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

THAT ORCHID AND VERY WET FEET

Another rainy night, so the marsh was pretty impassable. Tussock jumping got me back to yesterday's position and here it is. They are so exotic looking for this country. I'll have to go back when more of the flowers are out. My feet were sodden by the time I made it out of there. I wouldn't risk it if I didn't know the land extremely well. On the way home, I found this egg, the contents of which had clearly been eaten. It was quite large and I have a horrible feeling it might be from an owl. I guess that's nature but it doesn't stop it being sad sometimes.

That's all for today. Another pile of ironing seems to have materialised from nowhere. Not sure why but I can't get the text above to justify.....in a typesetting sense obviously! Never mind. At least there's a break in the rain but I can soon change that by putting some washing on the line!

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. 

HIGH WINDS AND THE JUBILEE

The winds have been staggering for the past couple of days. The strength of the majestic trees is amazing as they flex to the point where they should break, but don't. I say that but, on the way to town to buy some bread this morning, we encountered two enormous beech branches filling the road. A couple of phone calls later and the local farmer came up with a tractor and disposed of them like so much kindling. One was at least 18" thick and the road had been completely impassable. It showed how much power a tractor has when needed. Sadly, I'd left my camera on the desk at home having been changing coats through the previous day due to constant drenching. 

The Jubilee was celebrated with the Tinners' Fair in Chagford on Saturday where my son and other pupils at the school performed a fantastic puppet show. Chagford was made a Stannery town in 1305, hence the Tin reference. It was a lovely day with the threat of rain that never actually arrived. On Monday we watched the Two Hills Race rather than run it. It's been going for 35 years and is a gruelling slog up and down Meldon and Nattadon Hills, mostly over stumbly rough ground and a section through a bog. 

Enormous puppets of the Queen and the Tinner made by the pupils of Chagford Primary School

As usual, the half term holiday has restricted my walks and I have reverted to my role as social secretary and taxi. Birthday party and friends over while partner and I have tried to restore the kitchen after building works have finished. A series of minor disasters involving a slight size disparity between Ikea and other company's units have meant progress has been slow but tonight we had use of the sink for the first time in weeks. Hooray!

The gale force winds have had a rather detrimental effect on the garden. Huge clumps of wood Forget-me-nots, Columbines and my particular favourite, Billy's Button (Water Avens) have been flattened. Nothing I can do other than cut them back and hope for a second flush from the Billy's Button. Nice posy on the newly scrubbed kitchen window sill though.

Billy's Button and Columbines

No work with Trigger this week but back to it next week in earnest. Rug on yesterday thanks to 'unseasonable temperatures' and torrential rain. I had my winter waterproof gloves on too. I had to include this beautiful Jay's feather, sadly the result of a predator's meal. Jays are very plentiful here and we often see them, despite their reputation for elusiveness. 

Just a few more photos from this week and I'll hope to have more to tell next time.

Glorious view

Heath Bedstraw flowering everywhere. Used between bed sheets in the past because of its beautiful smell of vanillary new mown hay when dry. I tried drying it but sadly that smell is eluding me....

Leaden sky

Have a lovely week.

TRIGGER BACK IN TRAINING AND SWARMING BEES

At last, this week, I have felt able to get Trigger back to work with the physical confidence to give him reassurance. I am going right back to the basics. The first day I met Anna Bonnage, she asked me to lead Trigger away and tell her what I felt about it. I said I thought he behaved like a foal behind its mother; weaving from one side of her to the other with the nerves of one new to the world. He also would constantly get very close in to me, nudging and wanting to rub. At his vetting, before I decided to take him on, he managed to crack one of my ribs with a nudge. Anna worked with us on respecting personal space to start with and we had great results. However, after nine months without frequent reminders, this has gone by the wayside and that's what I've been working on this week. We went for a walk with Snippet and, by the time we got back, Trig was walking calmly behind me at a safe distance and to the side I asked. He remembered the principles quicker than I was expecting. Coincidentally, I received Anna's email newsletter this week and this is a passage she wrote, far more eloquently than I possibly could, on the this very subject:

