Bee School

'National' standard style hive.

We have decided to get into bees and keeping our own hive on the holding. This has got to be good from the point of view of the environment; reacting to the falling bee populations but would also mean that we had more bees locally to pollinate our fruit trees, veg and other plants. Plus it would be fun and it is something I have wanted to do for many years but never had the chance. We have therefore started to ask around for local bee-keeper contacts and have received a lot of help from friends on the internet (Thank you, Rho!) and locally who have now put us in touch with the Longford Beekeeper Group just over the county border. This (hour's drive) might seem a bit daft as there would surely be a group locally, but these were the group we found first and they are a lovely bunch of friendly people, so we are getting in with them for the moment.

A 'frame' of bees; not mine yet, picture 'borrowed' from the
Longford Group (Hope that's OK Elspeth!)

Off we went then last night to our first meeting in Longford town centre to meet our new friends, Joe, Kevin, Dieter and co. They are quite a big group (26 last night) and lively and friendly AND we were excited to find, they are just about to start a training course for beginners which runs through to May leading to the "Preliminary Bee Keepers' Certificate". We sat through the meeting and listened to the discussions on the agenda and both of us actually piped up with contributions from the complete beginner's perspective.

2 hens pick over our pile of John Deere Bob's calf muck

There was then a short presentation by an experienced bee keeper for the benefit of newbies like us on the parts of a standard "National" style beehive; he, Dieter, had one there with him, empty of course. We stayed on after the meeting to talk some more, to join up with the club and to enroll on the training course. It was a good event all round and we learned bags of 'stuff' about bees and hives. We feel as if we are launched already. We now need to get started properly with our beginner mini-hive (called a 'nucleus colony' or 'Nuke'). This is a box containing only 5-6 'frames' of wax on which a young queen and about 6000 bees are starting a new colony. If you play your cards right this Nuke box starts to quickly fill up with the thriving colony and you then buy a full sized hive (which can cope with 70,000 bees), transfer your frames into that and from there it is onwards and upwards, gaining more experience, becoming obsessed, starting to add more hives and so on. We are, for now, only thinking we'll run one hive, but you never know. More reports on this project to come.

I am always completely impressed by the idea of coppicing, the idea of cutting trees down to near ground level every 15-20 years or so, so that side shoots will sprout from the base/stump ("stool") and grow into poles which you can then harvest at the next cut. In Kent, in Challock Forest we had square miles of sweet chestnut cut this way, the poles having been used over the centuries for fencing and building wood, for charcoal making and for pit-props in the Betteshanger and other Kent coal mines. To me it is the ultimate form of sustainable forestry and therefore in sustainable cropping too.

When I was studying ecology at Uni, it was a given that coppiced tree stools in ancient woodland were the oldest known living things on the planet. They had been cut down at least 80 times, every 20-25 years or so for 2000 years or more. Each time the shoots grew from the outer side of the stool, so increased the diameter of the base, eventually marching out into a 'fairy ring', the centre having long since died off. The ring was now many yards across and interlocking with neighbouring rings like some complex Venn diagram or Spirograph drawing. The scientists could check DNA and estimate the rate of spread of individual plants and could thus estimate the age of each stool.

This big ash pole did not come from that tiny cut top left.
It is from a bigger cut out of shot (arrow)

Well, we don't have ancient woodland and our ash in the Secret Garden may only be a few cuts old but it gives me a real buzz to be taking down these ash stems knowing that it is entirely possible that I may be doing it again, aged 70 or so in the future. Meanwhile, they make great logs. Ash, seasoned, is one of our favourite woods for burning on the range. It is also beautiful to split with the axe when I'm feeling all macho and need to do 'man stuff'.

Irish 'Cooleeney' Camembert

We have been delighted recently to find some very nice cheeses in our travels. I have never been that confident of Irish cheese. Growing up, we loved our mature and vintage Cheddars and you could not be any ruder than to describe a cheese as 'like Irish Cheddar' - the only Irish Cheddar you could find back then was insipid and tasteless, described as 'Mild'. Yuck. Liz growing up was only ever given processed kiddies' cheeses like the famous "Calvita" brand. I am told it is worse than the 'Vache qui Rit' (laughing cow) stuff. So Liz, proudly off on her first French "exchange" as a teenager with the Treil family outside Paris, announced to her new hosts that she 'didn't like cheese'. Outraged by anything so preposterous, Mmle Treil set about introducing the young Liz to the huge variety of French cheeses starting with a creamy Camembert and working their way through to the smelliest Pont l'Eveques, Maroilles, Livarot (Le Colonel) and so on.

Rhubarb Crumble and 'real' custard made with eggs.

Of course, we are both real cheese hounds now and will try anything and enjoy them as long as they have a good flavour. We have even been on a specific holiday to the famous cheese area of Normandy hunting down some of these cheeses. We are happy to tell you that even our local Lidl Supermarket now stocks a nice Irish vintage cheddar (Valley Spire) and sometimes a very presentable Tipperary Camembert (Cooleeney) along with perfectly acceptable Parmesans, goat's cheeses, feta and so on. They feature regularly in our trolley load.

