a bit, or was using it in March anyway!

It is very much an area where deer like to hang out - it provides cover and food and yet also allows a good view in the "vulnerable" directions.  This stag had a pretty impressive rack of horn in April and used his antlers to trash the trees and greenery a bit.  They are a menace when you have young or vulnerable trees, it has to be said!

By June, the results of a previous rutting season were around.  When very tiny, the fauns are stashed in long grass or cereal crops, but as they grow, they follow Mum around learning to feed themselves, and being left in slightly more interesting places, like among the trees that edge the Meadow.  These were learning to feed.

There is a water source nearby, which is also an attraction for the deer at the moment.  Some of the ponds are looking very dry, but two are fed by tiny springs that don't seem to fail, and keep the local wildlife going.

Next week may be all about the Tour, depending on the next bout of heatwaves and the speed of my internet connection (we will soon go over to fibre, but there are Things to be Done before that can happen), so may be a day late.  All very conditional I know!  Anyway, have a good week!

 

 

Normal service is resumed!

This latest Covid variant is a doozy, so if you have the chance to get vaccinated, I heartily recommend doing so.  The razor throat gave way to a debilitating cough, which turned into a lung infection, all of which was during the first heatwave.  Now I feel better, we are slap bang in the middle of a second and worse heatwave!  June has not been my favourite month!  Still, my Poundland lily has been putting on a fine display and will go on for a few days yet, so not all bad!  I bought it over before Brexit really kicked in so it has been going in that pot for some 5 years now!

The weather is crazy.  May was so much drier than normal, and June has been the same - just 16mm of rain in the month to date and I don't expect any more between now and Tuesday morning.  At the start of April, we had 2,500 litres of rainwater stocked in our giant cubes, but to keep the vegetables going, we have had to pump a further 3,000 litres from the well to put into the cubes, and we will be topping them up soon, as the farmers are going to start pumping and irrigating big time shortly, so the level in the well will fall.  The fruits of the water can be seen in the impending courgette glut - they are delicious when small, but let them get to 8 to 10 inches long and they become less enticing!

The sweetcorn is not quite so triffid like but coming on nicely - there are 60 plants in this bed and if they all produce a couple of cobs each, we will be nice and regular through August and September, if you see what I mean!

We had a visitor - a rarity for us - during the last week for a couple of nights.  It was fascinating for us to see our life here and the local area through different eyes.  I handed him mirabelles and raspberries fresh from the tree/cane to try, to be met with a query of were they safe to eat, before tasting the freshest fruit he had had in his life I think.  They were approved!  Similarly our wells were a source of amazement.  We drove through Durtal, and the surprise on coming down the hill and seeing the Chateau for the first time - What is that!?  Just another normal facet of French life!

Last night as I took down the heat shutter from the bedroom window, I looked out to see a new moon on the horizon.  It doesn't look as though this moon will bring cooler temperatures, indeed the forecast, always a bit on the conservative side, for Tuesday is a suffocating 41ºC.  We will be up early in the mornings to water the triffids and feed cats, then snoozing through the heat of the day. 

I have a trail camera to check over and download and triage the photos and videos, so there may be wildlife in next week's blog.  Eating fruit, fresh vegetables, salads, and things that don't need much cooking is the order of the day - yesterday's queue for tomatoes, melons and apricots was just about bearable!

As I stood in that queue, I was able to admire another jewel of the Middle Ages, as our chateau at Baugé stands guard over the market square.  Sometimes I forget to marvel at the wonderful area we live in, but not this last week, my eyes have been reopened!

So, I am back in the world of the living, albeit dripping with sweat at the effort of moving my fingers in an office that is currently 29ºC, which isn't that comfortable.  So I am going to go and find a fan to sit in front of, and perhaps have a restorative snooze.  I think I am allowed!

Have a good week!

 

Between two events - apologies for the delay!

Last week I was a few hours early posting, before heading off to tend bar at the village Trout Fishing Day.  This week I am a day late after being one of a handful of stall holders at the village PTA car boot sale.  In between there have been all sorts of excitements with a poorly cat, a septic tank issue and wild orchids - it's hard to know where to start and what to include!  Perhaps at the beginning, with a picture of a lovely sunny day for trout fishing?

Yesterday was rather a contrast, dull skies, rain in the night, a third of the booked places not taken up due to the weather and few punters for all the goodies spread out for their delight.  We did alright during the day in terms of large and/or heavy items sold, as well as a lot of smaller stuff, but the heavy rain at lunchtime scared off buyers, and while we hung in to the end, we did little business in the afternoon, despite lovely sunshine.

