Tag: rowan berries

Rather Nonchalant

Melodic birdsong and the plaintive burbling of an unattached wood pigeon, warmed by gentle sunshine, were pleasant accompaniments to my morning’s dead heading project, and the Head Gardener’s general tidying. After lunch, Jackie raked up her herbicide weeding on the back drive and I picked up the piles and transferred them to a bin.

As the day grew hotter, following a Ferndene Farm Shop visit, we went for a drive this afternoon. The shopping was for catering tomorrow, when Elizabeth and Jacqueline plan to bring Mum over for her main meal of the day.

Ponies of varying sizes exercised their right of way at the Forest Road junction leading to Holmsley Campsite, much to the amusement of visitors on either two or four wheels.

A number of cattle joined in the fun, although this black and white cow was more interested in making strenuous efforts to suckle from the brown one who didn’t appear to need milking and remained rather nonchalant about the process.

I ventured into the paddock at Braggers Lane,

where I photographed some of the riding horses, a few of which wore fly masks.

Bright red Rowan berries, like these in the Bransgore end of Forest Road, now gleam among green foliage above burgeoning bracken.

This evening we dined on second helpings of yesterday’s Red Chilli takeaway, with addition of chicken tikka and vegetable samosas, with which Jackie drank more of the rosé and I drank Tesco finest Faugeres 2019.

Owl Envy

On another hot and humid sunny day we took an early drive into the forest.

Ponies and their foals clustered together in the lowest dip of Holmsley Passage, perhaps in hopes of evading the gathering flies.

I disembarked along Bisterne Close and wandered into the dappled woodland, now devoid of ponies which could normally be expected to enhance these views; it then occurred to me that the animals on these Sultry Days are mostly seen to be gathering near possible sources of water.

This was confirmed at the corner of Forest Road where these fly-pestered ponies sheltered from the heat beside

the shallow dregs of a normally fast flowing stream.

We turned off Beechwood Lane into Church Road,

where Jackie experienced the acute pangs of owl envy when she had to bear the sight of a large carved example on someone else’s dead tree. Briefly she speculated about whether Aaron could be asked to wield his chainsaw to emulate this artwork on our recently lopped cypress.

A rowan tree here was just one of many producing very early berries.

Further verification of my horses to water theory was provided on our way back through Holmsley Passage. The first group of ponies had been within whinnying distance of the stream in which another, apparently knackered, string were slaking their thirst. This shot had to be taken through the windscreen because we had a car behind us.

With or without bigification readers will see no pony pictures lacking flies today.

This evening we dined on a second sitting of Mr Chan’s excellent Chinese Take Away dishes, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Fleurie.