"Newt Bothering"

Being ardent wildlife gardeners and natural history enthusiasts we do quite like to get involved in local moves to enhance the environment and hence our volunteering to plant some trees towards the 'Plant a Million Trees in a Day' project happening this weekend (assuming the trees get delivered; we are only 5 days out now and no ETA for them at this stage). When Liz heard a call go out on local radio for volunteers to become newt surveyors in County Roscommon, she was in there like Flynn.

The Irish Wildlife Trust do not have the breadth of knowledge on distribution and habits for Irish amphibian species that the equivalent group would have in the UK (although there have been some studies done) so they are still at the stage of confirming distribution of some species, and amphibians being among these.

Their current belief is that there is only one native species of newt in Ireland, the Smooth Newt although there may be an escaped/introduced population of Alpine Newts in Galway. They also believe that there are no Common Toads, and only (widespread) Common Frog and (some) Natterjack Toads in Kerry. I actually think I have seen a toad here, under some plastic sheeting I'd put down as weed suppressant on the allotment, but Liz's Man-at-IWT says it would be 'very exciting' and would need photographic or physical evidence before he was convinced.

Stranger things have happened mind. In the UK, dormouse 'knowledge' was largely based on people re-hashing old books which were already rehashes of even older books. Everyone "knew" that you only got dormice in broad leaved woodland where they needed honeysuckle to bark-strip to build nests. Then we started surveying all around the South East including our own Challock Forest in Ashford and found thriving populations in stands of, for example, Corsican Pine, with nests made from grass and leaves. The 'books' are now being re-written with modern information. That is the plan by IWT for their own species and hence this attempt to recruit a surveyor for every 10 km square of Ireland.

Liz went 'back to school' armed with notebook and pen, attending a session at the Ardcarne Garden Centre yesterday afternoon. She is now an embryonic expert on all things Smooth Newt, distribution, site selection, surveying methods and reporting. Amusingly, as the training session came to the section where trainees would be shown live newts in what the trainer assumed would be a decent sized pond (Ardcarne had told him they had newts) he asked to be shown the pond. He was a bit surprised to be told by the Ardcarne lady that there was, in fact, no pond, only the pools they use to store aquatic plants for sale, and the newts were in those!. The training guy rather disbelievingly went to check with some of the course members so that the latter could 'see the newt in question'. There were indeed newts and the guy was able to tick off that 10 km square on his map but was left wondering how they got there!

Liz came away with a wad of training materials in a posh folder and her own copious notes in the notebook. She will now wait till the training guy (Seán Meehan) contacts her to confirm which 10 km square we 'own' (we are hoping it is this one, where we live, as we can then nip down to John Deere Bob's likely pond down by Lough Feigh itself which looks very promising - if J-M and Em-J Silverwood are reading this, it's the one you guys tried to wade across with John the Bass Player last Summer). We then have to go and do our simple 'Presence or absence' survey a couple of times this year and report back.

As is her wont, Liz has called this activity 'Newt Bothering' and hence my subject header. Lissotriton vulgaris here we come. We have seen newts here on this land, too, especially last year when we were clearing lush, overgrown vegetation and found the species among the grass. We are now a bit more mowed, 'manicured' and short-grass, especially since the advent of sheep and now geese, but we are hoping that the new pond, once finished will be rapidly colonized by newts, frogs and (if that really WAS a toad) toads, too. That'll show 'em!

Rudolph Re-Mounted

It stays amazingly dry for a 7th consecutive day so that almost all our puddles are gone and it is possible to walk on the former 'sloppy patches' again. I cannot remember the last time I was able to say that and I am reduced to carrying water to the geese in the 'Curver' buckets in a wheel barrow to top up their temporary pond as they look at me a bit sideways wondering where all their nice puddles vanished to. The wind, though, swings round to the NE and turns bitterly cold, putting me off the re-start of pond digging and dissuading both of us from the hedge cutting task.

I decide it is time to find a proper home for my fallow deer skulls. I have three, all found in Challock Forest near Ashford in Kent. One is a fully mature 8-9 year old who had been the Master Buck at his final rut and who we also know was a white-phase deer. The huge majority of the population in Challock are what they call 'black phase', as dark as a dark brown Alsatian dog and with none of the 'Bambi' spotting you see in normal book illustrations. Just one or two are pale sandy coloured, almost white. They are not albinos, they are just 'white phase' and may be the result of escaped white bucks getting into the forest from nearby deer parks.

These boys live for the day when they will be big and strong enough to hold the rutting 'stand' and serve as many does as they can before exhaustion has them kicked off by younger pretenders. If they make it at all, they will make 'Master Buck' aged 7,8 or 9 but when they are in rut they do not eat or drink, they are so focused on the ladies. It can be so exhausting for them that when they are finally defeated and pushed off the stand, they are spent. They go off for several days lie down or sometimes collapse and die, which is what happened to this guy in 2005.

