Hop Swags and Pig Clubs

Enjoying a gorgeous blue sky today. It's a bit crisp out and post-frost but I have the fire lit in the range here and all my jobs done, so a chance to put my feet up and enjoy a break chatting on here. I've gone all Kent and had a bit of fun paying homage to the Hop Festival we used to enjoy each September in Faversham.

Tops of beeches in our pig paddock starting to turn colour. 

The town would fill up with happy 'hoppers', Morris Dancers, musicians, booze outlets (mainly local brewer Shepherd Neame) and dozens of hopefuls selling swags of spent hop bines from carts and vans to people who wanted to wear them round their head like a crown, tie them round prams, cars, bikes or the dog or carry them off to loop as swags indoors. Well, this year, we have our own hops - the big plant at the top of the veg patch is now 5 years old and throws up huge long bines which scramble up through our growing willow 'tunnel'.

Fixed to the front of our wood store I still have that magnificent fallow-buck skull and antlers. This was a white-phase 7-8 year old "Master Buck" (King of the Rut) revealed to us by the Wildlife Ranger in our local Challock Forest. A spent force (thought the Ranger) after his 2 week spell in charge of the rutting stand with no access to food or water (lest some young pretender take advantage) he would have eventually been ousted, exhausted, to go and have a lie down and often, with fallows, that would have been his lot. I made a mental note of where he was (well hidden down in his ditch-grave) and left him 2 months or so to clean up a bit, then went back to nab the skull. That was 2005, before I started blogging so I'm afraid no link to a post. It seemed only fair to garland the lad with our hops.

These have suddenly started flowering in the 'woods'. I don't
recall planting them but we must have. Cyclamens, of course.

I vowed long ago to give you our story "warts and all", the things that worked well and the things that did not work so well. A little minor rant-een then on the subject of pigs and deciding to buy 3 this year which nearly resulted in a freezer-space problem and has sullied our relationship(s) with some contacts. For that latter reason, the story comes as a "no names, no pack drill" one in which I go nowhere near identifying anyone.

From little IRISH acorns gathered on Tara Hill, ancient seat of
Irish kings, do mighty Irish oaks (eventually) grow.

Readers may have heard of the concept of "Pig Clubs". This is where pig keepers like me have enough space for more pigs and may be surrounded by folk who would love the idea of pigs and would love to try them out but do not have the ground, money, herd number or perhaps the need for a whole pig at the end.

Back in the egg business after the Summer egg-drought.

The Pig Club is a small group of people who club together to buy the pig in the first place, arrange for the farmer to house it, then pay for feed and vet calls if needed, visit it and bond with it, bring their kids round to tickle its belly if they like, then share the costs of final haulage, slaughter and butchery. They then divvy up the meat how they like and everyone's a winner. Some pig club owners choose to make a little money for them selves out of this but some do it just for the love of the thing.

Friends of the Blog may know that up to this year we'd always 'done' just 2 pigs. Our freezer(s) could cope with that. We'd eat 1 and a half pigs through the year, and the other half would be off loaded on family. Remember we can not sell on the open market - we have none of the necessary licences or certificates (Food Hygiene, premises, facilities).

The Amelanchier is struggling this year to do flame-red autumn
leaves.

This year, back in February, when deciding how many piglets to order, I put out there on the Internet groups, that I'd be happy to do a Pig Club this year if anyone wanted to 'play'. I got plenty of good feedback and just one person sounding warning bells (make it all legal, contracts and what not, or you'll be left holding the baby, get sued for not delivering the promised meat, get into arguments about vet bills, blah blah. I should have taken more heed!). Enough positive noise anyway, to encourage me to order the 3rd piglet and start organising for clubbers to be able to be there at the breeder and choose their piglet, see him/her brought home, cuddle their new baby.

On line shopping. Our copy of the German dice-game Qwixx

Long story short, as soon as they needed to actually BE anywhere and cough up any money (or pig food etc) , my enthusiastic 'clubbers' faded like Scotch Mist  - too busy this weekend or abroad, breakdown on the lorry etc. Not a one of them actually showed up here or ever came to see their pig and I spent the best part of our pig-season nursing a nagging doubt that they never would, and we'd be left just "doing 3 pigs" and then trying to cope with 3 carcasses (about 210 kg of meat!). One clubber eventually volunteered that they "only really wanted sausages" and asked me to select them a part carcass and get the butcher to do the necessary after which extra cost they would show up (honest) with some money. Ummmm.... nope.

Nice looking shoulder joint.

Thank Heavens for family, then and our reputation for delicious pork. Several were happy to take a bit extra this year. Suffice to say that by NOT killing all the lambs this year (We have saved Babóg and Ebony for killing as 'hogget' next year) and by 'Parma'-ing 2 whole legs, we found enough freezer space and were not embarrassed by volume. A lesson learned, though.

No mousing opportunities left now the tunnel is clear.

