Here's our good friend Horrid of Henbury's ramblings for the penultimate month of 2024.
Occasional Notes from a Dog Walker
November 2024
A grey (but not cold) start to the month again.
"Remember, remember..." – Bonfire Night arrived, dull but dry; a splendid event on the Millennium Green, with by far the best ever Guy. Dot the Dog did not agree however. She was not frightened but rather annoyed by the fireworks, barking furiously as they went off – I suspected the whizzes and bangs assaulted her very sensitive hearing. When the local pheasant shoots started her reaction was similar, making for very noisy Saturday mornings!
The following morning our car was dotted with ash but DtD and I carried on with our walk regardless. We stumbled on a small clump of Fairy Ring mushrooms (in reality Dot trampled them – she has no taste) in the field behind the Primary School. They are edible and their rough location has been logged in my brain for next autumn. I was reminded of past holidays in France, where you can take mushrooms/toadstools gathered in the wild to the local pharmacy for identification and be told whether they are edible or not.
A pair of rabbits (one large, one small) appeared exploring the garden. A few years ago, when Dot the Dog first came on the scene we had a wire mesh fence put up, now embedded in the beech hedge, because she proved to be an accomplished escapologist. We couldn't see where the bunnies got in (and out) but there appeared to be two possibilities – either they burrowed under the fence, or DtD had dug under it for some reason and inadvertently let them in. Many years ago as a schoolboy and later student I worked on a fruit farm in Suffolk in summer, and when there was a hiatus in the succession of apple varieties to be picked one of our jobs was erecting rabbit proof wire netting fences. The practice was to dig a trench and bury eighteen inches of wire horizontally about a foot down on the outer side, then carry it up on to the fence posts so that the rabbits couldn't get under (because they start digging right up against the obstacle). Unfortunately we can't do that under a hedge!
Huge skeins of geese continued to fly over, sometimes thirty or forty strong – audible from afar. More mushrooms or toadstools appeared in the fields and the autumn festoons of newly hatched spiders' webs reappeared on the hedgerows and on the deadheads of cow parsley and hogweed, picked out by drops of dew in the early morning.
There came several foggy mornings, followed by clear, sunny afternoons with lightish frosts overnight (they can't have been too cold because our nasturtiums hadn't turned to mush!). One afternoon Dot the Dog and I went out in bright sunshine around three o'clock and watched fascinated as a bank of fog rolled down the slope of the field toward the big flood while the blue sky became obscured. The following afternoon after a foggy morning and a spell of bright sunshine fog again rolled across outside our kitchen window – I had to go outside and sniff to make sure it wasn't smoke! Next Day our Ocado delivery (disclaimer – I am not being paid for advertising!) was delayed by an hour and a half because the driver had been stuck in Rainow on a prior delivery having felt the visibility was too poor to carry on safely.
The rains came – plus a yellow warning of snow and ice. Dot the Dog got thoroughly filthy over the fields and enjoyed it, but not the consequent hosing down. As to snow and ice – to be seen.
The sparrowhawk came and sat on the bird feeders. S thought it must be a juvenile, seeming to be a bit uncertain of itself and not yet entirely confident in hunting. The adult birds don't perch – they flash through the garden, pick up a hapless small bird and flash off, all in one swoop. Occasionally they go up into the sycamore to dine. This one looked almost as though it was waiting for its prey come to it.
Storm Bert arrived, preceded by snow. The first morning there was a mere dusting, and then a proper fall. Dot the Dog had huge fun, tossing lumps of snow up with her nose and trying to catch them as they fell. After that, seriously dangerous ice such that I cut our morning walk short next day – DtD was unimpressed – but she has four-paw drive and I have only two hind feet!
Long-tailed tits appeared in the hedgerows, and the ever-resourceful squirrels plundered the leftover maize cobs in the recently harvested field. They took them up into the small trees in front of Moss Cottage/Mossway, nibbled them bare and then dropped the husks on to the public footpath below (still, better than polybags of dog poo that some people leave around... my prejudice).
After Bert's torrential rain Anderton's Lane briefly became a rivulet. The "small flood" behind Henbury Rise and William's Way grew and encroached on the bordering fences and hedges. Two rival flotillas of ducks floated about and quacked loudly – and a crow (or maybe jackdaw) sat in a tree mimicking the duck sounds so it was almost like hearing a duck perched in a tree! Thirty or so gulls sat apart from the ducks but paddled about.
As ever
Horrid of Henbury