Our New Camera!

On Thursday, Derek took the camera with him when he went out for a ride on Paddy. The deer were unaffected by the close proximity of the horse and without me or the dogs, he managed to get smashing shots of some stags. The stags loose their antlers in April but by now they started to re-grow and are covered in velvet. This will start to peel off during the summer months ready for the rut in October. The rut is a sight and sound worth seeing and hearing, in fact you can hear them roaring from the veranda. As ever with us, things of a technical nature take a little while to process but hopefully we will be able to put some of the photos onto the blog fairly soon.

My sister brought my mum and my niece and her partner (Katie and Aaron) up for lunch on Tuesday. It was mum’s birthday and for 85 she is pretty fantastic – only problem is her lack of hearing. But mum is still pretty mobile and has taken charge of Julie’s kitchen (much to Julies delight)! Katie and Aaron both did animation at university and using their talents as designers, they have created their own website design studio (Slurpy Studios). Their work is brilliant and very reasonable as well - take a look at their website http://www.slurpystudios.com/

Julie is still having problems with her bees – I never knew there was so much work, pressure and worry involved with a hive. Apparently it’s all to do with queens, swarming and angry bees. Not only that, rabbits have discovered Julies vegetable patch and do they love it. As fast as Julie plants out and things start to grow, there they are, waiting in the hedge row – it must be like one giant picnic for them!!

The weather this week has been brilliant – so hot and sunny. The bees have been busy buzzing between the cotoneasters and the roses. The lupins are spectacular this year and the roses are really starting to come into their own. Derek has practically finished planting the annuals and the garden looks lovely.

In the next village (Huntscott) Paul has a market garden where he grows and sells at the gate new potatoes, broad beans, courgettes, sweet williams and a variety of bedding plants. It’s great to wander down and get such beautifully fresh veg straight from the garden – in fact he will dig it while you wait! He also has some South Devon cattle – its lovely to see them grazing with Dunkery Beacon as a backcloth. We went to get some marigolds on Friday and Paul told us he had just seen his first deer calf of the season on the bridle path just behind our place – Derek will be off to hopefully get some photos next week.