We know this because the then Park Ranger (Steve P) saw it happen and then tracked and found the corpse and was able to show it to us, a group of people out on an expert-guided deer walk. He warned us that it was by then badly rotted and maggoty but we could see it if we felt up to it. I simply quietly remembered where it had been in fairly deep cover and nipped back a couple of months later to collect the now nearly clean skull. I re-buried it in the compost at home and let my own maggots finish the job of cleaning it.

I mounted it on a piece of hardwood and it hung for a several years in our hallway. Rather disrespectfully we named him 'Rudolph' and even hung Christmas Decorations on him the first year but then we had an attack of conscience and respect for the magnificent lad so we just admired him 'clean' there-after and left him unmolested.

Such 'trophies' are rare indeed and I only got this one because of Steve's tip-off but my luck held and I made an even more amazing find the next year just by spending a lot of time in the forest and diving off the beaten tracks when out walking the dogs, and exploring the thicker, wilder stuff.  I said before that only the Master Buck can hold the stand and battles hard with any young challengers. They are reduced to messing about on the periphery, practising mock-fights with each other. This even applies right down to quite young fawns, who amuse you by playfully head-butting each other and bleating like little goats. As the boys get older, coming up to 4-6 years old this practising can get quite violent and purposeful. The bucks can injure or even kill each other.

My second 'trophy' was just such a situation - two even aged bucks had crashed into each other, the front lower prong of one buck smashing through the top of the eye socket of the other and the two sets of antlers locking together with fatal results. I do not know whether the damaged guy was knocked unconscious or what, but the two bucks remained locked till they were both dead, decomposed and the limbs and bodies pulled apart and scattered by, presumably, foxes and other scavengers. All that was there when I came to the place were the two skulls still locked together and a few leg bones lying around at some distance. Rather ghoulish, maybe but imagine my thrill at being able to gather up the paired skulls and bring them home. By then I was doing the guided deer-walks for the Friends of King's Wood (Challock Forest) myself, having taken over the task from Steve so I was able to produce these impressive trophies to show the public at each walk.

Well, now the 'trophies' are back on display, having come over here in the 2CV trailer and been stuck in the Tígín ever since, slung over a rafter. Here they attracted lots of fascinated comment and attention from the builders and tradesmen who call them "antler-horns" in these parts. You do get Fallow Deer in Roscommon but I have not yet managed to locate any. Incidentally, they are the only deer in the British Isles who show the bone 'webbing' or palmation between the prongs of the antlers. First year deer like the one in my black-phase picture above have just a pair of prongs and are called 'prickets'. Antlers are shed in May and re-grow each year. In the following years the bucks add more prongs and then as they hit 5-6 they start with the palmation till at year 7-8 they have a magnificent spread of fully webbed antlers. Incidentally they are also the only deer where you refer to males as 'bucks' (not stags) and the females as does rather than hinds. And when I say 'magnificent' don't get any ideas about massive, heavy, Monarch-of-the-Glen animals - even at their biggest, fallow bucks are no taller than a Great Dane or Irish Wolfhound at the shoulder, and the big spread of antlers is probably no taller than 30" and no wider than that  either.

I love these deer and they have given me no end of pleasure stalking them with the long telephoto, and 'showing them' to the public. I miss them.

Sheep Watch

We've had these three sheep for almost 6 weeks now and it feels like they are such an established part of our routine, they've been here a lot longer. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and they've been very little trouble; very happy relaxed animals which are a pleasure to look after. In terms of man-hours they get a bit more attention than any other animals with 2 separate hours of 'exercise' each day in what we call "Sheep Watch".

They have long since munched off all the long grass in their original paddock, so we let them out twice each day to graze and browse around the wider estate. In the process of doing this every day for 3 weeks or so I have come to know them quite well and to be fascinated by their little ways and individualities.

Originally these 'Sheep Watch' sessions were just out to the front lawn and back. One of us (Liz or Myself) would grab a handful of their pelleted feed ("Sheep Nuts") in a plastic bucket and go out to their gate rattling it so they'd come charging over to meet us. You'd open the gate and then lead them, still rattling your bucket, to the front lawn, where you'd give them the nuts and then they'd look up from the buckets and realise there was lovely green grass all around. Their noses would go down and your job was basically done for 50 minutes or so while they filled their stomachs.

When their tums were full of basic grass 'fuel' they would start to look up and look around and maybe start exploring, maybe into the wooded bits or the hedges looking for some 'dessert' of ivy or young Queen Anne's Lace or other succulent herbs. We'd let them do this till the hour was up but by then you could rattle another hand-full of nuts in the bucket and they would rush over and allow themselves to be led home to their  paddock where they'd sit down to 'cud' and digest that hour's takings. This we do twice a day, around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in what we call Sheep Watch 1 and Sheep Watch 2.

