Tag Archives: rabbit

Rewild at Heart

Catkins

Simon Barnes was speaking on Radio 6 the other Sunday morning, promoting about his book “Rewild Yourself: 23 spellbinding ways to make nature more visible”. He has ideas to get everyone to be more in touch with the natural world around us.  One suggestion – to learn the songs of some common birds which – is exactly what Mrs B and I have been doing recently too.  We reckon we have learnt the great tit, song thrush, robin, blackbird and chaffinch so morning strolls are now very much a multi-sensory affair as we listen out for birdsong.

And bird song is not the only sound that attracts the attention at the moment as the countryside reverberates to the drumming of greater spotted woodpeckers on hollow branches, and the overhead thrum of closely packed wings as a flock of starlings arrives at a nearby tree.  Whenever I see starlings I recall one sixth former from a private girls school asking the question “starling….is that anything to do with that bloke in Russia?” The subsequent incredulity of staff and students said it all: thirteen years of school fees for this? Some serious rewilding needed there.

Mrs B and I were very much at one with our natural environment on the morning dog walk this week.  We listened to the song thrush which regularly sings at the top of the same tree each morning;  we watched flocking starlings and spectated as two deer fled the attentions of our hopelessly out-paced labrador.  Potentially a pet dog might have a negative impact on the local ecology, but those deer will be fitter and healthier for the hundred workout sprint they put in before the dog threw in the towel.  Ella proceeded to flush out a couple of pheasants and then a rabbit but she was no nearer catching them than she was the deer.  She might have had a chance with a grey squirrel – but she did not spot that – and fortunately failed to see the badger bumbling which was oblivious to our presence just fifteen yards away.   We put the dog on the lead:  this was one piece of wildlife she would probably do well to avoid.

Back home the (flocking) starlings were trying to get back into their nest sites under the tiles of the house.  I’ve put wire over some of the holes to stop this so now, as I sit at my desk, all I can hear is them scratching away at the bars trying to get in – like an avian Andy Dufresne in reverse.  I would not mind them being there, but we decided to evict them when they started removing loft insulation and depositing large tufts around the garden.

So no more artificial domesticity for them – I am encouraging them to do their own bit of rewilding.

Stile and oak tree
Sun rise over South Somerset

Chicken Run II

Where is that drill bit?
Where is that drill bit?

The major event this Easter has been the return of Chickens to the estate.  After a few site meetings Jim had delivered the posts and wire and between us we had dug three-quarters of the way around the area to be able to dig the fence in.  The gate was a slight issue as we needed to make one, so Jim and I suggested to the OM that he might like to dust off his old woodworking skills and throw one together.  He demurred although he did have what Jim and I both agreed was a good idea to hang the non-existent door from the end of the cow stall instead of securing a square post.  TOM decided to advise me on the size of drill bits, wood and other practical matters to aid me in my task.  “They are in the top shed” he told me.  Such instructions of little use.  He might as well have said they were on Mars.  I would have had more chance of locating them in outer space than in the heaps of old tools, wood and machinery in his shed.

“Do you think you can find them for me?” I asked.  He decided he could – and duly did – thus saving me a frustrating search and giving him another thirty yards of exercise.  A win-win, by my reckoning.

So by the Friday afternoon we had a wall plate and three trenches dug when Jim arrived for the main construction session.  Jim and I work well together.  He has the experience and the right  sanguine attitude towards the OM who pays him for his labour, and I am happy to agree with whatever Jim says and to offer what muscle I can muster.

Posts in
Posts in

It started reasonably well with the acquisition of tools:  metal spike and sledgehammer to the fore.  The OM was keen to tell us that the sledgehammer had been acquired from Yeovilton Air Base in 1962/3 when he was clearing the runway of ice (my first winter was a hard one I am told).  A legendary piece of equipment which promptly broke as we hammered in the first post.  We resumed 10 minutes later with Jim’s tools and cracked on with the job in hand.  Incredibly we managed to get posts and netting up and a strand of supporting wire too.   With only two lengths of wire to go, Jim left me to sort it the next morning but with a warning that it would be a two person job as the wire could get “twisted as fuck” if you did not feed it out carefully.  I took this as a serious piece of advice.  Jim does not often use strong language in my experience.

