Making Hay in the Moon Light

At last a glorious weekend, very pleasant  weather indeed, not only that but the hay is off the field at last, it was late mind, by the time the contractors had bailed and wrapped it.

The whirring clunking noise of these mighty machines as they  lumber up the field is exactly like the mechanical drone of the monsters in the War of The World’s remake

 

 

They were off the field by about 10pm, but in previous years they have worked on till two or three in the morning.

 

And here is some hay they made earlier

It’s not like summer hay though, it doesn’t have that sweet, honeyed smell.

On the subject of honey, it wasn’t just the farmers who were busy at the weekend

Menagerie

I’ve been feeling unwell for a few days, yesterday the only time that I crawled  in a slothful way, out from under the duvet was to pick up a prescription from the doctors. In the car park my legs didn’t much feel like they belonged to me, but rather a giraffe, they were sort of gangly and not quite going in the direction I wanted them too, maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come out: an elderly lady was being helped from a  car into a wheel chair, her legs looked stick thin and  brittle, like those of a fawn.

In the Chemist, I slumped on the the ‘waiting chair’, what is it about the ‘ritual’ of dispensing chemists that makes reaching a packet of antibiotics off the shelf, slapping a sticky label on them and giving them to the customer such a big deal, the chemist took the prescription from me, entered it to her computer then proceeded to make two phone calls before, having the grace to come back and OK the box the assistant has reached off the shelf and hand it to me, I was feeling like a bear with a sore head, I just wanted to go back to bed.

Driving home I glanced in the rear view mirror, it was completely filled by the word VOLVO and the snarling radiator grill of a stone lorry, it was clinging to the back bumper like a limpet; maybe I was driving at a tortoise like speed, but no, on checking my speed it was the stone truck who had the issue with the new 30mph speed restriction not me. Back home I found my glasses (I’m getting as blind as a bat without them) I read the leaflet that came with the antibiotics, a list of possible side effects that’s enough to make you feel as sick as a parrot; but at last, I could go back to bed and curl up in my hibernating hedgehog pose. (not my photo folks)

I’m feeling much better today, well better than yesterday, it’s just as well because Mr Uhdd has been at home today, rattling around the house like a flea in a bottle and he has just taken a chisel to the kitchen wall, so it’s just as well my thumping headache has gone.

The weather has at last been beautiful (whilst I’ve been in bed, typical) so I did go and sit by the pond for a wee while this afternoon, this dragonfly was flitting around, they are tricky blighters to take photos of, they wont keep still; I think they have something a ‘prehistoric monster’ look about them, or maybe that’s the medication

Crystal Ball

The sun is shining, hooray, how long it will last who can say

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Let me gaze into my crystal ball; I don’t imagine this instrument is called a crystal ball, but a quick poke about on the ‘tinternet’ didn’t find me it’s scientific name, its a device for measuring the number of hours of sunshine, I found it in the grounds of Chatsworth house, next to the Stevenson screen.

As an indicator of how damp the atmosphere has been around here of late, and I can’t ever recall it happening before, our bedroom and bathroom doors wont close properly  (the wood has swollen) and the  jug of dried poppy heads at the top of the stairs has started to go moldy. We resist the temptation to put the heating on to dry the place out a bit,( it’s not cold just damp) the fact that the last delivery of heating oil was at a rate of 60p a litre (the lowest we have ever paid was .08p a litre) is incentive enough to leave it switched off.

The field has been cut today

The Grass is Greener

The grass is greener on the other side of the fence, err no the grass is a rubbish crop  this year which ever field you are standing in, our meadow still hasn’t been mown, the weather has not been fit, looking at last years blog post on the topic I can see that last year it was cut on the 24th of August, and that was a month later than the previous year, 2006, at this rate in a few years time, Simon the farmer will be hanging tinsel and mistletoe  in the cab of the tractor when haymaking.

But it is no joke, the best they can hope for now is making silage not hay and that will be of dubious quality, meadow grass doesn’t stand around patiently waiting to be mown, this years poor summer grass has seeded and started to die back whilst other scraggy grass is forcing up through it, making a dense thatch of grasses and weeds; if your dogs coat has ever become matted you’ll perhaps know what I mean, it’s the nearest I can think of to describe it. Not only has Simon got our 3 acres* to cut but another 12 of his own and one of his fellow farmers has only managed to get  enough fodder off his land to last him till the end of October, this is a serious and expensive matter (Simon’s dad, long since retired from farming, can’t sleep at night for worrying about it.)

