At last, a proper winter and my toboggan has been out of the shed! It has been jolly useful for carting bales of hay to the sheep and first class for whizzing down hills. It was my best Christmas present when I was about 10 years old and I have treasured it ever since.
I find it fascinating to see all the tracks in the snow in the garden. The rabbits are absolutely everywhere, almost on to the terrace, and the fox seems to look in the windows. My chickens get at least one visit a day from a fox, it’s a good job their ark is well made. It sits on a piece of welded mesh, so that the chickens can not scratch their way out, and the fox cannot dig in. It has a pair of wheels that kick under it so that I can push it onto clean fresh grass every day. They are not “free range”, but they get grass to peck at, stay nice and clean and get a longer life; a reasonable compromise I think.
Down in Scatterdells Wood it has been nice to see where the Roe Deer get to. They are quite secretive, so we do not see them that often, but by looking out for their tracks we now know their favourite places. This morning we saw the biggest flock of Fieldfares that we had seen for a number of years. At least 100 were feeding on dropped apples in an orchard just up the lane from us. We had noticed that there were still apples there last week – ours are long gone, and they have come in handy for the birds just now.
I know the weather has made the lives of many people more difficult, but I can’t help enjoying the benefits even if I do get snow down my neck as I cut branches of ivy as a treat for the sheep. I think its one of the best things about living in Britain, one never knows what the next day will bring and we just have to make the best of it.
Wendy Bathurst