Pigs at Pannage Passing By

A few days ago, in the middle of an ordinary morning, the ponies suddenly became very agitated. The old mare lifted her tail high, tensed her neck and looked towards the high hedge between her paddock and the open Forest. She stood for a few seconds, snorting with terror, and then shot off around the field at a gallop that belied her age. Soon the others followed and were high-tailing around their fields as though a tiger were behind the hedge.

Here is the Grey One when he stopped for a second or two to size up the situation.

I went to investigate and found the culprits. A family of commoner`s pigs were down in the ditch below the far hedge, rustling and snuffling  among fallen leaves and feasting on the masses of acorns that have fallen from the oak trees this autumn.

We rarely have pigs around here, but I recognized these ones, who had wandered across open Forest and through the woods, from their home field in a village not far from us. In the Pannage season, New Forest Commoners can put out their pigs to eat as many acorns as possible. This helps to clear acorns that can poison the New Forest ponies, while providing a natural, healthy diet for the pigs ( who seem to be unaffected by eating a diet of acorns).

Here is the Gloucester Old Spot sow who was leading her weanling piglets along the leafy ditch, grunting softly to them as she walked.

Following Mother......

...and finding a treat of small, green crab apples from a tree behind the hedge.

Eventually the sow wandered through gorse bushes into the lane and lead her piglets up the hill.
She was anxious to stop and talk to us and enjoyed having her back scratched, as did her friendly piglets. They were all remarkably clean and a delightful family, enjoying a life of freedom in the woods until the the time Pannage season ends and they are found and returned home by their owner.

In the meantime, the ponies were convinced that Wild Boar with fearsome tusks were about to attack them. They stayed excited and unsettled for hours, not quite trusting the shadows in the hedgerows.
Horses seem to have an innate fear of pigs, perhaps from prehistoric times, and can sense their presence long before we can. These Old Spots were not a bit smelly and hardly made a squeak, but they were still The Enemy and not to be trusted!


On a technical note, I did try posting these photos on the X Large sizing, but they came out cropped on the blog and pigs lost noses and tails. Large seems to work...... Is there anything I can do to post X Large without an automatic cropping taking place? Thanks for any suggestions!

Back to Blogging - An Autumn Day in Forest fields

I seem to have been away from blogging for the summer! Where does the time go?

It has been busy here, with builders sorting out and renovating some outbuildings. Roofing was repaired and a porch replaced. Jobs completed that have been waiting for quite a few years.

With builders around so much, and with the dry, bright summer that kept us outside for days on end, there was little time for loading photographs and writing a blog. Hopefully the autumn days and dark evenings will let me catch up again.

Earlier this week, we had a beautiful, crisp autumnal morning so I took my camera with me as I walked the field boundaries to check the fences. 

The oaks in the boundary hedge are still in leaf and turning colour from dull green and yellow to rusty brown. This year we have had a heavy acorn harvest. Over forty New Forest ponies, depastured on the open Forest, have died this year, from acorn poisoning. The commoners have put pigs out to eat the acorns, but their efforts would have been a drop in the ocean. The ground beneath oak trees has been covered with sheets of brown acorns that crunch beneath your feet as you walk.

We have put up electric fencing around most of the oaks overhanging the fields but preventing our ponies from finding acorns has been almost impossible with the strong winds of recent weeks. We just have to do our best and hope.

The ancient beech tree along the boundary has already lost its leaves. Sunlight catches the new buds waiting for another spring.

This younger beech, probably a daughter tree to the ancient one, still keeps its deep rust leaves.

  Sunshine catches the gold in this smaller, lower growing beech.

The Grey One and Jay finished their breakfast hay in the sun. Winter coats are growing thicker and fluffier as day length shortens and night temperatures begin to drop.

The  old Golden Pony has had a good summer. She gained weight and moved well, enjoying summer grass and the companionship of her neighbours. Last winter she lost condition and we wondered if she would make it through another. We take it from day to day. So far, she is contented and doing well. If the time comes, we will call the vet, but if she is coping well then she will get the care and support she needs. Decisions like this are the hardest thing, especially when an animal has been part of the family for so many years.

Ginger and the Chocolate Pony carry on with their lives, eating and playing games.
Full of curiosity, they make it hard to take photographs without a velvet nose getting in the way!

Back in the garden, our neighbour`s old lime tree is late to turn colour, catching morning sunlight and  throwing dappled shadows over the grass.

 Rich reds of the American Liquid Amber are changing every day, bright in their contrast with the subtle browns and golds of British native trees.

The Greening of Spring

I walked around the field boundary last week, experimenting with the new-to-me camera that I now seem to be sharing with Mr DW. These are using the ordinary lens and it is early days yet.

It was a bright, sunny morning and the trees, which have grown out of the old hedge boundary, were filling out their new leaves. It was that stage of spring when each tree is a different shade of green from its neighbour. Grasses and wildflowers were growing well in the resting paddock. We are on acid soil and there will always be buttercups, but I am not going to spray them. There are fewer bees, butterflies and other insects around this year, so they need all the help that they can get and they don`t need artificial chemicals to contend with.

Oak and beech together in the boundary hedge. This oak produced an unusual number of pollen flowers this spring. From a distance, their pale, yellowy haze stood out against hedgerow shadows.

The vibrant beauty of new beech leaves...............

......and young oak leaves against blue sky.

A mix of old holly trees, beech, oak and hawthorn in a dense area of the hedge boundary. On the other side of the hedge is a drainage ditch, dug long ago, that still collects run-off water from the heath and brings a good supply to the roots of these hedgerow trees.

Bluebells in the hedge bottom.

This week we have had alternating sunshine and soft rain showers, so leaves are darkening and the trees are in a period of strong growth. Last week, when these photographs were taken, we had a few precious days to enjoy the freshness of new greens and the softness of fragile young leaves.

Crab Apple Blossom Time

I always seem to be running late. This time I`m a week behind Mother Nature as the crab apple blossoms have fallen now and hawthorn blossom is taking its place in the field hedgerows and out on the Forest.

Here is the best of our ornamental crab apples, in photos taken last week. An old tree now but this year it produced more blossom than it has for several springs. It was beautiful in bright sunshine and even lovelier in moonlight.

The rest of the garden seemed to be at its best in brights pinks.

New, lime green leaves of Philadelphus aureus contrasted well with the dark green leaves of rhodedendrons.

Mysembreanthemums smiling at the sun. I loved these as a child so I planted some for our little granddaughter.

Out on the green at the foot of Stonechat Hill, the wilding apple blossoms were a more delicate shade of pink and were attracting honey bees.

The old  rowan tree was a mass of frothy cream blossoms.

The gorse blossom is almost over now, but this year has been the best for a long time. For weeks,the New Forest heathlands have  been dazzling with acres of yellow gold. The air has been full of the warm scent of coconut and the hum of visiting bees.

The larger native trees were in new leaf last week. Behind the wilding apples grow oak, silver birch and beech on the hill slopes.

A mature ash just coming into leaf.

The undergrowth has been rich with new grass. Food for the Forest ponies, cattle and deer.

Within weeks, the grass will be overshadowed by bracken once again. Already, its new shoots can be seen curling out of the earth and its  stems, coiled like rams horns, are unfurling and growing to make a canopy across the hillside and the heath.

Art Nouveau Stained Glass in a Lakeside Hotel

Here are the stained glass windows that ascend the wall behind the main staircase in the Grand Hotel Suisse in Montreaux. They were quite stunning in early morning light. We climbed the marble staircase to admire each window.

I have tried to research the artist , E. Diekmann of Lausanne, but so far I have found no information on the internet.