As time's gone by they have started to eat off the  front lawn grass and get a bit more curious; more likely to wander about in search of variety rather than focusing on the lawn. They've explored the woods and all round the allotment (where I have to keep shooing them off the curly kale and the human crops and try to keep them on the grass 'verges' or the knackered old slug-riddled cabbage), they've come down through the yard into the Secret Garden and been all up the Primrose Path and ventured into the East Field. This is where watching them gets a bit more serious as the fences outside of their actual paddock might be cow-proof but they are in no way sheep proof. Sheep can easily duck under the bottom barbed wire strand of a cattle fence, so the watcher has to hover nearby to shoo them back off vulnerable gaps or be ready with a bucket of grub to tempt them back to safer ground.

As I said, in the process I have found them fascinating little individuals. I was surprised how choosy they are. Even on the front lawn which looks, at first glance, like an even carpet of grass, there are 'favoured' bits and less favoured bits, so that parts are grazed really short while other bits, such as near tree roots, stay long. Maybe they taste different?

They love to climb and clamber over the raised bits - old overgrown walls and mounds, or stand up against trees to reach up for ivy. This might just be because they are 50% Jacobs, Jacobs being a very goat-like sheep. For me, because of their dark brown colour, they remind me a lot of the dark-phase Fallow Deer in Challock Forest (Kent). They move through the trees in a similar way. I was surprised too by how fast they can move about and run, sometimes kicking up their heels and chasing away for 50 yards or so in a bouncing, leaping run like playful baby lambs. These dashes are the ones which bring them suddenly to the curly kale and have me sprinting after to shoo them away before they get too many mouthfuls! They even seem to do that stiff ankled, high-leaping run which in deer is called "pronking". Again, this might be the Jacob 'mountainy-sheep' blood in them. I didn't even know that ewes squat like a bitch to wee! They are also slightly different, each one, with Constance definitely the most 'tame' and most likely to come and say hello. She likes to have her hair ruffled and lets you tickle her chest and back. Florence (the paler, gingery one) is a bit tame, but Dora will have none of your fuss unless she has her nose in your feed bucket.

It's been fun but now, as I said, they are coming up to a reasonably hefty weight so we are approaching the time when we have to stop thinking of them as entertaining animals and start thinking about live-weight and the yield in shanks, shoulders, leg-of-lamb and rack of ribs.

Hey ho.
Matt

Garryhinch Forest

On a beautiful, warm sunny day the whole family decide to take a walk in Garryhinch Forest to make a pleasant change for us from all the hard work of buildering; this was taking exercise for pure pleasure. Garryhinch is a big public forest, owned by "Coillte", the Irish equivalent of the Forestry Commission. Mixed pine blocks and broad leaved woodland, it is looped around and through by good hard based tracks, so no mud!

All the Silverwoods plus a house guest, Sarah, and Mum an Dad with our three dogs load up into 2 cars and head on out the short distance to the forest, which is on the Portarlington road out of here, actually in Co.Offaly. The newly groomed and beautiful Maxwell and Lily head off at speed with me in tow, closely chased by Coco, but Haggis only has one speed these days, and that's a slow, bouncy amble. Mum stays behind with him following us along as afr as a big river. We have all the Silverwoods and Dad in our group and we speed round a 3.2 km way-marked trail. We take about an hour and a half to complete with the little ones, M (6) and R (4) variously keeping up, lagging, or scrounging shoulder rides.

It makes a lovely change; we've not been for a forest walk since England and the Challock Forest, so it's good to remind ourselves of those woodland smells. The party returns home for a chicken risotto knocked up by Dad.

Tomorrow, we are back to Roscommon and once more away from the internet, so we will catch you all up again on Friday or Saturday, by which time the house will, we hope, have its new floors downstairs, freshly poured from the readymix lorry and then left to dry and harden over the weekend.

Deefs

More caravan

The evening of Friday had seen us all gathered again at 2CV Llew's caravan, all be it Mum slightly delayed by meeting a burning hedge in the lane and having to call out the Fire Brigade. Might have been just an excuse to entice hunky uniformed firemen into a leafy lane at night but we're saying no such thing. Mum arrives with all the ingredients for a nice risotto and the evening is warm enough for us to stay outside and fire up the log burning converted LPG cannister. Autumn does come, though, in terns of the change from chilled whites and Prosecco, to the more hearty reds. Dad cooks, we all relax into the evening, beds get wrangled and that's another evening gone.

On Saturday, Diamond is being to taken to favourite restaurant 'Le Cygne' in Saint Omer (Northern France) by John for a birthday meal, so we are babysitting Ragworth. Mum, Dad and I nip over to collect him mid morning, leaving the H asleep in the van. This lets Mum drop us all off at the Albion pub carpark from where Dad and we dogs can walk the nice hour's walk round the Creek bank to the Shipwrights' Arms and back to the boatyard that way. Dad has been warned that Rags can be a bit problematic with other dogs, but the footpath is crossed regularly by secure 'kissing gates' so Dad can let Rags off the lead and just grab him easily enough should any dog walkers come the other way. Not many do; most people time that walk to end up at the pub when it's open!

