Harvest time - it's getting crowded here !

Currently I am working at a desk with a north facing upstairs window, I can hear the crunch of the post van tyres ouside for the 1pm delivery as I type this. Over the road opposite is a view of fields and trees, until now quiet shimmering wheat fields under a late summer sun with a fringe of woodland green on the horizon to offset their crispy yellows.

All this is really new to me, as a city kid I remember going to the Royal Smithfield Show in the Agricultural Hall London with my junior school, to marvel at the latest monsterous combined harvesters, bright red Massey tractors and Gloucester Old Spot pigs snuffling around.

I guess I'm trapped in a 1970's mechanized expectation, combined with a 1940's Battle of Britain summer view of farm lads gathering in the hay whilst vapour trails of fighter aircraft draw fluffy cotton patterns in the azure sky. (Having the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster pass low over the rear garden last weekend can't have helped).

The harvesters are huge expensive machines, rented by the hour, working 18 hours a day & often by headlights at night if bad weather threatens. A succession of tractors and brim full trailers of grain have passed by in recent days, fields have gone into sharp contrast of fresh brown corduroy or skinhead stubble and the displaced populations of butterflies, rodents, rabbits driven before the machines, have now made their home on our leafy green oasis.

It's crowded, suddently Samantha our huntress cat is in her element, fieldmice brought in to play hide and seek, a small rabbit squeaking under the bed, occasional birds that have proven too slow to escape. Sunday was my acceptance into the humane termination club. A rabbit badly injured I think by a car, dragging back legs and in extreme pain.

A quick lookup on the internet on how to humanely perform the act and armed with knowledge on how to use a 'priest', I did my duty. Not happy in having to do it, I'm a townie, life and death are things in the newspaper or when a pet hamster dies.

I'm very sure it won't be last, I've a bit of growing up to do.

The birdfeeder Bermuda Triange

My better half has been gardening, well that is one word for it, she may well have met Stanley and Livingstone on their way back to civilization.

The previous incumbent had a gardening technique based on cut it, drop it, it'll rot.

That works quite well with grass, you do a mulch cut and it dries out and feeds the coming growth. With roses it becomes a bit iffy, likewise with trees. The neighbours pointed out to us last night, when it comes to a daughters old Mini car and a spare JCB in the garden, burying it in a shallow grave is not really the best approach. (They placed their allotment on the dug area when they purchases a subdivide of the land and were most suprised to bring up a subframe with the potatoes.)

Now I'm looking at a slight rise in the garden and wondering .......... what happened to the JCB ?

We have The Dragonfly

I speak not of 'a dragonfly' but 'The Dragonfly' a very deliberate distinction. This one is top of the shop, numero uno honcho of the garden, Lincolnshire and planet Earth to boot.

Why can I state this ?

Lets take in some facts, it has 4 big wings that beat so fast it appears they are not moving, it is big and sleek in a glossy black, it darts about .... nothing untoward so far ...... it takes on ducks with abandon.

There they all were, mum and duckettes snoozing in the hazy midmorning sun on the stones surrounding the pond, breeze ruffling feathers slightly, all well with the world. In swoops mister Glossy Black to bounce off the head of mum, then on round to the 3 duckettes (nice name for a 1960's Motown backing group !) to do a close fly by of them. Once it had their attention it did an actobatic  'haha I'm too big for your beak now, eat downdraught punk' around them all until chaos ensured.

So there you have it 'The Dragonfly' has attitude and I'm pretty sure also has a British Aviation Authority callsign G-DRGN on its side, I suspect also a radar signature in military airspace that has the ATC scratching it's collective heads.

It's a three swallow summer

In Medieval times the Martlet was used as a heraldic design on shields, roughly represenative of the Swift / Martin / Swallow. Today I think we should measure nice summers on the Swallow scale, if one does not make a summer, then 2 is an adequate one, three a really nice one, four a real scorcher and perhaps throw in a swan to measure the 'best in living memory'.

The armorial bearings of William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke, the summer of year 1296 must have been off the scale !

So what has brought this on ? I've setup my computer workstation on the upper landing, as a result I have a view over pantiles on the 'L' of the house. This has opened up a world hitherto unknown to me, the birds time share on the roof, each breed seeming to take a slice of time to avoid conflict with each other. 9:30 am this morning was the turn of the swallows, off the telephone wires where they had been dangling and intercepting phone calls without permission (I wonder if digital services feel different to analogue ?) and onto the pantiles to sun themselves.

3 of them having a chat seemed particularly photogenic, so I thought they would be worthy of a quick snap, so here are Larry, Curley and Moe the Three Stooges of the Swallow world dressed in their Georgian finery.

Air miss

Somewhere above us today a propeller aircraft is performing loops and tight G turns, all very impressive as we ate lunch out back. But hoving into view from the lower pond comes a dragonfly that would put the starting credits of Men in Black into the shade, I'm sure it had it's own callsign G-DRGN on the side of it's body. yes it's a big lad, hyperactive in its' twitchy flight and quick to decide that we're a little big to be it's lunch. Unlike the smaller damsel flies this little beauty is a glossy black, I'm sure if I stare hard I'll also see some go faster stripes.

Meantime, for the past few days we've been carrying our house bound cats around the outside of the house to get used to sights and smells. Today it was commission the cat flap time and hope neither of them would hitch a lift back to London on a passing donkey cart.