We will definitely not be doing three pigs next year and any pig-clubbing we decide  to do had better be on a non-returnable deposit basis. It was worth a try and it was great fun to have the three, Bo, Luke and Daisy, but two's enough.

This, too, is enough for this post.Good Luck now.

Fastest Cheese in the Wesht?

Our Arum has finally produced some clean spathes. Last year
they all seemed to get frosted, drowned or munched.

...in which we saw an end to the blue skies, for now at least, experienced a 'first' in the wildlife dept, had our shaggy dogs visited by our tame dog-groomer and played host to some rels.

Yes, the run of blue skies and heatwave temperatures came to an end but we quite welcomed it and saw it as a bit of a relief and the garden has definitely appreciated the refreshment. The 'wildlife' drama was our first sighting, in Ireland, of deer and much to our delight and surprise they were just a mile away, in our own home lane, not even as far as the local village.

Bog Asphodel in Kiltybranks.

These were 2 female fallow deer and we 'caught' them wandering on the lane as we headed off to Balla-D on a mission to retrieve (would you believe) our chemical toilet. The lane is straight so we could see the buff/white shapes  at a distance and first thought they might be dogs. According to the bio-diversity maps, we are 'meant' to have fallow deer all over Co Roscommon and I've been hunting around with my eyes open as this is a species I know well, love and 'follow' from the Kent days. In Kent, when I was involved in the Challock Forest 'friends'

First peas of 2016 - in the poly-tunnel, obviously.

I was the one doing the 'expert' (ha!) guided walks for the public during the rut, and it was fallow deer that we were looking at. I have not seen hide nor hair, not a whisper of a fallow deer in all the 4 and a half years we have been in Ireland. I have missed them. Then there they were, not a 5 minute drive from home, clearly visible and definitely fallow does till they saw us arriving and nipped off down the bank into the young forestry to the left of the lane. We have been back that way many times since but, of course, not a sign. There is one not-so-good possibility for this sighting before we all get too excited. We know that there is a deer farm locally though we have not, so far, found it and I have no idea whether it is fallow deer the man keeps, but these two might just be farm escapes. Never mind. I have added them to the bio-diversity database with that rider in the notes.

Towser gets it in the neck from Charlotte. Everywhere else, too!

The dogs were long overdue for a clip and I took it easy with them all through the hot spell. Regular readers will know that I clip them myself and would normally do them around about my birthday in mid April. This year though, they were booked in long ago for some more special, 'professional' treatment. Our friend Charlotte, trainee vet assistant, animal wrangler and also dog groomer had her eyes on them for some pictures before and after of the 'Westie Cut' (and other styles) for her curriculum vitae, so we were saving them up.

Come on you boys in green? Poppea is ready for the footie. 

She loves doing the westies and as they are white, she can also practise playing with her colours/dyes. These are only the cheap, last-a-few-days, water-based inks which wash off so the dogs do not have to worry long about their street cred. There would be no market round here (says Charlotte) for the proper, €6-a-bottle colours used by the "Creative Groomers" that you might get to use in a city 'salon'.

Towser loves C anyway, even though she
has really 'done' him this time!

So, Towser got a (golden) lion cut which, once photographed, got all cut off again so that his head and shoulders would be cool and he finished up with a 'Gay Pride' style rainbow and many coloured dots. Poppea got an Irish tricolour on one side and a goal net on the other so she'd be ready for the footie (Euros). Deefer got butterflies on 3 sides and a desert-island palm tree (green leaves, brown tree trunks, golden sand) on her rump.

3 flavours of goat cheese - plain, garlic and chives.

There was, too, a nice bonus to this day. Charlotte is now milking that guest-goat (Nanny Óg) on a 50/50 share basis with the kid and pulling off more milk than they have need for over there, so she offered some to us and we, of course, spotted the chance to make some more cheese - we love a feta in particular but also all the younger, softer goat cheeses. I collected Charlotte and all the grooming gear plus the milk at about midday. Unbeknownst to me, while we worked outside, Liz had nipped onto the Internet and found a goat-cheese recipe which only needed lemon juice and heat and a couple of hours. By the time we had done dogs, Liz re-appeared with a chilled pink wine and three flavours of perfectly good goats cheese, plain, garlic and chives. I don't suppose cheese has ever been made faster than that (or eaten!). We are looking forward to more milk as it comes available and have also been offered some from friends Sue and Rob who have now sold all their kids and are milking 3 nannies. They have milk coming out of their ears by all accounts. Blesséd are the cheese makers?

The ducks finally work out what the pond is for. Liz and
Mary look on.

Meanwhile, we have also played host to the Mum-in-Law (Steak Lady)  and Auntie Mary who came up for an over-night and a relaxing look around the farm, plus a visit to Strokestown House. The weather held off for long enough for them to enjoy the out doors and Liz has also enjoyed a bit of feeding the pigs while managing this time NOT to be chased by the gander. The ducks finally worked out what the pond is for and are now regulars dabbling and up-ending so that the ladies were able to sit on our big ash-log and watch them busily going about duck-business. Mercifully, this has not, so far, been too damaging to the pond.