We then have a relaxing day around the caravan with all three dogs off the lead and mooching around. Diamond and John return at 6-ish to collect Rags and Diamond's comment is that never was a dog more fitted to the caravan lifestyle! He looks the part and definitely enjoys the day. Mum's cooking tonight so it's a bit more adventurous; a roast rack of lamb with vegetables and very nice too, judging by the bits of vertebrae we get at the end. Also it's a bit chilly in the wind so having got a good coal-assisted fire going in the burner for Diamond and John's visit, we now let that burn down low and retreat indoors for tonight's feast.

Sunday sees Dad get up on the alarm and vanish off to lead a Deer Walk for the Friends of Kings Wood in Challock Forest, showing the public the delights of the fallow deer rut. It goes well and they all see and hear plenty of deer and plenty of rutting buck behaviour. Dad returns and we decamp to Icklesham where there is a family meal at the Queen's Head involving Mum and Dad, Pud Lady and Dad's younger bro and sis-in-law. From there we all retreat back to Hastings where bro can show us all his holiday slides of Galway which include some of our tentative new house which bro tracked down on his way to/from the west coast.

Enough for this one, then. We are now back in the old routine of Hastings and Pud Lady's, of which more tomorrow.

Deefs

Mate's bunk

Dad has spent the last few nights on the 'night shift' looking after the precious barge, SB Cambria, sleeping in the Mate's bunk (pictured) and then last night promoted to the Skippers bunk at the beautifully restored, 105-year old panelling aft end. These are big tides (6.4m) and the barge needs checking every now and then to make sure the fenders (between barge and quayside) are still in effective locations as the barge rises and falls on the tide (usually inconventiently in the middle of the night!).

They also need to keep the barge looking occupied and obviously lived in, to deter any mischief from the local herberts, who tend to use the St Andrew's area as their place to park cars, get the drum'n'bass sound systems a-thumping, get themselves round a few cans of beer and plead with the barge occupants to let them aboard in the dark. Stand by to repel boarders! Go home lads.... Go to bed... get some sleep!

Wrapped around that, Mum is looking after us and having a nice quiet relaxing weekend, but Dad is looking after the Treasurer job at the town's Hort Soc Flower Show and leading a 7-mile hike through Challock Forest for the Friends of Kingswood. He is beginning to feel like everybody wants a chunk of him and wondering how he ever had time to do any paid work.

Today we are off down to Hastings to visit the Pud-Lady and we are taking dinner to save her having to cook for 'us'. Mum and Dad have spatch-cocked a chook and loaded a bag with allotmemt spuds, green beans, lemon tarte, hot (when you make them hot) chocolate soufflés and fizz (Pud Lady does like a drop of fizz and at 84, who is going to argue?). God Bless Her.

Deefs

Ferry Tickets

A couple more pics of the Cambria now she is fully rigged and sail-able. Ignore them if you're not as obsessed as Dad (and who is?). Another hot day so we take our walk in the Challock Forest where the dense grown-up chestnut coppice gives a good deal of shade. We meet a lady out walking 2 westies and two wiry haired dachshunds, which is visually an amusing combination. The dachsies are scruffy like an unclipped westie but much shorter in the leg and longer in the body.

In terms of Project Erroll, Dad books his ferry tickets for the first burst of real (as opposed to internet) house hunting. He is going to team up with Mrs Silverwood, the world's number 1 organiser of people like estate agents. She has no fear. They will look round each of the dozen or so which Mum and she have shortlisted and, like an 'observer corps' rather than a battling unit, will report back to central command (Mum). There is only one place which Dad might conceivably be allowed to put any kind of tentative offer in about and we're too wary of tempting fate to even give you a clue where that might be at present.

Today, film maker Mike Maloney (Google "Red Sails Trailer" for more bargey action) calls and invites Dad round to see some 'rushes' filmed during the Thames Barge Match. This is partly to show them off but also Mike loves to run his tentative descriptions past anyone reasonably knowledgeable to get his facts straight. He has some lovely footage there of barges at speed.

There is also a move in the de-cluttering stakes. The lady (Sheila) who is to take over secretarying on the Allotments Committee comes round to be shown the ropes and handed a disk of all the files, and wobbles off on her bike with three lever arch files in her basket, the live file and 2 of archive. 3 fewer lever arch files kicking around in the study when we come to pack properly.

Deefs

Pud Lady and the Forest

We are enjoying having Dad around since the end of the narrow boat holiday. Yesterday we were off down to Pud Lady's in Hastings, for Dad to take her to a charity garden party she wants to attend. Dad knows that one of his character "failings" (if you like) is the inability to stay anywhere he's visiting for longer than it takes to have been seen to be there and to have ticked all the boxes. If he needs to attend a function he arrives, does all the necessary meet and greet, eats the food, drinks any proffered refreshments and then sits around not quite drumming his fingers on the table waiting for an excuse to leave. Been there, done that, bored now!