The usual seasonal  farming routine is shot to ribbons, It’s been so wet that on Simons farm, the heap in the ‘muck midden’ is nearly as high as the barn, this should be spread on the fields, but its just too wet, the tractors will either trash the turf leaving large water filled scars across the fields, or  the machines will get bogged down, its not good, as other bloggers will tell you, and I wouldn’t ask Simon about the price of feed stuffs and fertilizers, he’s not a happy man.

* pasture needs managing, as we have no livestock our neighbour ‘cuts and mucks’ the field for us each year,he gets the hay we get the field looked after, it works well for both of us.

Born to Run

Lurcher racing at the country show, you can read the musings of a lurcher here

I know little about this sport, save to tell you it was a lure they were chasing and not a hare; but it would seem from this photo that it important to propel your dog off the start line, (take the dogs out of the shot and you could be forgiven for thinking they are playing crown green bowls.)

There was such a lot to see we couldn’t cover it all, but I could kick myself though, for missing out on the ferret racing and I only got to see a little of ‘Cyril the Squirrel and his Racing Terriers’. I think it is time to show you the photograph that I didn’t get, it’s supposed to be of one the fearless terriers jumping through a hoop of fire, the dog was fast and I was a bit slow with the shutter finger, I missed it and the dog didn’t do an encore.

Cyril invited children to bring their dogs into the arena, for a race, it was pandemonium and impossible to do justice to in a photograph first he had the dogs chasing a lure in one direction

Then he would change direction, mayhem ensued, people and dogs in every direction

Everyone seemed to get their dog and child back in the end.

A Bird in the Hand

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so the saying goes

The falconry display at the Country Fair was very good indeed, it was by CJ’s birds of prey

I would never have thought a bird of prey could be such a delicate shade of peach, quite a nice colour to decorate the bathroom, you could stride into your local branch of B&Q  bird in hand and ask them to mix a  2 litre tin of paint ‘just this shade please; egg shell finish, obviously .’

If this were my ear I am not sure I would want it quite so close to this beak

  

It might end up a little more than pierced

I think when we watch a display like this, we are almost waiting for something to go wrong, the fact that the birds are in essence wild and the nature of the work means the handler has to let go, and let the bird fly free. Will it come back? do as it’s been trained? or will it take wing off over Chatsworth house, never to be seen again or perhaps  more entertainingly for as blood thirsty crowd;  take out someone’s pet West Highland terrier, from the edge of the arena, fly to the top of the nearest tree and have a raptor lunch, as  little wisps of coarse white dog fur drift across the arena, there can be no doubt that this  Steppe eagle is capable of doing such a thing, for goodness sake look at the legs on it, powerful or what. A ‘toy’ breed of dog would be a mere snack,  a small deer main course, not sure what the Duke would make of that.

That’s why the handler kept the eagle on a line  (it was the birds first ‘flying’ performance at a show)

Falconry is an ancient sport, and some of its terms have entered the English language, here the eagle is displaying a defensive/protective pose, known a  ‘mantle‘ as in, cloak, mantelpiece or gas mantle. (see, as educational as the Archers this blog, an every day tale of country folk.)

    

If  I was going to hold one of these birds, I’d want an extra long gauntlet thank you very much, just as well they have sold out of my size then.

I leave you with a couple more shots of this majestic beast, no wonder they are symbols of power.

  

Would like to meet

Now envy isn’t the nicest of emotions, but I am willing to admit to being be a tad envious of Stonehead this week, he’s not had such a good run of things of late, what with his teeth an’ all, but this week he’s had a bit of a treat, (well it would be for me) the Stonehead croft is to feature in an article about smallholding’s, in the Observer newspaper, it’s not the article that has brought out the green eyed monster in me , what I know about running a smallholding, would just about fill a post card not a magazine article, no, it’s the fact that the photographs to accompany the article are to be taken by Murdo McLeod

I have been ‘Murdo spotting’ as it’s become know in this house, for the best part of two decades, he is my favourite photo journalist, my appreciation of his work all started way back, when Mr Uhdd and I lived in Scotland, I had a daily commute, to Edinburgh, on the outward journey I read the Guardian, on my return Journey it was the Scotsman newspaper ( it was particularly important not to fall asleep on the way home, or I would end up in Inverness, which was along way from our home.)