There is nothing exciting about septic tank inspections, so I will gloss over that, other than to praise highly the integrity and helpfulness of the local inspector, who tried her best to approve things, but where they couldn't be approved, is helping us to find cost effective solutions for my client.  

Much more exciting is that the bee orchids are finally putting in an appearance, possibly stirred into action by a very small amount of rain at the start of the week.  They have mostly cropped up in or very close to the recently mown path through the orchard.  This kind of confirms my view that bee orchids need either grazing animals to keep the grass down or a simulation of that (mowing) in order to push up their flower spikes.  They don't much like competition and it seems long grass and tall weeds are not their friends.

Another orchid related excitement was the discovery of a new (to us and to the location) type of orchid, this time relatively happy in the long grass.  I've not had a chance to look it up yet, but it is some form of pink pyramidal orchid.  I've not seen any like it in the area, so I'm not sure how it arrived, and John says it is nothing to do with his mowers!

Early in the week I met the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen in the rough grass in the country - large, and on some level rather disturbing.  Way back in the 70s there was a Dr Who episode called something like the Green Death, which involved giant maggots, and I have been iffy about maggots and caterpillars every since, particularly that size!  The Peugeot key fob gives an idea of scale.  I hope it grows up into something nice!

As we head towards the end of no-mow May - something I rather disapprove of in general - I thought I would highlight how you can do it sensibly.  Make nice wide paths that are kept mown through the area you are interested in.  This has been particularly a thing with us this last week, as it is a bumper year for tics and we are picking off a good number each week from the Country Cats.  One of the cats has developed anaemia and the vet thought it was entirely possible that this was due to the number of tics he has picked up.  The blood tests to diagnose the problem were costly, although not as much as if we lived in the UK (expensive is relative I guess), and there is a prolonged course of medication and a long way to go until he is back to full Spooky Power.  

And here is the anaemic patient in his cat carrier at the vet's - Spooky the indomitable.

So keep checking for tics - you and all your loved ones! 

Well, that is it for this week, and it promises to be a quiet week so I should be back to the normal schedule next week.  Have a good one!

 

Blossom, videos and mystery packages

The week before last, the weather yo-yoed a bit between fabulous sun and dull and a bit moist, but this last week, the weather has settled into a sunny, dry and mainly warm pattern, although an occasional and rather vicious wind from the east blew part of the chicken run roof off.  That would have been the opening photo, but I just could not resist this cherry tree in full bloom.  It was humming with bees and the scent of the blossom was heady and gorgeous.  It's a pity that the resulting fruit, when not stolen by birds, is pretty well inedible as it is just a wafer thin coating of red on a pip.  Still, if the birds like it, and the bees like it, who are we to complain?

Most of the plum blossom is over, there is still some peach blossom around, but that is also mostly over.  The pears and cherries have taken over, with early apples ready to ping, and more apple and quince blossom for later in the month.  It is a beautiful time of the year and the leaves are unfurling almost as you watch, so each day the scenery changes a little bit.  The daffs are pretty well over but the tulips are coming into their own.  Next week i should be able to show off my whimsical wellies, but today the frizzy edged tulips we planted 6 years ago are putting on a display.

Before we get into Spring videos, I thought I'd better share the videos I took off a trail camera that had been put on a crossing point between two ponds.  I thought I would get some interesting coypu footage and perhaps a few ducks.  The coypu footage was really very dull - generally a tail disappearing in one direction or another, or a coypu sitting in the dark, thinking.  In some animals, that might be visually appealing, but in coypu, it isn't.  There were a few ducks towards the end of the two month installation.

I hadn't expected to see any badger activity down there, but they were around, including this bit from January.

These two deer were around in February.  The one closer to the camera looks like it might be pregnant with a couple of lumps around the belly area, but the other one looks like a fawn from last year.  I welcome thoughts.

Naturally there were boar doing the rounds in February - after dark so moving between areas of cover, I think.

They were back again in March and in force - they didn't leave much of a mark in the pond they were heading for bottom right of the screen.

The final segment is of the fox, living as it should and not raiding dustbins.  The pine martens were around too but didn't stay still enough in that area to give anything more than a quick sight of a fluffy tail disappearing in any direction.

There is a phenomenon over here in France for selling off undelivered and misdirected packages - I'm sure it is the same anywhere where there is a flourishing home delivery service and drivers who aren't given enough time to do their rounds.  They are "blind" sales in that you can generally have a good feel of the packages, but you can't open before you buy - it's a grown up lucky dip, but instead of a fishing rod with a hook on it and a bucket of parcels, you have a number of tables heaped with all sizes and shapes of packages.  In general, you pay by weight - today it was 3.50€ per 100 grammes.  It is important to remain sensible and not spend more than you can afford to lose, and we steered clear of anything that could have been clothes or shoes as they would have been unlikely to fit, but we came away with 3 mystery packages each as a sort of Christmas stocking (many months late I know) for the princely sum of 18 Euros.