So he's amused when Pud Lady (who, you'll probably already know is actually his aged Mum (84)) does exactly that. He brings her to the Garden Party, she sits down and dutifully eats the cakes and the proffered coffee, buys a plant and a book at the sales table, stuffs a wad of money in the collection box, chats very briefly to those at the table and then, turning down an offer by Dad to walk her round the garden (she's using a wheelie-Zimmer but is fairly nippy with it) she's off back up the side passage to the road home. Dad is briefly left in the back garden looking around at people and saying, rather feebly... "That was my Mum, we're going now... byeee". He jokes with Pud Lady out in the front while he gets the car, that he can see exactly where he gets it from - it's definitely hardwired into the DNA.

Today's entertainment is a walk in the Challock Forest, where we've not been since bluebell time. Quite a lot has changed, especially in the are of the woodland sculpture from Stour Valley Arts being taken away - the 'Cloud Chamber' (= log igloo) has gone, as have the last remnants of the 'Giant Baskets', the 'Dinosaur Ribcage' and the Nightjar Picnic Table.

It's all go
Deefs

Doesn't turn into a pup during cooking

It's that time of year again when Dad gets to lead the Bluebell Walks in Challock Forest, for the Friends of Kingswood. These are always a bit of a lottery as the walks programme has to go to the printers pre Christmas, by which time you never know what stage the bluebells will be at in April or May. The FoKW try to pre-empt this by straddling a number of dates, and the first of these this year was today.

To be honest the hot dry weather through March, April and now May has marched everything on a bit too much, so that in many areas the bluebells are well past their best - drying and faded to the pale blue dusty stage, and the leaves on the trees are too far out to give that lovely filtered-down cathedral light which makes for the best "carpet of blue" effect. It also chose today, early on, just when people were deciding to come on the walk or not, to give our town a short sharp shower.

No matter, the few who did show up got a good walk and saw some nice patches of bluebells. I got talking to a nice little 7 year old named Saffi who made a big fuss of me (even when I jumped up and planted 2 dusty dog foot-prints on her black leggings!). She'd been on at her Mum for ages to buy a dog and liked Westies, so I was charm itself to encourage Mum that this was a good idea.

Meanwhile in Project Erroll, it all just got a bit more focussed, urgent and solid, with Mum inviting the lady from the estate agent round for a look and getting a load of paperwork to complete to agree the description of the house and sign us up to having them as sole-agent. We've got a valuation and the lady thought we should stand a chance of getting some interest soon. I think it's a-coming at us now like an un-stoppable bull-dozer.

Mum spots an interesting cooking instruction on some "Arosis" Greek pudding-rice, which may have lost a little in translation. "In areas with hard water", it advises, "you should use bottled water. Rinse the rice thoroughly without letting it soak, so that its soluble vitamins and beneficial metals wont be destroyed. Proceed to cooking. Arosis rice remains granular and doesn't turn into pup during cooking"

That's handy. I'm enjoying being the youngest in this family.

Deefs

Pot Noeldle

This year's award for the maddest, funniest present ever goes to Dad's work colleague "Xena" for Christmas Dinner version of the ultimate student fast-food, the Pot Noodle, now given the seasonal name "Pot Noeldle".

The advertising script around th pot says it is "The Gift that Keeps on Giving" and describes the Pot Noeldle Christmas Experience as a "sprout free zone", says there is a super-deluxe decorative bauble (see under foil lid for details), there's an authentic cracker joke and you can even use the plastic pot as a base for a small tree (tacky fibre optics optional).

We love the maker's complaints blurb, too, which goes "If it's in perfect condition, happy days. If not, have a moan at the customer care dept and don't forget to quote the code on the bottom of the pot so we know who to fire". The foil lid even has a design showing snow-flakes which end in dinner forks. Dad says he can't wait.Thanks Xena!

A beautiful walk today, when Mum and Dad take us into Challock Forest but starting at the 'Jacket's Field' entrance. There's no snow left on the trees, but all the ground is white with either compacted snow (on the tracks) or frozen soft stuff (under trees). The sun is shining brightly so it's a picture. We see no deer but pleanty of tracks and signs. Mum and Dad find it hard work to walk on but from we dogs' point of view the fact that it doesn't cling to out fur in great baubles is a definite advantage.

Hope you're still enjoying Christmas

Deefs

Safely gathered in

For Dad, unfortunately another weekend of cover, but we still get to see plenty of him and have good walks. We are just back from a blast round the Cemetery and Rec where we met, and had a good run around with, 3 month old soppy Collie sisters, Misty and Poppy. They remind us a lot of the brother-sister combo Ben and Nellie who we meet on 2CV events, where you can tell them apart by the width of their facial stripe - Ben is broad, Nellie is Narrow. In this case Misty is the narrow one, and Poppy the wide stripe. Also present is Cavalier x Westie "Harry" - like a coarse haired Cav - very unusual.

Misty and Poppy's owner likes to carry a tin of sweets, so she commands our undivided attention at the Rec, but sadly the 'sweets' are doggie chocolate drops. I am in there, of course, but Haggis's face crumples with disappointment. "They are made with plants!" he wails. Dad has to give him extra 'proper' sweeties when we get home to restore his faith in human kind.