Never since have I managed to read two newspapers a day, but even when work and family commitments have curtailed my reading, I’ve usually managed a quick glance at the pictures (I’m a visual sort of gal) and I can spot a Murdo from a good distance, it’s the way they are lit and composed not to mention the landscape that the majority are taken in.  Mr Uhdd and I have often debated, would Scottish news items get as many column inches if it were not for the imagery of Murdo McLeod, which came first the chicken or the egg? I usually cut and paste images from the Internet with gay abandon, but such is my respect for this mans work, that I couldn’t possible reproduce his work with out permission, so if you are at all interested, you will have to go and look for yourself.

My three favourite

Drugs users in Glasgow, arresting, powerful edgy

Reportage on the foot and mouth outbreak 2001, harrowing, sad, angry

Roy Keane and the ravens skull, simply a hypnotic photograph.

I would love to spend a day just watching how he does it;  so who  dear reader would you like to meet, past or present, one person who you would want to see at their work, do please tell.

Landscape

Once home from our holidays, I had to get out again, up on to the moor;

 

much as I enjoy the Devon scenery, after a while I find the narrow high sided  lanes and wooded paths a bit claustrophobic, so for me it’s always good to get back to my ‘uphill’ world, this landscape feels so right.

The heather is in full bloom and the bees working it made much more amiable companions than the grumpy wasps on the beach last week, aren’t bees amazing? they do their little waggle dance and make a bee line for the heather, pollinate the flowers, harvest the nectar and whiz off back to their hives, we humans we think we are so clever,  we’re so wrong.

There are still some winberries  ( bilberries or blaeberries depending on the ‘local’ name) around, although you would have to be determined to find enough for a pie

I spent a good while up here, waiting for the clouds to thin out and give me the shot I had in mind, but it wasn’t to be and it really didn’t matter, I can come back another day. But I realised whilst I was waiting, that from here I could see four of the five houses I have ever lived in, including the one I was born in. And here is just so me; as the Scots say, it’s not ‘where I stay, but where I belong.’

 

It brought to mind a conversation I had with an elderly lady, I asked her if her husband had been born in the village ‘Yes’ she replied ‘although he was more quarried from it, than born in it.’ I think I now know what she means.

Reflections on a Picnic

We have a tradition on holiday of going by boat for a picnic,

this year we had to be a bit flexible as we are an inflatable short so we couldn’t get everyone safely on the water at once (we usually fix an outboard motor on the back of a sailing dingy and tow the inflatable behind it, you can spend an awful lot of money messing about with boats, but we are definitely  at the economy end of the market)  Our party numbered 16 in total, so some went by road, which was a bit of a shame because it’s just not the same, we go to a little village called South Pool, it’s chocolate box pretty.

 

The planning of the expedition goes on all week, it’s all very ‘Swallows and Amazons’) you have to catch the tide right, to get as far as possible up the creek, thus avoiding the mud and arrive at  a time when the pub is open, as a beer or a cider is found to enhance the picnic, for the grown ups at least.

Below is ‘Glebe Farm’ you can find farms of this name all over England, it’s a name that was given to land which belonged to parish, the revenue from the farm  contributed towards the income for the parish expenses

The children had great fun trying to catch the leaping fish as they came up the creek on the tide, they were unsuccessful in catching them, just as I was in trying to photograph the silver flashes of fish.

Guilt Free

Is it possible to eat a pork pie without feeling some how guilty? As though it must be really very bad for you.

I had to share this pie with you, but only in a photograph, because it was far to tasty to give any away, it was mine all mine and it was quite simply the best pork pie I’ve ever tasted.

It came from Lidstones Butchers in Kingsbridge (est 1835)  like the butchers shop we have at home it’s a proper butchers who know their product, where it came from and the sward the beast grazed on.

So I enjoyed the treat and if I were to be looking for a real guilt trip, it would be to eat Mr Uhdd’s pie (he’s out with the boys) tempting isn’t it?