These were my three packages.  The flat one bottom right, which I thought might be a lipstick, was in fact some jollop for thickening eyelashes - not really me.  The cylindrical one to the left was some highly concentrated car wash liquid - might be useful at some stage.  The box style one at the top was a no blue light click light, presumably for use in a bedroom or office setting, which might actually be useful, if it works, and is rechargeable too.  It was a lot of fun, but I have to emphasise, a complete lucky (or unlucky) dip and never pay out more than you can afford to lose.

Next week is set to be lovely again, so I must work in the garden, getting the other half of the potatoes planted and weeding and pruning and cutting back and preparing beds and sowing seeds and all that good stuff.  Have a good week too!

 

Spring-like activity

This last week, we have been blessed with spring weather in all its glory - sunshine and soft breezes have been the order of the day, although that is changing this weekend.  It has been a wonderful boost to the spirit and to the body to spend time outdoors, to feel the sun on our skin, to shed layers of sweatshirts, thick socks, rubber boots and to sit out and impersonate lizards.  Nature is playing along too, with spring bulbs sprouting and pulling away.  I am most proud of my improvised planters for a couple of packs of Aldi special tulips (other cheap supermarkets are available), and am looking forward to a couple of flowers each at least!

It's official, the last 12 months have been in deficit for sunshine and by quite a lot too - something like 20% less hours of sunshine than average.  While March has tried to make up for it, things are a bit behind.  The glories of Facebook tell me that my grape hyacinths are late, as are my blue anemones!

We decided to spend most of Tuesday working at the Garden in the Country, which meant we were able to do useful things like shift water between storage tanks, do a proper mow on the meadow before anything got too tall, start to rotavate the potato bed, and plant up summer bulbs.  We also sat out for a picnic lunch on the terrace overlooking the Orchard.  Good quality tinned sardines with artisan bread, "raw" butter, tea made with water boiled in the Kelly kettle, using twigs that were getting in our way as fuel - life doesn't really get much better than that!

Friday evening was not spent as it should be, at the pub putting the world to rights, but rather opening up a house for an estate agent to show it to potential purchasers.  They were late and annoying, but given the current weather, it wasn't so bad standing around in the garden, listening to the birds chatting their way to bed.  As the sun set rather dramatically through the trees in the distance, I saw my first bat of the season swooping around.  I hope it found lots of insects to make the evening's display worthwhile!

A couple of weeks ago (when I was feeling more positive about the world), I showed a photo of plum blossom forming.  It has taken its time to mature, and a very few blooms were out today, but most are still just thinking about it.  Very soon now there will be rich pickings for foraging insects as the plum trees start the procession of blossom.  Next it will be peaches, then cherry and pear, with apple and quince bringing up the rear - or that is the theory anyway.  The quince trees are showing very fecund buds, but the leaves come before the flowers so that is probably alright.  Of the various varieties of apple we have, the Granny Smith has the most obvious flower buds, while the Victoria plum is well behind the mirabelle style plums at the Meadow.

The forecast for next week is not so good, so there is a chance I will bring home a trail camera for servicing and clearing the memory card.  On the other hand, if the forecasters are being overly pessimistic, I could be planting onions and even a few spuds, so who knows?  The bloke at lunchtime wouldn't do a forecast further than Monday afternoon - isn't it wonderful how with all the satellites and computing power that goes into weather forecasting, they still can't see further ahead than 48 hours?

And on that note - have a good week!

 

Trying again!

New month, same old lies!

O dear - does that sound bitter?!  The last week has been dominated by rain and floods, with a couple of fine interludes, but there has always been that promise that once we got to Saturday, the weather would change.  Yes, it would be cold at night, but the sun would shine, taking daytime temperatures up to a balmy 8 or 9ºC and there would be no rain for about 10 days or so.  The ground would dry out and we could look forward with a certain optimism.  To be fair, yesterday was rather lovely - it was cold, and a bit overcast in the morning, but the afternoon was lovely - just right for starting to sort out next year's firewood!

The dead tree came down with a satisfying thwunk, and we chopped up the top bits and either carried them away or stacked them for carrying away today.  The bird life in the One Acre Wood was giving it some, with great tits trying to out-do robins, who were trying to out-do nuthatches, and the woodpeckers were adding an unsubtle top note to the symphony of bird song.  The two clay pits/newt ponds were full to overflowing with water - I have high hopes of a good crop of tadpoles in the next few weeks, and all seemed right with the world.

