Not bad for 84

12 years old today (06/06/2017)

I won again!

Kit Hill dawn

 

Morning glory with Spot and Harriet

It runs in the family

Out snigging today, and, below, the view of the Tamar valley from Greenscombe, with a snowy Dartmoor in the distance

harriet on harriet

and instructions for drawing a dog

HMV

Turning grey and grizzled, waiting for something to happen, Spot is a senior citizen now.

and spot the cow

the pollinator

It is a sorry season for hay fever sufferers. The white smoke just visible in the grass is pollen released as Harriet swept through carrying medium sized branch. She is, of course, still sulking following the shock result of yesterday's over 60's beauty competition (see previous post).

Stoke Climsland Post Office 175 anniversary

well, this is probably the best and most important day of my life, I came FIRST in the over 8 years old class, and Harriet came nowhere (see link for relish). Not quite sure why I didn't win best in show but there you go.

rainbow days

 red, green, yellow and blue, everything is appearing

 a tortoiseshell on ragged robin

  a small skipper on campion

 a female beautiful demoiselle (not that she needs to be told)

a yellow crab spider

 

the first common  blue of the year

and brown, black and white too.

fresh speckled wood

trouble

bit of a mouthful

It's in the genes, Spot following in his mother's footsteps (see link).

narcissus spoticus

Spot, some pheasant's eyes and some dog violets

look outs at Luckett

Can we come for a walk too?

run run Ron

Today's guest dog Ron (Warnham R, see link), retired racer, doing spirit of running with his friends.

google translate fails again

"Take me to your Biscuit, now!"

on the first day of winter

Alfie, today's guest dog. I have no idea what he was doing in the top picture, possibly looking for water-fowl or otters, but we had a 2 hour swim and run marathon along the Inny which exhausted the lurchers but not Alfie.

King Canite

we have spent a very pleasant week in Kalkan, Turkey, hence the lack of pictures of heavy rain. All the dogs run wild but seem well cared for, one way and another. They run round looking for people to whom they can attach themselves (rather like sophisticated street chuggers) so we were obvious soft touches. It is interesting that dogs seem to need us to go for a walk. This one seemed Canute like in his willingness to demonstrate that the sea was not to be deterred.

now what?

Spot following in his mother's footsteps (link)

Collies can swim

Photographic proof that some collies can swim! Meg will do anything to get hold of a stick before Harriet and Spot. Most collies we know won't even get their toes wet.

Meadow dogs

Hard though it is to believe it has been hot and sunny for almost two weeks now. This is the first spell of decent summer weather we have had since 2005. We spent this morning ambling through the meadows by the river Inny. There were hundreds of meadow browns and ringlets and I spent a long time trying to capture them on a photo to convey some idea of what our meadows are like now. This is the nearest I got (guest dog:- Meg from next door). Apart from one marbled white, a few small whites and some small skippers there were no other species of butterfly despite the warmth. However, at least a kingfisher appeared four times in quick succession, flying towards me and then up and away to give a flash of its brilliant orange breast plumage. The fish were biting, and so were the horse flies. There were several species of dragonfly and damsel fly. Always of course followed by the meadow dogs!

Spot, the rabbit

Both the rabbit and Spot remained stock still for 5 minutes, each waiting for the other to make the first move thus creating the first standoff of hispanic origins in Venterdon history. Rabbit is relying on Spot proof glass barrier (he does occasionally try and hurl himself through it thus demonstrating that the lurcher is no brighter than the fly).

the ramsons are out

Carletta took us for a walk on Thursday at Old Solomons Farm where the ramsons are out. Ramsons appear to be flourishing everywhere locally in this wetter cooler weather.