Gate - constructed by the author - not his father
Gate – constructed by the author – not his father

It only took an hour or two with Verity the next morning to make the run secure.  Which was just as well, as I had arranged to collect the hens that afternoon.  This is the third time that we have sourced chickens from Dorset Hens and they never fail to deliver.  They have a great range of hybrids of various hues, and although after a busy Easter there was not a great choice, we took an eclectic foursome of a Mottled Leghorn, an Amber Star, a Bova Nera and a Colombian Blacktail.   They were in a crate waiting for us when we arrived and the owner grabbed them two at a time to put them in the back of our car (in the dog crate).  As she took the Leghorn she muttered a warning under her breath that this was “a little bastard”.  Or at least that was what I thought I heard.  She actually said “this is the fastest”.  Ok – got ya.

VB and I returned with our clucking cargo and started to unload them. When the OM came up the yard I assumed it was to take a look at the new arrivals, but it turned out the more pressing matter for him was to print off a boarding pass for his impending flight to Newcastle – in three weeks’ time.  I politely suggested I would take a look later.  For the moment I wanted to get my hens settled in….

And so the hens are in.  And they have not hung about, with one already laying (three in total so far) and we have also managed to discourage either dog from getting too interested in the chickens too.  If Ella gets the wrong side of the fence, it will be carnage.  The last time we had hens she was only a puppy but managed to get into the old run, to which I was alerted when I heard one hen shouting “f-koff!, f-koff!”  Ella had the bird in her mouth, but fortunately did not deliver the coup de gras on that occasion.  I don’t think she would be quite so gentle now…

Stonemouth

140501 (1)
A survivor

With new life in the spring air, death is on the agenda once again in the garden.  We lost four of our hens the other day as a fox (or foxes) took three away and left one fatally injured.  The wounded hen was hiding under a tree with her head jammed under some ivy, totally in shock.  Josh and I only spotted her hours later.  I put her in the hen house and let her out the next day.  She had laid two eggs in the night (one a softy).  I guess it was no surprise she died later that day – she had a massive bite mark in her back where the feathers had been ripped out.

So we are left with one rather bemused looking hen who continues to roost warily in the blue cedar each night, sitting as if on board the bow of a ship.

20140504_100919
On the trail

Elsewhere the canine assault on the rabbit population has resulted in more casualties.  The Black Lab is showing a good turn of speed and a pretty effective killing technique.  For a supposed “soft mouthed” retriever she thankfully dispatches baby rabbits swiftly.  This was particularly useful the other morning when, after being let out early, both dogs bombed back in through the front door within thirty seconds – as normal – to get their breakfast.  As Ella sped through the door and into the kitchen I noticed she had a toy in her mouth.

20140509_140845
Toys out of the pram?

“But she has no toys in the garden” was my immediate thought, which segued to me shouting “hey!” at my startled dog, who spat the baby rabbit out by the fridge.  I surveyed the poor creature for a moment or two to check it was dead.  Which it was, thankfully.  The thought of a rabbit loose in the kitchen being pursued by my over-excited dogs was not something I wanted to experience.  We’ve only just put it back together after re-decorating – it does not need to be rearranged by two idiot dogs in pursuit of a petrified rabbit.

I was just gob-smacked (indeed I guess Ella was, literally) by how quickly she had run into the garden, collected the live rabbit in her mouth and returned for breakfast with said bunny.  Being a Labrador she naturally suffers from CRS (Compulsive Retrieval Syndrome).  But this was taking things a little far.

20140509_140636
A hard mouth of stone

Later the same day Ella saw more success.  She has developed a tactic similar to a sheep dog in which she pelts up the right side of the garden in an out-run before sweeping around the top of the middle border or coming down the centre of either that border or the Silver Wedding bed.  I am not sure that the shrubs are going to survive the constant pounding but Ella did snare another rabbit, emerging out of the flower bed with broken Hosta leaves flying like anti-aircraft chaff, bunny in mouth.

She readjusted it a couple of times to complete the job, like a heron aligning the orientation of a fish before swallowing.  Thankfully this did not occur, although I would not have been surprised to see her try to swallow it whole – with her gullet she eats first and vomits later, as I am all too aware.  She dropped the corpse for me to dispose of effectively.  Which I duly did – taking it to Jim for his ferrets (or hawks).

So fewer and fewer rabbits and hens.  But probably less and less border shrubs.

Help Wanted 2

A year ago I wrote about my gardening buddy Fudge.  This is an update on my “Home Help” as I now have two such assistants.

April is here and the baby bunnies are gamboling in the increasingly warm sunshine.

How do you get to the other side?
How do you get to the other side?

Although gambling would be a better description as, with two crazed dogs lurking in the garden, the young buns are looking out-gunned. The first morning of combat saw both dogs trying to burrow into the prickly Berberis at the end of the boomerang bed.  Ella, thick in the fur and thick in the head was able to go in deepest, flushing a rabbit out which passed Fudge heading rapidly in the opposite direction.  She didn’t see it, but both dogs headed off in hot pursuit.

