The starlings have gathered and are destroying the thatched roof of the Royal Oak near by.

Amazing cloud formation last night, just before the dimpse. ☁️☁️☁️

Trip to our local farm Abbatoir tomorrow early doors. Sod’s Law one has flystrike. Clean as a whistle two days ago and today, three areas on his back and neck. This recent wet warm wet spell has seen a surge in flies around the place. Thankfully maggots don’t like Spot On. ☠️

Today is the Feast of St Gelert c650. I remember sitting cross-legged in a Ton-yr-Ywen School assembly listening to the sad story of Gelert, Prince Llewelyn’s faithful dog, with a tear in my eye🥲.

1888, Village of Balcraig, Scotland. This fabulous photo captures blacksmith James MacDonald, shoeing a farm horse right outside his forge. Maybe I missed my true vocation; my grandad and two uncles were farriers and a third was a coachman in Stockton on Tees.

A welcome sight. We’ve never released French Partridges and to my knowledge, neither has our neighbour for 5 years. I would like to think our habitat management; butterfly zones, wild bird strips, properly managed hedges, headlands and boundary strips is working. 🦋

Fond memories of the Archie Coates & Jack Charlton episode of Channel 4’s ‘Jack’s Game’ on Pigeon Shooting. The opening music takes me back to dark Sunday afternoons in the early eighties. g.co/kgs/cm31jPv

With two sets of triples this creep feeder has worked a treat. The ewes no longer try to get in and the lambs come and go as they please. Driving rain can be a problem but we haven’t had any this year! Gate from McVeigh Parker, Cullompton. 🐑

A cracking place to keep some sheep and just outside Exeter!

…..and the majority are sold in the USA; a journey of 21,500 miles +/- Buying local, seasonal and sustainably grown fruit and veg seems a sensible option to a simpleton like me.

It looks like a cracking year for fruit; apples, pears, medlars, sloes and blackberries, to name what I see by my sheep field. Celtic folklore warns us not to pick blackberries after Michaelmas as the Devil ‘spits and urinates on them’. 😳 ‘The life cycle of a blackberry’

Stuck in hospital for a week and going nuts not to be able to get out in the fields with the lambs & ewes in this weather. To put a tin hat on it the first drop of pheasants arrive at 4am in middle of next week; thankfully everything is ready. Look what my wife has dropped off

I loved my Series III & my V8 110 and would do it all again but I do appreciate the versatility of the Hilux & L200 🛻

….and we’re off after a weather delay.

RIP Ozzie

Woke up to a bite on my left arm by a brown bush cricket during the early hours of the morning. The pain was sharp enough to wake me from a deep sleep but did not pierce the skin. I spent the next 30 minutes looking for the fella before I could drop off again. 😴💤🦗

OTD is St Philbert Day. This day was just about the time when the harvest for hazelnuts would traditionally begin in England as growers raced to beat the squirrels to the nuts. The day signalled the start of what was a few weeks of very lively, boisterous nut harvest festivities.

Gig tonight at the Ship inn Teignmouth Estuary Pub & Eatery - We’re on at 6:00 Happy days😎

We’re playing a couple of sets at 6:00 on Monday 25th August at the London Inn, Shaldon, Devon hope you can join us. The weather is looking like a fabulous summer evening. 🌞

As suspected the forecast weather has got the better of us and todays gig has been postponed. We are rearranging the event and we’ll spread the word on our social medial sites. Apologies once again!