Tag: Pony

The McGuffin

cartoon strip

With apologies to Alfred Hitchcock, this comic strip was inspired by the variety of fly masks that our local ponies are now wearing and a rather striking turnout rug that one pony was wearing a week or two ago, before the weather warmed up.

Ponies, sheep and a couple of donkeys graze in the pastures around our local camping store, Go Outdoors, which is currently in lockdown. They stock selection of pony blankets, stable rugs and rain sheets, so I might have to draw a cartoon of my two pony characters going in there and using the fitting rooms and full-length mirrors.

In the final frame in the original version of this comic strip, I had the McGuffin-clad pony extolling the virtues of his outfit with wide-eyed enthusiasm, but this made it look as if he was delivering the punch-line to a joke. I made some minor adjustments to the eyes and the corner of the mouth in an attempt to make him look as if he really thinks that his outfit gives him suave sophistication of a Roger Moore character.

Link

Go Outdoors: pony blankets available online only, so at the moment you can’t go in with your pony to try before you buy.

Pony Blanket

pony blanket

While some of the ponies on Middlestown Hill are still wearing their winter coats, there are three nearer the village that are now roaming about unencumbered. They’re enjoying the freedom of being able to groom each other and to roll on the ground to hit that hard-to-reach itchy spot on their backs.

But yesterday morning the wind was from the north and all three of them had gathered in the lowest corner of the field, sheltering close to the hedges.

Cold Front

cold front

Yesterday at 9.30, we could see the cold front moving in from the north across the Calder Valley. Ten minutes later it had reached us and we had a very light shower of rain. Cool breeze.

rainbow

Fifteen minutes later, this faint rainbow appeared over Thornhill Edge.

After the Snow

wood

tree (horse chestnut?) in the snow in Ossett, 27th March.ALTHOUGH WE’VE had a covering of snow for a little more than a week it’s a revelation to suddenly have colour back in the landscape. The snowdrops have gone to seed during the time that they were covered in a little drift by the pond.

In the wood leaves of bluebells are greening the banks between the trees, while other slopes are still swathed with snow. In the fields on south-facing slopes the weeds and the oilseed rape seedlings are already established. This is a reminder to me that I must now start thinking about sowing seeds in our vegetable beds.

Biscuiy

When the thaw gradually got underway a couple of days ago, Biscuit, who had been tramping around discontentedly in the solitary comfort of his snowy field (the two ponies that he was bossing around were his temporary guests and he’s back on his own now) found the first corner of grass to appear by the old shed and lay there in a heap as if he was soaking up the sun on a beach.

His method of getting  back up again was remarkably inelegant, pausing halfway for a few minutes in a sitting position more typical of a dog than a pony.

nuthatch

The snow brought not one but two nuthatches to the bird feeders. As far as I remember it’s the first time that we’ve seen two in the garden at once.

cat and pheasant

The lithe young grey cat who I think of as being a Jerry was shadowing the cock pheasant. The pheasant strutted around with his usual imperious haughtiness but wasn’t unduly concerned. The pair appeared to be more companions than predator and prey but when the pheasant started pecking the bare earth below the feeders the tip of his tail started flick, flick, flicking and the cat adopted a kittenish fascination as if he just couldn’t resist the pheasant teasing him to join in a game.

Earthworm Sprinting

ponies

MEANWHILE in the meadow all is harmony. Well, that’s not strictly true, it’s more like the tense calm in the build up to the big three-way shoot-out at the climax of a spaghetti western. Two new ponies appeared in the meadow yesterday and you wouldn’t expect Biscuit, the resident, to share and share alike.

ponyThey appeared to be grazing happily together but then when they got down to the bottom corner there was some kind of disagreement. Biscuit chased the smallest pony, trying to bite it on its hindquarters. The small pony kicked its hind legs as it galloped away.

This morning the small pony was grazing some distance away from the other two, although when something surprised it at the top end of the field it galloped back to join them.

BiscuitBiscuit’s plan seems to be to control the water supply. The other newcomer, the pony with a white flash and white socks on its hind legs, had taken a short break from grazing to drink from the plastic bath (it’s turquoise) that serves as their water trough. The small pony also made a move towards the bath.

At this stage Biscuit appeared to notice what was happening and he swaggered towards the bath to take a drink. He’s a stocky horse, especially compared to the smaller pony.

It was rather like the saloon scene in a spaghetti western.

Mole Hills

mole activityGood news about those ‘rats’. It looks as though, although we might have the odd sign of rat activity further down the garden, the concentration of excavations around the bird table are the work of moles.

This morning Barbara spotted a pink thing wriggling near one of the little mounds. No, it wasn’t a rat’s tail; it was a large worm, risking its life by coming to the surface in the daylight.

There was soil movement a few inches away from it and something grabbed the worm and attempted to pull it underground.

Somehow the worm escaped and did the equivalent of an earthworm Olympic sprint. It headed off and, I guess in less than a couple of minutes, made off in a straight line to the edge of the patio, a distance of about five feet. It didn’t use the S-shaped wriggling motion that you might associate with an earthworm and instead stretched out in a straight line. A worm in a hurry.

There was more earth movement amongst the mounds but we never glimpsed the creature that was burrowing.

moleI’m not saying that the omnivorous rat wouldn’t occasionally hunt worms but I feel that it would have been willing to emerge at the surface momentarily to catch this prize specimen. What we saw was precisely the behaviour that you’d expect of a mole. I moved the bird feeders a week or more ago so spilt sunflower hearts are no longer the attraction. I think that the spilt husks and the droppings of birds such as the pheasants must have built up the fertility of the soil here, resulting in a growing population of earthworms, which would attract any mole that happened to be passing through our garden.

And if I saw a series of little mounds anywhere else I wouldn’t hesitate to identify them as mole hills. Rat burrows, I feel, would normally have an entrance somewhere but no holes have appeared in this part of the garden.

catBarbara had watched earlier as the small grey cat that visits our garden closely observed the earth movements. Cats traditionally chase rodents but this one, which is young and playful, would equally take an interest in a mole.

A few days ago I watched this cat, which reminds me of Tom from Tom and Jerry, on our lawn having great fun stalking, pouncing and playing with a pigeons feather.

Grazing

BISCUIT is grazing his way around the meadow. We’re now into spring and the evenings are getting longer, a couple of minutes each day but when the clocks go forward and British Summertime starts this weekend, it will suddenly seem as if we’ve gained a whole extra hour.

Buds are swelling on the crab apple and the hawthorn hedge is bursting into bright green leaf. We’re intending this weekend to make a definitive start in the garden. Barbara has weeded the three beds so we should be ready to get the onion sets and garlic bulbs planted. The seed potatoes can probably still be left for a while. I’d also like to get a seedbed going with whatever varieties of vegetables it is appropriate to sow now.

 

Biscuit

IT’S RARE to see Biscuit down at our end of the meadow, as she’s fed by her shelter at the top end. She’s kept on her own without a companion but, from what I’ve heard, she’s a pony with attitude, so that’s probably just as well.

Just after I’ve drawn her, I catch sight of a commotion; something disappears down to the woodland side of the field while an agitated female Pheasant goes hurtling up, heading for cover at the woodland edge.

It’s a curly-tailed, stockily built, Jack Russell, which appears again running down the field shortly after, probably being told off by its owner on the woodland path.