As I write this we are relaxing back indoors after the Strokestown visit (enormous Ploughman's Lunch but too much rain for more than one border of the walled garden) and soon to drop the guests back to the railway station. It has been a lovely relaxing interlude and all the better for being a shade cooler after all that heat but, no, that was NOT the sound of me complaining about the weather.

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

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

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

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

Didn't want to play.

Dad's back to the forest this morning, leaving a bleary eyed Mum to luxuriate under the duvet, and armed once again with the new lens, but this time, despite his best efforts, the deer do not want to play. These very long distance shots are the best he could do today.

First up a decent sized buck with partly palmated antlers, may be 6-7 years old but here, anyway, well away from the rutting stands, so maybe a "chancer" for later in the season - he'll have to bide his time while the big boys exhaust themselves. The Master-Buck, holding the stand will get so focussed on the job, he'll not even stop to eat, drink or sleep for the days he's in charge, so he can get pretty exhausted and will then get barged off the stand by the next pretender.

He'll go and have a serious lie-down and get back into eating and drinking to get his condition back up for the winter. His mission is to service as many does as he can while he's top dog, and once he's kicked off he can think about next year. Some, when they are 8-9 over-do it and simply go off and die of exhaustion. Our fine head of antlers in the hall were from a white-phase buck who died of, we believe, natural causes in the 2005 rut, probably in just such circumstances.

The second pic, again, at a fair distance, is of doe on the left, and her young male fawn on the right (probably born last spring). It's entertaining to watch these guys around the rutting stand. The big old bucks are stomping around and grunting and roaring in a bass-y male, testosterone charged way, with the younger bucks circling outside the stand waiting their chance. Then like bored children at a show that's mainly for the grown-ups, running around play-charging each other and bleating like little lambs or goat-kids are these year old fawns, with their Mums trying to keep them out of harm's way.

Hope you're weekend is going OK

Deefski

Back to the Forest

Not brilliant we freely admit, but better than anything else we've taken so far. These pics of the wild Fallow deer in Challock Forest, near Ashford in Kent. This in Dad's ongoing quest to take a "decent photo of the Challock Deer in their own forest". It's rutting season again, all be it not long started and the deer are still not fully focussed on it (which means they spot humans lurking behind trees really early; when they're really into the rut their attentions are... um.... else where!)

You can see from these what we mean when we've said in the past that the Challock deer are "black phase". Fallow deer have phase colours like alsatian dogs and rabbits, varying from almost white (they aren't albino - just very pale but with properly pigmented eyes and skin), through the text book "bambi" fawn with white spots, through to these dark ones called "black" believed to have been originally a Dutch population used to stock the forest when it was the King's hunting patch.

First up is an old buck who would have big palmated (webs of bone between the prongs of his antlers) antlers had he not broken one. He's at a bit of a distance. Closer is the best shot, of the young buck with single prong antlers. He'd be called a "pricket", and is probably only 2-3 years old and just getting interested in the rut (but doomed to get nowhere against the big boys for 6-7 more years yet, poor aul' thing). Finally a group making off. Notice the big "master-buck" to the right, with a good spread of fully palmated antlers. He'd be 8-10 years old. Next to him the only doe (no antlers) in the photo, although out of shot, this group had half a dozen more does.

Notice we're using the expression "bucks and does", which is the correct term for fallow deer. In UK, we only use stags and hinds for Red deer, Roe deer and (strangely) the smaller sikas, muntjacs etc.

Not bad huh? More pics as and when Dad can bet back out there early in the morning. He nips out at 7-ish when it's still fairly dark, and gets into position ready to try for a few pics as the light comes up.

We aren't allowed to go. There's this theory that dogs chasing about do not mix well with calm deer photography. I can't think why!

Deefer

Stockings were Hung

Just in case you'd forgotten how weird the Humans are around here (Well, Dad mainly), a pic of (I'm sure we've mentioned this before) Rudolph. Rudolph is a Challock Forest Fallow deer (actually a white buck) who died of natural causes in late 2005.

We guess he died happy because by "late" I mean the rutting season, and it is the way of these things that a big ol' boy becomes "Master-Buck" for as long as he can manage it, normally in his 8th or 9th year. He hold the stand for a week or so, but doesn't eat or drink for that time, so he ends up exhausted, and eventually gets pushed off by a young pretender.

Some are strong enough to retreat, re-group and try again next year, but eventually comes the year when the exhaustion is all-pervading, and this old boy (says our tame expert and Forest Ranger, Steve) pretty much wandered off, collapsed and died. We found him after nature and re-cycling had taken it's course, and you have to agree he's a magnificent boy. At this age the antlers are pretty much fully palmated (webbed like a moose's), they are 23" long here and 30" spread. OK small-fry by moose standards, but about as good as it gets for a fallow deer.

Anyway, here is "Big Rudolph" with his "Little Rudolph" stocking hung up in case Santa should come by.

Bless

Deefer