A little while later I found Fudge, licking her lips, with the upper half of a half eaten rabbit nearby.

Dogs 1 Rabbits 0

There was more success on greenhouse cleaning day, when Ella triumphantly retrieved another slaughtered fledgling rabbit for us.  Pleased as punch, she was.  For convenience, Claire put the corpse high in the plum tree – out of reach of the dogs until such time as we could dispose of the body more conveniently, without Fudge and Ella following the scent out of the garden.

Later, Ella was looking concerned, growling and even raising a bark (which is unusual for

Out of harm's way
Out of harm’s way

her) as she came back to the house.  I took my nervous labrador down the garden, only to discover the rabbit had disappeared.  There was no doubt it WAS dead, but, well, you know, it being Easter and all, was there a chance that this rabbit had risen again?  With no sign of any stone being rolled away and with the only apparent witness to the miracle being a dumb labrador, we are left to surmise on possible explanations.  The best I could come up with – other than a new Lapine messiah or a rabbit zombie – was that Ella had been spooked by a bird of prey taking the rabbit from the cross.  Tree.  I think a buzzard rising from the plum tree would be enough to scare most puppies.

So, with fewer rabbits to chase, my intrepid / naughty dogs have turned to escapology, finding ways out of the garden.  Fudge is the leader of the escape committee: if she gets out, Ella is all too easily led astray.  So with Fudge tied up, Ella has no inclination to escape.  But Fudge is still able to do her Houdini impersonations even on the String of Shame, managing to make off around the corner and over the fence.  You will need to look at the gallery to understand – it’s more of a visual joke.

As a footnote, we will continue to tie Fudge up in the garden, although my mother-in-law

Back on the String of Shame
Back on the String of Shame

is of the opinion that Fudge should just be put down.  As Claire’s parents are currently involved in moving from their own nice two bedroom bungalow, with beautifully tended garden (which her dad adores) to a small rented property nearby with only a patch of grass, overlooked by close neighbours, the similarities with Fudge’s desire to wander are uncomfortably close.  The old bitch has a perfectly lovely house and garden to live in, but is causing angst and stress to the others in the house by always wanting to be somewhere else – not appreciating what she has and always looking at the grass on the other side of the fence.  Solution?  Have her put down.  Hmmmmm…

As she is more likely to stay in the garden, Ella is proving to be more of a companion than her partner.  Although she does still have one or two habits which will take some work ridding her of.  For a start, she has little idea of boundaries within the garden and rummages through flower beds as well as trampling vegetable patches.  Chicken wire is a minimal deterrent for her.  And secondly, like all Labradors, she has an “eat first, ask questions later” approach to anything remotely edible.  So the intestines of an adult rabbit she ate the other day were duly deposited all across the kitchen floor an hour later.

So, very companionable, but not a great deal of help still.

 

Fudge, Yeah!

Knitwear advert - without the knitwear
Knitwear advert – without the knitwear

It feels like the gardening year is at a bit of a hiatus with little to do, so rather like the lead singer of a band in the middle of a particularly dull riff as the “guitarist goes off on one” as Claire would put it, I would like to take time to introduce an important member of my band: Fudge.

As Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters “so….she’s a dog”, but yeah she really is.  She is my constant companion who loves nothing more than to come down the garden hunting out rabbits – or even rats.  Which she rarely, if ever, catches.  And then just buggers off for a couple of hours digging at the rabbit holes up the top of the field.  So perhaps not quite such a constant companion after all, let alone constant gardener.

"I do not like the cone of shame"
“I do not like the cone of shame”

Mind you, she is a lot less of a liability than her sister (Truffle) with whom she was acquired after being abandoned outside a Dublin supermarket.  They were the subject of a benign Extraordinary Rendition to bring them to the UK.  We offered to give Fudge a good home while Truffle took up residence with mum and dad next door.  Truffle ultimately proved too much of a handful: she had her own individual programme when it came to exercise and when out on walks would simply make a bee-line for the horizon which left her owner taking a solitary trudge back home to await her re-appearance at whatever time of day or night suited her.

A pile of puppies...
A pile of puppies…

Truffle was a source of comfort for my mother in her terminal illness, but after mum’s passing, Truffle was never going to get enough exercise with my more sedentary father and she has been re-homed.  If her new owners want to feel they are spending time with their new pet in the great outdoors, I hope that they live on a saltpan somewhere and own some very powerful binoculars (or the world’s longest lead).