My pics show another shot of a Fallow doe in Challock Forest, this the one chased past Dad by a red and white collie. She (the doe) does not look as if she quite trusts the dog to have given up on chasing her. Plus a goodly pile of logs delivered today by Polish chums of 2CV Llew (Mum thought they were Greeks! Just as well she didn't say so.). We have that 'all is safely gathered in' feel and can cope with winter; all be it now the cold weather has relented and it is mild and warm.

Mum and Diamond have gone off to Rochester Cathedral to listen to a special Evensong service sung by a choir which includes a mate of theirs off the interwebby.

Good weekend so far

Deefer

More Deer Hunting

Loading the 'pap' lens into the (frosty) car this morning, Dad intends to grab some time back for the long hours he's worked recently, with a bit of deer hunting in Challock Forest. Creeping around on his own, at last, he is able to take some half way decent pictures including a whole series of a small group of dark does in a leafy glade, and this rather good white doe actually on the rutting stand.

The rut seems to now be in full flow. Dad is there in the afternoon from about 14:00 to 16:30 and there is grunting and battling continuously on the stand and frequently off it. We see plenty of female deer mooching about. At one point Dad is sitting by a tree perusing the stand through the long lens when he here's the sharp thud of hoof beats behind him and charging out of the forest comes a doe sproinging along in high leaps chased (rather half heartedly) by a red and white long haired collie. It runs straight at Dad but then spots him and veers off. It's all too fast for a photo, but a heart-stopping close view none the less.

We still get our walk, though, after the deer adventure, with a nice game of ball throwing in the Rec. Now we're all home and the talk is of venison, but it's not related to the fallow deer of Challock Forest - our "hunting" is purely photographic.

Finally running out of patience with the Cinnamon Trust to actually come and vet the house for its dog-suitability, Dad sends them a very polite but final email reminder. We do not expect anything to come of this but you never know. He tells them we are still here and still interested but if they do not make contact this time we will "seek a dog else where".

Meanwhile, no progress either on Dad's work or Project Errol

Patience is a virtue

Deefski

A busy weekend

This cute little mutt is the latest recruit to the job of 'barge dog' on the Sailing Barge Cambria. Named Robin, he's in the temporay care of the owners of old friend Kes (mainly-white JR). Very soft and friendly, Robin is here being made a fuss of on the fore deck of the SB Cambria (now approaching completion) by our weekend visitor, Mum's chum Maisie.

It was quite a busy weekend all in all, especially for Dad who had to lead 2 separate deer walks round Challock Forest in search of the elusive Fallow Deer. We are not alone this year in thinking that the famous rut is either very slow in starting, or is much less well attended at our particular rutting stand than normal. Our chum Rona, who lives close by the Forest agrees with this - she heard the start of it a week and a half ago, but where she'd expect it by now to have built up into a fine old crescendo, there is still only sporadic and half hearted noise.

Dad's two walks both saw a few deer, and heard the occasional battle and roar, but saw nothing of the normal milling groups of females, and the off-stand sub-battles between male pretenders. We are all wondering whether 'our' stand is being abandoned in favour of another location, possibly as a result of too much interference by trail-bikers, dog walkers (or even deer photographers!). What ever the reason, Dad still has not got a decent 2010 photograph to show off.

Meanwhile we had our house-guest, Maisie-Lou, so there was plenty of fun and games around the house, lots of fussing for us and walks, plenty of eating and drinking for the humans, and the town carnival on Saturday night, which musters outside in the street to much noise and light. It also involves numerous 'Carnival Queen' babes looking very cold on their floats in the chilly wind, but these days their attire involves thick warm looking furry robes akin toi dressing gowns, so they wrap up well and keep smiling.

Diamond appears along with reprobate dog Rags at one stage, and Dad also takes Maisie and Mum for a look round the barge.

It was a good and enjoyable weekend.

Deefs

Quinces

In the garden, the quinces have started to fall. Mum and Dad go out with a carrier bag to gather them up, Dad reaching up into the tree, Mum catching, then finally Dad shaking the tree to bring the last few down. Even with the first few wasted by falling to the ground over the past week, we still gather 8.5 kgs. Half of this is currently cooked and waiting to be turned into jelly, the other half (which wouldn't fit in the pan) is in a bowl scenting the room.

My other pic is Dad's first Deer-in-Challock pic of 2010. Not the best pic we've ever posted, by a long way, more like putting a marker down on which we will improve over subsequent missions to the Forest. We know quite a lot about Fallow Deer but we still learned something from Ray Mears on TV last night, that Fallow Deer have the longest tail of any UK species and when you are not sure of identification, the flicking long tail is a sure marker that you have Fallows. Not critical in King's Wood as they are our only species.

The weekend sees us down at Hastings visiting the Pud-Lady where Dad's Sister in Law is doing the catering this time. Mum and S-i-L see to it that Pud-Lady is well chilled out with plenty of sherry. I manage to escape from the garden within minutes of arrival, but in coming back I give away the escape route, a badger hole under the fence. Dad meanly blocks this with a handy bag of compost.