Indeed up until 9:45am this morning, all seemed bright and glowing, albeit with a heavy hoare frost.  And then the fog rolled back in and we are back to dank gloom - I'm sure someone has seen Dementors knocking around!!  When we visited the Cats in the Country, it was difficult to make out the top of the Meadow from the Plantation, and that is barely 150 yards!  On a more positive note, I had to take Monsieur Clause to the vet yesterday, as he had a swollen paw - basically an abscess from a bite or cut of some kind.  Today, when I went to give him his drugs, he was waiting for me at the door, although as soon as I greeted him, his paw retreated in pain.  He inhaled his breakfast including the drugs, and then looked pathetic for treats, before I put my wellies on to top up the bird feeder.  While I was away doing that, he decided that the cabin roof was the place to be and jumped up.  Herumph!

On the other day we had sunshine, I got out for a walk around the village.  I went up to a high point I haven't visited for a while, and with the clear winter sun, it was possible to get a nice photo across the valley to an old manor house that was very important back in the day.

I also went down to our river to see how that was coping with the vast amounts of rain we have had.  It is rare that it floods by the village, and the sluice here does help to control the flow, although I think at the moment it is down flat to help evacuate the water away down towards the big rivers further south.

Tomorrow we have the last Red Day of the EDF winter 24/25 campaign, used to control peak load when generation capacity is low, or when the European spot price is high, or a combination of the two.  Last year, they held on to a few days for March, this year I think they will be struggling, as the freezing fog is due to continue for about 10 days as far as I can tell (I do so hope I am wrong though).  Once Red days are gone, I can spend a bit more time working through trail camera files and loading up interesting videos.  There are some nice ones of badgers knocking around, so perhaps next week?

Have a good week!  I'm full of cold and a hacking cough, so I hope things are going better for you!

 

January blues

This week saw the (admittedly commercial) unhappiest day of the year - the third Monday in January, when your pay packet has nearly run out, the weather is pants, the days aren't really noticeably longer and your waistline hasn't recovered from the Christmas and New Year festivities. 

Bizarrely it didn't really affect us as being worse than any other day in January, even if it had been decreed Red for electricity purposes.  Instead, it is the sameness of the days at this time of year that gets to me.  In general (this year anyway), days are either cold, foggy, and uninspiring; bitingly cold and bright and faintly inspiring until I get too cold; or wet, muddy, mild, and annoying.  Each type does have it's beauty however, and the wet weather on Friday lead to this rather arty shot, as I stood by the second pond, in the rain, listening for birds.

The foggy day before the rain started, we were in the One Acre Wood, felling future firewood, and I spotted this rather dramatic fungus on old, decaying wood.

As as a point of optimism, one of us trod on this cowslip that was attempting to flower today, so spring will happen in due course.

With the wet and warmer weather, the electricity spot prices are falling, so Red days are behind us.  That means I can have the heater on in my office and work through the files from the trail cameras and start to load things on YouTube.

This week I focussed on the camera pointing up a well trodden path at the edge of the Meadow, lined by fruit trees on one side and a bank of brambles on the other.  Some of that is being removed, but not all, as it is a good shelter (when contained) for birds and small mammals.  There is a path we have punched through the bank of brambles on the left as you look up the hill.  Many of the photos are limited, not least as it was in place during the shortest, darkest months, but it is always nice to see a pine marten posing!

The path is used from time to time by boar passing through on their way to do damage somewhere else.  They may spend the day down in the marsh behind the plantation trees, or somewhere further afield.  The big poplar plantation along the valley has now been felled, so they aren't there, but there are pockets of woodland not too far away.  Family groups will roam quite long distances.

The deer find this point rather appealing as it gives them a few good exit routes and opportunities to keep an ear or an eye out for any predators (hunters in the main) that might be in the zone.

 If you watch this next video closely, you will see there is a deer in the field next door as well!

 

There are birds, as you can see above, in this corner of the Meadow, and not just small brown types, but you do find larger things too. like this flock of female pheasants out for a stroll.

There will be more from the pheasants when I put up the videos from the next camera I brought in, which was placed in the new path to see if anything was using it, other than us.  And I guess that means Spoiler Alert, the pheasants use it!

One of the benefits and comforts of mid-winter is a good log fire.  We have an insert with heat exchangers to the upper rooms in the house, so when it gets going, it helps take the edge off the first floor.  There is a nice fire downstairs now, so I think I will go and sit with it, rather than gazing at a computer screen!

Have a good week!