JUST ONE DAY OF SUN

And what a day. I took lots of pictures but most contained the friends we went for a walk with and I'm just not comfortable publishing them online. Trigger had his coat off, although not here - it was still minus one this early on our way to see the Madams. Our shadows look like I'm standing with a camel :

The dogs were ecstatic to be out for so long.......... 

........and with their friend Bracken too:

The birds were feeling frisky

I love this one with number three coming in to land:

She did peck him and he did fly off:

Porridge beak:

A Nuthatch too tall for the camera.......

..........who found a rogue peanut amongst the seeds:

Mrs GSW is disappointed with the lack of vertical porridge:

I woke in the night to the hammering of rain on the windows and a feeling of inevitability. At least I didn't have to go and check if we were flooded. I had to take these with my phone, not wishing to risk the camera. They are taken at the bottom of the drive with the stream close to breaking point AGAIN and water pouring off the moor into it. 

I'm trying to hang on to what it was like yesterday:

It's half term. Wasn't it just Christmas? OB and friend are shrieking upstairs as I write this and the dogs are fighting over a plastic frisbee thing. There are bits of the frisbee all over the floor. I don't know why I bother hoovering. Snippet is pulling Jack along the floor by the ear now. They need to get out. I did walk them after lunch and we all came back completely drenched. Jack can now outrun Snippet with ease. Poor Snip. He has to try and get his own back I suppose. Until next time, here they are (phone pic) looking innocent. We know better.

WOODPECKERS ARE BACK

Yesterday, the male Greater Spotted Woodpecker paid a visit to the feeding station and, for once, I managed to stay still enough to avoid scaring it off. Even the zoom inching out is enough to have it shoot up and away out of range. It was peeking from behind the tree checking out safety levels for five minutes before diving in:

Spending most of its life clinging to vertical surfaces seem to have made it incapable of standing up on a horizontal one. It's lower abdomen is consistently clamped to the wood and, to get onto the vertical again, it just shuffled around. He's so beautiful and I'm so glad they're both back now.

On my way to feed Trigger one morning, I was behind a small bird of prey skimming and following the road and then landing for a little while. I managed to get a picture through the windscreen but I'm afraid it suffered a bit thanks to our rubbish wind screen wiper's efforts and the fact that it was some way off. A male Sparrowhawk I think. What an amazing eye colour catching the morning sun. Incidentally, we definitely have a cuckoo here again this year. I've heard it but haven't seen it yet.

Origami Boy has conjunctivitis as well as the chest infection we've all suffered. I took him to the doctor's AGAIN this morning where he was seen first by a very nice student and then by the head of the practice alongside the student. I had told him that the coughing had now been going on for four to five weeks; the student had written down forty five weeks. I am still shaking my head more in sorrow than in anger. Stupid on SO many levels. Is this what we have in store with the next generation of doctors? He was really excellent in his manner but....well - you know. A day off school in quarantine spent picnicking by the stream and doing innocent and simple stuff with sticks and stones and water; the stuff we used to do when he was tiny. A truly magical time was had which I so appreciate in the face of his growing up. Before I know it, he'll have lost that innocence that he shares with very few children of his age. I'm very lucky. He is very much a child still and lovely for it.

Here are some more pictures from the last four days:

Foal A

One of the Dartmoor Madams having a roll

One of the many ponies I see that, from a distance, look a bit like Betty. I do miss her. I wonder where she is?

A Buzzard feather lying in the grass

Foal B

Kestor in the distance from Middle Tor

The moon yesterday morning

A new foal F with foal D - the one with the white bone marking on his shoulder

Foal D again

A rogue white Periwinkle flower amongst the blue

Sunny Chaffinch

Squatters in Trigger's field

The weather is just wonderful; not too hot but glorious sunshine. I sit on the wall while Trigger eats his food, basking in it, watching Snippet hunting rodents. Talking of food, I bought some incredibly expensive Trigger food for ponies that need to put on weight. It arrived today and I presented it to him tonight, only to have it rejected soundly with curled lips and violent bucket nudging. They don't know what's good for them. Until next time, here's Snip enjoying the sun. I hope you have it too!

FOAL AT LAST

At last. I have had reports of sightings for a few weeks now but not seen her (I think) properly till this morning. Her mother is one of a group of ponies that belong to a farmer who breeds pure Dartmoors and is pretty careful about the few he has out on the moor, hence she is a 'proper' colour. Isn't she gorgeous. 

My partner said he saw a grey out last night with a new foal, which could have been Daisy. Another black one. Unfortunately, Snippet has damaged his foot again digging too hard down the rabbit holes in Trigger's field, so is on bed rest. I'm not going to be able to get out much at the moment. I'm feeling pretty rough with a strained chest muscle which makes breathing painful and a chest infection which isn't the best accompaniment to the latter complaint. So let's hope Daisy comes back close so I spot her from the car. 

BT are coming this afternoon as our broadband is so narrow that it's becoming almost impossible to view pictures, let alone listen to audio files, and as for video, I'm beginning to forget what it is to watch Northern European political or crime drama on BBC i-player. Apologies if I haven't been commenting on your blogs as much recently; it takes so long for a page to load that I only get through a few before I have to give up. For some reason, the upload time for photos seems unaffected which is very strange. 

With all the rain recently at least there's some hope of grass growth. Trigger is staying down the lane for another couple of weeks and is being fed twice a day to try and keep weight on him in the absence of lush spring grass. I took this picture of a bedraggled Nuthatch over the weekend. They are definitely nesting in our box again this year which is great news.

The Greater Spotted Woodpeckers are back too. I don't know where they went for the couple of months they've been absent from the feeders.

Maybe this character has something to do with it.....Snippet's nemesis, who skulks in the bushes waiting for an unsuspecting sparrow. I usually manage to chase it away before it can do any damage. 

Time to get off to the vet's with hoppalong Snippet. I have a bad x-ray feeling about this, which means taking him to the Okehampton branch of the vet's 12 miles away and jeopardising the BT appointment between 1.00pm and 6.00pm. You just know they'll be here at 1.01pm if I'm late and drive away again. Oh well....until next time, here's my poor boy looking VERY sorry for himself.

SNIPPET UPDATE:

The vet thinks he may have strained or even broken his toe. It could also be a thorn he couldn't see, embedded between the toes. We have drugs to cover either possibility and he goes back on Wednesday to see if the dreaded x-ray will be required should there be no improvement......