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAFudge has a lot of energy to burn too, and although we are not sure of her lineage, we suspect some sort of terrier crossed with a boxer.  Basically a scatter-brained dog who has bags of energy, and lists digging and jumping as two of her main hobbies.  A gun dog she is not:  she quakes at potential thunder (she can sense the build up of Cumulo Nimbus on the other side of the country) and will suddenly walk to the tightest “heel” if there is any sudden sound – be it gun, bird scarer, or clattering pans.

But she is the best, most patient dog to have in the house,  and at least she does not dig up any of the garden: unlike my parents’ previous canine companion – Sambar – who had a penchant for carrots, which she harvested herself, therefore requiring the carrots to be fenced in on all sides, and top.

Gardening is just so tough....
Gardening is just so tough….

When Fudge came to us she had been named – along with her four siblings – after the Nolan sisters (I hope there were no males in the rescued litter).  We decided to change to something of our own choosing as she didn’t seem to be a Bernadette. Naming dogs is even more random than naming children as there are no limits to what you can call a dog.  There again, these days the range of children’s names has expanded to include pets’ names too, if some celeb choices are anything to go by, but we happened upon the name Fudge as it was sweet and light brown – (like her?)…  And my parents followed suit with her sister, calling her Truffle.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERANot that we always use their given names.  Truffle was generally known by the kids as “special needs” (she would have kept educational psychologists in work for years if she were human) or on the day that they ripped up their bean bags, leaving drifts of polystyrene balls across the kitchen, “fuckwits” was the first name that came to my mind.

On top of Goat Fell, Arran
On top of Goat Fell, Arran

But now we are down to one f-wit, and if she does not have any other pressing engagements at the top of the field, she will keep me company in the garden and – as I said – occasionally catch a rat or rabbit.   In fact she managed to tag a rabbit yesterday, but for the most part she takes up the role of Grommit to my Wallis, as we try to fulfil our respective roles in the garden.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
Thinking of going somewhere?

Fighting Spreads Across Gardening Fronts

Casualties of the Garden War

The large elder lies in a tangle of branches, wilting leaves and splintered trunk, alongside the dishevelled box hedge.  The young tree had apparently been growing though the hedge, which had lost much of its shape as a result.  There have been suggestions that the elder had been using the box as a hedge “shield” and elsewhere in the garden the sight of another elder growing out of the top of the box – but now dying – would suggest that the rumours have some foundation.

Which is more than can be said for the hedge-bound elder: sawn off close to the ground, its life curtailed.  The result of hack saw and secateurs is clear.  And what is equally clear is that this is no time to be an elder in the garden.  Since the break down of the ceasefire between the gardening authorities and the weeds and vermin in the garden (broken – apparently – by the elderflowers’ unrelenting growth and invasion of further flower beds) clashes have become more commonplace with increasing casualties.

Sawn off at ground level – but they will be back

Most of the casualties have been sustained by weeds and elders whose infiltration of flower and vegetable settlement areas have been on the increase in the recent weeks and – according to the authorities – wholly against the planting agreements.  The Midlifegardener is upscaling his combat operations with not only the heavy artillery, but also chemical warfare against many of the small weeds in and around the sundial and lavender, as well as around the edges of veg patches.

Similar tactics are being employed against aphids which have tried to settle on parsnip plants and there are rumours of massacres on the broad beans as black fly have come under sustained chemical attack.

Fudge – the rabbit chaser. “I am not a killer” she says.

Larger vermin have been targeted too.  Well, I say targeted, but the aim of the “peacekeepers” is somewhat random, as the initial attempt to seek and destroy rabbits entailed the use of a “Somerset Hunting Dog” (code-named Fudge) whose high levels of enthusiasm for the job correlated inversely with her effectiveness.  While few rabbits were caught there was a large amount of collateral damage as shrubs and flowers were trampled by the excitable mut.  Since then the Old Guard has been brought in, with sniper fire from the French Windows accounting for a number of large and small rabbits.

All this would presume that The Garden is a place of high security and little freedom for the local inhabitants, but that would be to ignore the underground invasion that is taking place right under our feet as moles infiltrate every part of lawn and bed.  The tunnellings are obvious and have so far proven to be immune to mowing and the deranged stamping of gardeners’ wellies.  Top level meetings have taken place between Gardener, Old Man and Jim, but no effective means of quashing the mole rebellion has been found.

The use of ferret faeces will dissuade moles apparently, but this will only move them to another part of the garden.  And mole traps, according to Jim, have limited success.  So, while battle rages around the garden, the moles look to turn the lawn into their own version of Tahrir Square.  As the oppressors might say, in an attempt at reverse psychology, “let the moles rise up”.

Then at least they might be able to catch a few.