ARE WE THERE YET?

  

Whilst driving one of Origami Boy's friends home last night, gritting my teeth as they repeated the same ditty for the fiftieth time, I was reminded of a summer holiday in 1981 when my Mother and step-father drove myself and a friend up to the rather bizarre location of Newark in Nottinghamshire. Not that there's anything wrong with Newark - it's a fabulous place, just not the obvious holiday choice for two hormonal teenage girls. Anyway, for the ENTIRE length of the A1, every time we passed a house with a green door, my friend and I piped up with the chorus of the current number one single, which we were very sniffy about: Shakin' Stevens' 'Green Door'. There were many of them and how we made it there without being kicked out onto the verge, I'll never know. My Mother is not known for her tolerance so it really was a miracle. I wonder what annoying things you said or did on holiday car journeys of the past?

What with Jack training and the endless ferrying and overseeing what now seem to be called 'play dates', I haven't a lot to show you other than the delightful chalk work from OB and his friend Lily in the picture above and the following meagre offerings:

Our patrolling toad slacking again

Peacock

Some kind of White....oh for the time to scour the books to find out!

And another...

Red Admiral; the first I've seen up here in five years (on a towel by the way)

This Oriental Poppy appeared very unexpectedly. I threw seed around two years ago to no avail but that hot spell was miraculous

Can't remember the name of this Hardy geranium; it's a shade lover with red stems. Hopeless - sorry!

Hover Fly on the Self Heal

More of the miracle Californian Poppies. I never expect to see them again

So tomorrow is Chagford Show. I really will try and produce a decent post about it. OB is at an Athletics thing today in Okehampton so, having done my Mum's shopping, I actually managed a decent training walk with the dogs. Jack will now come to the whistle straight away and is making real progress with sheep/cow/pony ignoring. All we really need him to do here. Until next time, apologies for being so rubbish, have a good rest of the week and here are Snippet and Jack in our filthy porch.....oops.....not a huge amount of hoovering going on here either. 

DODGY CHAFFINCH AND JACK'S WEEK SO FAR

I noticed this young Chaffinch about a week ago because of its strange colouring but assumed it would start changing like the other males. However, it doesn't seem to be happening. Instead of the usual glorious burglar-like mask, this boy is sporting less colourful look. He's also extremely cautious, and flaps around the feeder a lot, very rarely landing, so most of my pictures of him involve a flurry of wings. Maybe he is in fact a she.....only time will tell:

Here's a good one of the top of his strangely pale head:

                                     

Flapping around an equally dodgy looking Blackbird:

Most of my bird photos this week seem to involve flapping wings:

Jack is settling in incredibly well and is learning about the moor from Snippet. He has stolen his bed and my socks on a regular basis. I'm learning not to leave them at his level when changing from wellies to sandals. They make a great team.

Walking up to Kestor Rocks and back is a good distance for him at the moment and OB's friends like to go up there too, so he's been finding his inner goat.

The rodent hunting and digging instinct are pretty good already.

There's a lot of sleeping too. Going.........going.........

Gone.

The holidays continue to be a social whirl for OB, with me tagging along as taxi and secretary. I managed to miss a birthday party on Wednesday as sheer weight of writing on the calendar for that day obscured the afternoon's plans. OB was NOT happy. My holidays were nothing like this; days on end of solitude and making cardboard horses and intricate cardboard stabling for them and their two dimensional riders. Until next time, here are our lovely pair of dogs, noses to the ground as they should be. 

MEET JACK

So much for waiting till after we went away. This is Jack. On Saturday night, I was looking on all the doggy web-sites for puppies that would be ready the week we got back, and happened to see Jack. He was 13 weeks old and his owners had had to make the heartbreaking decision to find him a new home, as he didn't get on with their other dog. We talked about it overnight and, on Sunday morning, I emailed to see if he was still available. I talked to the owner in Somerset a couple of hours later and after some frantic phoning of potential house sitters when we're away, they agreed to stop in on their way to Cornwall to see if he and Snippet got on and to check us out too. I'm so glad they felt like that; some people might have just handed him over to anyone. That evening, they met in the rain and clicked. So Jack stayed. We are keeping in touch by email as they really miss him. I'm not surprised - he's a fantastic little dog: Patterdale with some Jack Russell. We really weren't expecting to have another dog so soon but sometimes that's the best way. Sorry If I haven't been posting or commenting over the last couple of days....it's been a bit frantic. Jack is pretty much house trained already and, thanks to it being summer, we can just leave the door open for him to trot in and out when he pleases. Here are some more pictures.....

A bit scared of the ponies at the moment

Follow my leader

In the stream

Given that he was already called Jack, we've been saved the endless arguments about names. OB would probably have wanted to call him Porsche, given his current obsession with cars and I had a dream some months ago that our next dog would be called Rye. Jack is FAR better and suits him fine. Until next time here he is looking particularly sweet with that curly tail. 

BITS AND PIECES 5

An incredibly hot day after what I thought would be rain for the rest of the holidays. Up high here, the mist burnt off by about 9.00, and I changed into hot weather clothes including revealing THE LEGS; not something that happens very often. I got in the car and drove to some friends down nearer Chagford, only to feel a complete idiot as I stepped out of the car into a chilly fog and friends dressed in trousers and jumpers. I was proved right eventually but it took a couple of hours. Anyway, here is another rag-bag selection of the things I've seen this week so far. This beautiful calf was asleep when I approached it and looks pretty new. I think it must have been born out here. 

Our resident slug warden is not doing his job properly as you can see here. What a slacker!

OB and one of his friends found this tiny frog down by the stream and brought it back in a bucket. It's now safely ensconced near the Tupperware pond we created for the tadpole rescue last year.

This was as close as I could get to this Buzzard unfortunately. Nice to see one off the wing so to speak. 

Not sure if this is a female or a juvenile Stonechat with a very large insect. It let me get quite close, which makes me err on the side of the juvenile as, within every species, they seem consistently less fearful than their savvy parents. 

The garden is dominated by the sparrows and Chaffinches at the moment, whose offspring seem infinite....

It was really misty here all day yesterday, sometimes drizzling.

The Dartmoor Madams are getting more and more accepting of my presence and the grey (did I mention she was liver chestnut until a few years ago?) even lets me spray her with Trigger's Citronella based fly spray. He hates it whereas she just stands there, seeming to understand it gives some relief from the incessant nibbling of midges and flies. She's such a sweet pony and when I give her a scratch, she tries to reciprocate as with her equine friends, which I'm trying to dissuade her from for reasons of pain and ruined clothing!

Today, despite the hellish heat, I decided I had to mow the lawn, which hasn't been done for about three weeks thanks to the heat-wave. I use the term 'lawn' loosely as it will never be the bowling green I would like. We inherited what was essentially a large chicken run with more hairy bittercress, creeping buttercup, dandelion and plantain than grass. Over five years, I've tried to transplant bits from here and there....mainly from the borders I created. Why does grass grow so brilliantly where you don't want it? I encourage clover and self heal because they seem to suppress the more pernicious weeds and the bees love them. Before I cut it, I took some pictures of the things that don't always get a chance to get so advanced when it's cut weekly.

Plantain

Creeping Buttercup

Daisy

Self Heal carpet

Clover

I like to grow Self heal in the border too: 

I love this slightly blurry picture of the Jacob's ladder:

Tomorrow we are meeting friends at the River Dart Country Park; somewhere that appeals more to OB than me, but perhaps I will find some brilliant photo opportunities to share with you. Don't hold your breath though. Until next time, here's a nice cooling picture of Snippet digging in the snow last year that I found in a folder I was going through. Look at all that hair! Have a great weekend.