Safety is important when working with a young horse, important to the survival of both the human and horse. There are a few things that really matter when handling a youngster, and one is developing personal space. Youngsters who have been bottle-fed, isolated from a herd or de-sensitised to objects, will often push on us and if they do this, then it is likely that if they become scared, they will jump onto us. It amazes me how many people will let a horse push on them on a daily basis but would never accept it if a person they’d just been introduced to stood only four inches away and occasionally pushed their shoulder into them or head butted them! I found out at first hand how important personal space is when I left a fully opened umbrella propped on the fence, as I turned with my horse and walked towards the centre of the arena. Suddenly the umbrella fell off the fence and before I could turn around, my horse had skidded up behind me, leaving a two foot skid mark in the sand. I barely had time to raise my hand, so that he knew to keep out of my space. By the time I realised what had happened, he had diverted his direction in order to keep out of my way and then stop. I was very pleased that I had made a point of prioritising personal space on a daily basis when working with my horse in the past. These situations remind me that every day we are teaching a horse things that we do and don’t want them to learn.

I do think Anna is an inspiration and I felt like I needed to unlearn everything I had been taught in the 1970's! Do have a look at her website:

http://www.annabonnage.com/

Trigger out on the road behaving well

The nuthatches fledged this week on the same day that our neighbour's bees swarmed. Sadly, despite a fantastic photo opportunity of a fearless fledgling VERY close to me, I was too busy holding back Snippet, who saw them as potential snacks. The perils of terrier ownership. If it's small and it moves, it's under threat. My neighbours managed to tap the huge cone of bees into a basket and are hoping they will establish in a new hive. From watching 'Springwatch' this week, I understand we're very lucky to have nuthatches in a nest box as opposed to a hole in a tree. We'll be checking for the mudding up of the cracks in the box once we're sure they've all gone. It was fascinating watching the female bringing in mud rather than food sometimes - the instinct to do so is so strong.

A cone of bees

Last Saturday, we were at some friends who live by a mill stream and there were damsel flies and demoiselles everywhere. The little girl was in the stream up to her knees, delicately picking them off the plants and letting them rest in her hands. Every time the rest of us went near them they flew away. She seemed to have a magic touch.

Demoiselle

On Wednesday, I was thinking how barren and bare the moors can look if you don't look down. I sat on a rock and stared at the ground for five minutes. The amount of life was incredible, and given a better macro lens, I will try and photograph it all one day. At the moment, the grass is full of Tormentil and heath milkwort in different hues. They are TINY. The odd minute violet appears too. There are spiders everywhere and, given Snippet's obsessive interest in every other grassy tussock, many rodents and reptiles hidden from view. The butterflies are increasing in numbers now. I've been looking very strange creeping about trying to photograph them this week, to no avail. Better luck next week!

Violet

Tormetil

Four different Heath Milkwort colours

Yesterday was the last day of building work in the kitchen. To save money, we're going to lay the new floor ourselves and put the sink and some of the units back too.....this could be disastrous! Today is cloudy, hot and muggy. The midges are everywhere and I look like I've got nits, scratching my head and ears, which are covered in bites. Here are a selection of pictures from our walks this week.

Hawthorn blossom, like snow

I love the four distinct stripes here

About 9.00pm (taken by Mark Thompson)

Snippet sheltering from the sun 

Shin bashing ensued thanks to this stick

Related surely!

Cotton grass in the marsh

Betty and Lizzy today

Foals one, three and four (I think), who are very pally these days

And finally, I wanted to put in my friend's daughter's watercolour because I think it's so lovely. It has a freedom that so many of us lose as adults and I think the composition is fantastic. The background in the original is a brighter green but it still looks good. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend!

By Lily, aged 7