BON VOYAGE

Just a quick one to say farewell for the week and thank those of you who left very supportive comments after the last post, particularly those who confessed their own car related shame. A brief update......am still wrangling with the insurance company having decided we'd like to keep the car and get it mended ourselves with the settlement. A local mechanic has said he can do it. It amazes me that the insurers can write it off without even seeing it but there you are. Doesn't look like it will be sorted before we go away. Our lovely neighbours will be looking after Trigger and the plants. I spent an hour I could ill afford today making bracelets out of copper wire to put around the bottoms of all the vegetables; they do seem to be helping and without M's nightly slug patrol for a week, we're going to need something. 

Camera news......I sent the birthday one back to the supplier on Tuesday, they got it yesterday and fingers VERY tightly crossed, they have sent the replacement today. This means it COULD be here tomorrow. I MIGHT have it for Scotland. In the absence of anything other than my phone and the little point and shoot, here are some shots from the garden when it was sunny yesterday.

Billy's Button/Water Avens

Astrantia Major beginning to open:

Hydrangea:

Astrantia....possibly Red Ruby but I'm not sure:

Chive:

I saw this tiny lichen when out with the dogs yesterday and wanted a closer look. The cup was only about 3/8 of an inch or half a centimeter wide. Just beautiful:

Jack cooling off in a stream:

Wide angle from the little camera:

Phone slug. Fascinating if disgusting and destructive:

So, I'll be away for a week and am unlikely to have a phone signal or internet access. I'll miss all those other blogs but it's a holiday from everything. First proper one since 2010. I had my back shattering accident four days before we were due to go away in 2011 which was most inconvenient. The forecast for Loch Goil is cloudy for the next ten days but no rain. Do I believe that? I do not. Keep your fingers crossed for me regarding the camera and until next time, here are the dogs tearing a bank apart; ecologists they are not. 

A NEW TOOTH AND A SAD INJURY

I have been smiling a lot since 11.00 this morning when I got my new tooth. I lost one of the front incisors in my accident and have had a little plate with a false one for nine months now. Three months ago I had a titanium implant put in and today, the crown was fitted. My mum paid for it and I'm SO grateful. I feel like me again, despite the slight difference in colour; a little too white! I ate my first apple without having to cut it up.

The picture above was taken as I was on my way home from our walk, thinking I wasn't going to see any ponies. They were all hiding behind the rocks to get out of the unbelievably strong winds. Suddenly, this group all rushed to the crest of the hill. I did too, nearly falling over in the process. Thank goodness I'm usually alone out there. They had obviously heard Betty and a little gang approaching and had come to greet them. It was lovely seeing them all moving so fast and being so alert given their usual quiet grazing habits. Here are a few more pictures of the event.

Yesterday morning, whilst out with Snippet, I spotted a yearling filly hanging around on her own which is very unusual. Later that evening I noticed she was lame and had quite a bad gash on one of her hind legs. Some phone calls later, a local farmer put her in one of his fields bordering the moor whilst they try and find who she belongs to as she's too young to have been branded. Today she doesn't look great and the theory is she was probably hit by a car. I don't know how anyone can do that and not let anyone know. The brutal reality is that it isn't financially viable to treat her and she will most likely be destroyed. This is one of those times I wish I had land and unlimited funds, and could take in all the waifs and strays. I don't think I have a picture of her although she's probably in the background of something I've taken. I'll go and check on her tomorrow but she was out of sight this afternoon. Very sad. 

A friend, the podiatrist who trims Trigger's hooves, has started a great web site selling photographic prints, the profits from which all go to Macmillan Cancer Support. Do go and have a look if you have time. It's such a great idea and lovely photos too:

http://www.purposefulprints.co.uk/index.html

Today, I watched a skylark trying to do its vertical climb and failing miserably thanks to the wind. Poor thing was blown sideways, still singing stoically. I felt guilty laughing but it was quite funny.

Sorry to go on about the black slugs but they are really fascinating me at the moment. With the damp weather they are absolutely everywhere again and eating the most bizarre things. I found five munching their way through a small stinging nettle plant, two 'fighting' (very slowly) over a dog poo and this one crawling over and consuming a gorse bush that would have most of us shouting "ow!" at the slightest touch. I think I need to find out more about these little terrors.....

Gorse muncher

Here are some more photos from today and have a lovely weekend.

Bacon and Eggs (Birdsfoot-trefoil), out now in the grass

Windy grass

Foal number four and her mum in the wind

Our neighbour's Rhododendron flowers blown off 

Solomon's Seal in the garden

ANOTHER NEW FOAL AT LAST

What a little beauty. After ten days of absence, I found the two herds together in the marsh. Some of them seemed very confident and came up very close to me. This mare and the new foal (the eighth excluding Lizzy) came within a couple of yards. Snippet had to go on his lead as he was getting very excited. I could even smell them in the muggy heat. It was a humbling experience being accepted by them. They didn't seem to mind the clicking and whirring of my partner's old camera that I was using, which has a better zoom.....the one time I didn't actually need it!

Foal eight having a shake

One of the geldings that protect the mares

Foal number two getting VERY close

Foal number three, looking younger than many born after him

Lizzy deep into the  marsh

When I took the last one, I was teetering on a tussock of grass, surrounded by bog. The up side of this relative peril was that I noticed a lone heath spotted orchid. Sadly, due to my lack of knowledge of the camera, I managed to take a beautifully in focus shot of the background with a total orchid blur in the centre. Didn't realise until I got home so I'm going to have to try and retrace my steps tomorrow. Wellies this time though in case of a misplaced step. 

Here are some pictures from the last few days in the gaps between the dire weather.

Tiny versions of stitchwort and creeping speedwell in the moorland grass

One of our main routes out onto the moor

Snippet's favourite path near a friend's house

A slug eating a mushroom this morning

The weather is looking pretty awful but try and have a lovely rest of the week. 

FIRST CUCKOO AND PRINTING ISSUES

A passable day with no rain yet. Whilst out walking, I heard the first cuckoo of the year. I usually hear it in April but everything seems to be late. Haven't see it yet, and when I do, I will mistake it for a kestrel or sparrow-hawk initially. If you've never seen one, they flap their wings in a very bird of  prey-ish way. Yesterday, walking in the mist, the whole moor was covered in black slugs but today there are none to be seen. Easier to spot the ponies though and Betty is getting bigger. I saw something moving in her tummy and am beginning to feel like an expectant grandmother. No other new foals yet but I think there are five or six mares to go.

Big Betty

I was busy drawing foal number two yesterday (see top right) and am getting increasingly frustrated with our lack of progress scanning and printing them. I had hoped to get my Etsy shop open by now, but the delicacy of coloured pencil drawings is proving extremely difficult to reproduce. The subtlety within one pencil stroke is being lost in the process and I don't want to sell anything that doesn't look exactly like the original. We'll get there eventually but apologies to those people who have enquired. Here's a picture of one of those delightful black slugs instead.

Where are they all now?

Finally, we planted a mixed native hedge last year which, quite frankly, has looked like a line of dead twigs all winter thanks to high winds blowing all the beech leaves off. The hornbeam, guelder rose, hazel and blackthorn are all springing to life but the beech is looking like we're going to be waiting until June for any sign of leaf! We planted another hedge around our wood-chopping area in February, which I wanted to be stripy, so it's alternate alder and purple beech trees. Same problem - the alder is out but the beech is definitely not. Most of the beech at lower altitude is forging ahead but not ours. I just never learn. Next time......no beech. 

Second foal today