Oh how Deer ... and precious

 How I love Autumn. 

The trees are looking amazing all warm red,oranges  and some days the skies are too as the sun rises and set. The former I don't normally see as many of you know I am quite a night owl. Although this morning I was up before 4am as we have just been having some new shelves put up in the and I needed to fill them ...well more like I needed to make space. 

I think it looks as if I will be back to writing my blog more often as we are going back into stranger times, so here goes.

I take some of the dogs out during the day when Jack is on the shoots and in fact have quite enjoyed it . I managed to pick quite a gathering of blackberries [before the devil spit on them ]- Some say the 10th October but as I looked this up I feel there is more sense to the date being the 29th September,which is Michaelmas.  After that the early frosts seem to come and make them all mushy . 

 I gathered quite a lot of fungi and we have survived although I left some in their natural habitat as I wasn't too sure.

The longer I walked the more the dogs seemed comfortable to do their own thing and  I liked that too as I wasn't tripping up over them all the time . They are very good and always come back when I shout ...well most of the time .

And look what I came across ... the photo below show a little fawn curled up in the sunshine. probably no more than a couple of days old. I have never been to one so close before and it warmed my heart for days.To begin with I wasn't sure if it was dead or alive .then I saw its ear twitch and a step nearer you could see its tiny body breathing . I went back a couple of hours later  without the dogs  just to check it hadn't been left .By this time it had opened its eyes as I heard a noise high above me .Its mother was calling out as I made a quick exit as I didnt want its mother not to come back for it .

Nature is such a marvellous thing and this last few months as the pace of life has slowed down for many of us we start to see things more or less on our doorstep . 

Did you do a rain dance

We were getting desperate for rain. Not only in the gardens as you can always carry buckets of water for these but in the fields. We have  some stony land on hillsides which when there is constant heat and sun they just burn off and there is no grass for the animals to eat.  The crops are not grow , the grain will not fill out on the stalks if there is no rain and we will have droughts . So as much as I have enjoyed the sun and the warmth we  were ready for a steady steam of rain.
So batty as I am I thought I must follow in the footsteps of the native American Indians and do a rain dance. And as my dancing feet  are not like they used to be when we used to 'rock around the clock" and Jennifer and I used to make regular trips to the Grand in Scarborough on a Friday night and show those townies what country girls were made of.  When we could balance on 6 inch heels and dance the night away.  Have 3 hours sleep and be up bright and breezy to start work ....those were the days...
Instead I did a gentle jig around the circular garden in front of the house..That is maybe why we got steady rainfall instead of a deluge.  A deluge after all this time of being dry would not have done any good.It would not have sunk in and probably caused more bother than what it was worth. The roses would have been battered to death and the peony would have lost their petals overnight.

So as the day went on the sunshine came back and we were reward with the most amazing fresh and flowery scents of the garden. Sorry I cant send you the smell but can share a few of the flowers with you. The sheep and the cattle are happy too as their pastures are refreshed and lets hope it rains gently for the next 2 weeks and nature will bring back the green grass, otherwise I will have to get my dancing shoes out again.