That's it for now. No progress on the two main issues, the 'Third Dog' problem and Project Errol.

Rona says they're rutting

Irish chum, Rona, who dwelleth deep in the Challock Forest and occasionally correcteth my Irish spelling, (slan, Rona, but where were you when I needed an i-fada in my story about out of service buses? :-) ... by the way, it's got by holding down the alt-gr button and typing the letter as in í , ok?) emails to tell me that the Fallow deer have started their roaring in the Forest. The rut is on! Soon Dad will take to the woods armed with the 'pap' lens and start this year's campaign to get the elusive "decent photo of a Challock Forest fallow buck in Challock Forest". Nip to the Friends of Kings Wood website, by the way, and you'll find a guided walk this month to go see them.

Meanwhile, everything else remains in the melting pot. Workwise nothing is settled, much to everyone's frustration, so there is still a big decision to make - stay here and keep at it, or sell up and head for the Emerald Isle. The EI campaign are marshalling their forces with builders quotes, offers to Project Manage and the exploration of ground 'heat-pump' technology. The Stay camp are fanny-ing around indecisively and allowing the EI's to get some momentum going, which is a dangerous game.

'Possible third dog' wise we are also none the wiser as we await a mythical lady from the Cinnamon Trust to come and vet the house. We, meanwhile were declared to be mingin' at the weekend by Mum and were thus subjected to the indignities of the final haircut of Autumn and a serious shampoo. When mythical lady eventually does turn up we are going to be sooooo fragrant and silky she will be unable to refuse us.

Maybe
Deefs

Challock 6 Miler

The last 2 English Elms on our Rec have had it, victim of Dutch Elm Disease. The Swale boys will come and fell them soon with their chain saws. The disease, vectored around by beetles kills by blocking or disrupting the water channels within the tree, so the poor things die of drought, not helped this year by the real drought. We've been told that the beetles tend to fly at about 15 feet up, so elms are safe till they get to that tall, and doomed there-after. It's just a matter of time till a beetle happens upon them.

Today, a real treat. Dad is leading the Friends of Kingswood 6 mile walk. Haggis, at 13, is a bit to old for these now, so I'm on my own, but one of the walkers has a 1 year old whippet called Stan who is a superb substitute, racing about and trying to make me chase him. We get on really well and both dogs are severely tired out by the end of the walk. The drought has left the forest nice and dry, so walking is relatively easy, but it's still a bit mountain-goat in places and even the humans long legs are aching a bit by the end.

We drop back via the Cambria for a check up on progress and to take a few pics, Then we hed home (for BLT's if we happen to be human) and a bit of a kip to await the arrival of J-M Silverwood, who is heading this way even as I type.

Deefs

He Knows You're There

No matter how distracted these Fallow bucks seem to be, or how carefully you sneak about, they're generally a few seconds ahead of you and as you zoom into focus on the long lens there they are, almost winking at you and saying "you'd need to be up a whole lot earlier than that to catch me out, son!"

Dad's second day off today, and although rain in the morning stops play on deer-photography, he is able to sneak out mid afternoon. Usually, by then there's been a million and one dog walkers through the forest, and the deer are all in deep cover, so he's not expecting much, but this old boy was still hanging in there, roaring away and paused photogenically for a few seconds.

Have a good weekend.

Deefer

White Phase

We already said, a few posts ago, that 99% of the fallow deer in Challock Forest are the very dark colouration known as "black phase", Well here is the other end of the spectrum, a "white phase" doe. Also, just emerging from the bushes behind Mum, a fawn nearly as pale. You can see that this doe is not albino - double click the image to make it expand to full screen, and you'll see she has dark eyes.

Oddly, the Challock population does not seem to have any of the in-between , normal text-book fallow deer, Bambi coloured pale brown with cute white spots. It's believed that the black phase ones are a Dutch population, imported when the Royal hunting forest was set up, and the white ones are from a few escaped white bucks which had been kept in the walled Eastwell Estate nearby.

My other pic today is (Thank You Scott-the-Bees) a jar of Kentish honey. Bit of a blend apparently, and not entirely 100% from Dad's allotments, but close enough, and gives Mum and Dad a real buzz, if you'll allow the bee-centric pun. We were up at the allotments today picking borlotti beans, and met up with Scott and our own bee-keeper-in-training, Pete. They are building the fencing that will go around the new bee-plot, and tell me that our colonies will be back "home" imminently, hopefully before the first frost.

Deefski

Wet Weekend

Dad's home from work, but it's tanking down and shows every sign of being set in for a wet weekend. To be sure, the garden and the allotment need it badly but it'll be a bit miserable for Dad's deer-walk in Challock Forest tomorrow. He is guide tomorrow. No problem, he says. the deer can cope fine with the rain. It's the blustery winds that unsettle them, filling the forest with human scent well before the walking party tries to creep in undiscovered.

Ah well. We shall see what we shall see. Poor ol' Mum has a bad throat at present, so she's not even allowed to go visit Diamond, who's back into hospital for a final (we all hope) session of treatment.

Have a good weekend
Deefski