Nature in the raw

[racaille]

The weather was so lovely on Sunday that I couldn't wait to jump on Paco and head out after my Xmas break away. Sunday is a big hunting day here but I timed it for late lunchtime when everyone here was stuffing their faces!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I pottered down towards a vineyard and saw a group of about a dozen roe deer - very unusual to see them as they prefer to move around at dawn and dusk. Paco did a comedy emergency stop of course! They weren't particularly afraid of us but one of them was slow to move off and I saw that its lower front leg was floppy so presumably broken. The hunters will have got it later which was probably the best thing.

Then we came back through my front gates and a buzzard flapped lazily away from close to the chicken house. Yup, it'd killed one of my chickens and was feasting. But it had got a young male so I wasn't too upset. The buzzards are so beautiful here - and so big!

I felt like I'd been inside some nature programme rather than pottering around chez moi! Went out again yesterday and had lots of fun galloping through some very large puddles/small lakes in pursuit of Racaille - Paco can do water if he's motivated! -and came back splattered with mud like a child. It was fun though!

[pboy]

Wow Rac, that sounds like a pretty awesome Sunday hack! Poor chicken, glad to hear it wasn't one who was laying though

[zara]

Rac, your hacks always sound amazing! Poor chuck but still lovely to see a bird of prey close up x

[brigadier]

Just as Im reading this and thinking how amazing it sounds- the sun has finally appeared and is a glorious pink, as it is setting- its lit up the wood where my fields back onto and a barn owl is hunting on the field, its under-wing turning to silver every time it catches the light. Glorious!
Yes nature is wonderful and raw and sometimes cruel but how lucky are we as country people to see it in all its glory?