Samantha (the wild girl) walked outside, sniffed, sat down, yawned and fell asleep in the sun. Hilly who is normally the shy stay at home made friends with the ducks (mother duck going 'cat' 'cat' 'cat' in wild quacks) and then went off to the far extent of the paddock to discover the difference between rabbit at distance and rabbit close up, much bigger than expected and a gallop home. Meantime up on high near the Kestral box pole, ginger Oscar looks on at the new girls on the block, this is a chunk of his territory and I'm sure he will have his say soon.

Say hello to mum and the rapidly growing little ducks.

Achtung Heron

When we had the house and grounds passed to us last week the previous owner intimated the lower pond was a little bit crowded with small fish displaced from the upper pond when it was being cleaned.

We think we saw a couple, bought some fish food and water cleaner and went searching. Then the looming presence of a big grey Heron was seen in the middle of the paddock. These big grey birds look so much like a threadbare school teacher of the 1950's, stooped neck, patches on elbows and unkempt hair. They are also very partial to uncovered ponds (or the OK Diner as it may better be known).

Suffice to say, we have a derth of little fish whilst big grey is asking for ketchup.

On a slightly different tack, mother duck has a wayward teenager to keep an eye on. Loud quacking results in 2 following and number 3 (whom we have nicknamed James after a great nephew quite similar in character) wends his way round the opposite side of a path or pond saying 'yeah yeah no rush, you don't understand me'. As a result Mum is getting quite exasperated.

Stir crazy moggies

It's about time I mentioned our own dynamic duo, Hillie (black and white rescued cat dumped by someone in a box at Hillingdon hospital) and Samantha who we think is a Turkish Van (another rescue cat who loves water and sharing it but never seems to stay wet). I suspect they'll appear in this Blog a fair bit.

I don't intend it to be a 'cat lovers' blog, that is a different breed of blog altogether, but they are a part of our 'wildlife' in the new domicile.

They're stir crazy.

We've deliberately kept them indoors to bond them to the house and food source, they're finding incarceration to be hell with window ledges. From the initial 'what on earth is that' from Samantha when confronted with a big black chicken that sauntered in from next door to look through the dining room doors through to 'I want to play with the bunnies' when seeing the early morning grazing on the paddock.

Samantha has an affinity with hiding in the garage, especially if it means that we will consequently think she made a break for it when one of us went outside. Yesterdays look of innocence had to be seen to be believed.

Last night war broke out on the pond, obviously it is a visiting place for yearlings and others that were born there, but 15 ducks on a little pond looked like a spoilt childs bath time. When the regulars turned up with the youngsters for a dip we found out who was the real queen of this area, I've never heard such a stentorian quack in my life. I've lots to learn it seems.

Dear Mrs Duck - can I mow there please ?

The countryside is full of territory, human imposed (looks like we have strip lychetts in the back paddock), ground animals (unknown cats poking heads out of divers bushes), avian influences (buzzed by bats and an owl last night) and finally the ducks.

It appears that we own the pond only in name, in actuality 2 broods of ducks really rule the roost here. The previous owners used to feed them daily on white bread, they're a bit shocked by healthier fare now being proffered to them, likewise they're taking us as a necessary intrusion to swimming lessons with the little ones. One has just discovered diving and the other 2 start scared looking around wildly whilst their sibling plays submarines leaving a little trail of tell tale bubbles in it's wake.

Such is the way of the wild, attrition has taken 13 little duckings down to 7 maturing duckettes according to neighbours. Despite us having an active Kestrel nest box, they are seemingly not the cause of losses (prefering small mammals) but a local fox / badger plus Magpies have played their role.

All I can say on this summer Sunday with the church bell tolling lazily over the wheat is Mrs Duck - you've done well, they're a credit to you.

Escape to the country - An introduction may be in order...........

.................everything has a beginning , a middle and an end (although some would argue certain semantics about the origin of the Universe and such like).

As a beginning, hello, I sit working on Saturday from a friends house (no phone at home yet) with two black and white cats looking on wondering what on earth this two legs is doing in their domain. One stand offish, the other uber friendly. Why am I here ? a long voyage of discovery that life need not always be compromise and dreams can be achieved if the are realistic enough.
Last Tuesday in that other world of stress, noise, confusion I had left the constant white noise of the Heathrow flight path and was sitting behind a removals lorry containing every posession I have, my wife had gone on ahead to Lincolnshire that morning and our lives w were in a state of flux.
Would we be welcomed (outsiders in a tight village community), would the money in the house purchase chain be forthcoming (there had been problems)would our 2 female cats (and also our grown up daughters which the cats seem to be anthropromorphised as ) like the new locale ?

INTERMISSION: Coco - black cat with snowflake obsidian markings has a Comma Butterfly to play with, kidnapped from the nearby lavender bush. I now notice that the floor has a certain wreckage of butterfly fuselage and wings, this young cat has a hunters eye and a typical feline love of taking delicate winged animals and trying to see how they work. This one has just been rescued, but certain others have their motors broken.

Still there ? Good, I won't take much more of your time........

Suffice to say we arrived in the lovely Lincolnshire Vales, moved in aided by a combination of SAS and Keystone Cops as these removals crews seem to be recruited to be, got our cats from the local cattery which it turned out is at the end of the paddock appended to our garden (I'll introduce the dynamic duo another time, they'll be stars in their own rights)and are now beginning to explore like the first men on the moon.

This Blog is our middle, we hope the end will be a long long way away...............