Catching Up....

What with one thing and another I've not had time to lean on gates, lets alone write diaries.
(Leaning on gates also hampered by almost continuous pouring rain and sodden, muddy fields.)

Still, here's a picture record of the last few weeks of 2015 and the first of 2016 ....

We had a new floor fitted in the living room in November - out goes carpet, in comes wood.
Bit of an upheaval while it was being laid though. :-(

Kathy in the  sand school... being critically watched:

Eddie is now almost a year old, but life's tiring on a farm with all those hens and ducks to keep an eye on.
Not to mention the....

 ... Pheasants.
Yes they are still here. This is Damien. Has he come in to check that we're not having pheasant for Christmas dinner? That's the oven door in Kathy's kitchen!

one of our rather fat females...

Christmas:

deck the hall....

note the new floor...

Ron's birthday present (13th December)

Sybil - the Upstairs' cat
wondering where her share of the turkey is

Kathy and Adam's new fish tank

All the fun was a bit too much for Eddie LOL

Incoming!
So Santa comes by helicopter now?
(actually its either the air ambulance or the army #
flying low over our orchard)

one of my presents
a hedgehog hot-water bottle cover!

Weather wise it has hardly stopped raining since July, but it has been unseasonably mild:

my camera isn't good enough
but here we have snowdrops, primroses, morning glory
AND daffodils all at once!

 The storm drain from the well is overflowing (if it wasn't for the drain we'd have a lake for a kitchen)

That's not rain - that's well over-flow!

 Boo the Goose came to live with us (she's a goose.... 'Goosey the Terrible' turns out to be a Gander.)

New Year - the stroke of midnight:
A beautiful night - thousands of stars and the moon (just past full) rising from behind the hedgerows. Happy New Year!

From our top field.
 Look carefully you can see the stars of Orion's Belt.

Showing at Codden Equestrian Centre:
Lexie was a prat in the first class (nowhere to warm up - outdoor arena was under water ) She bucked, spooked ... sigh. For the second class went like a dream, and for the costume class as well, winning both.

Winner and runner-up
That's Kathy's genuine 1880 Victorian habit.

Champion

 And then there's  more rain... lots of it. Pouring rain....

(photo is my neighbour's Charles Moberly)

The Orchard now has a stream

And a pond at the bottom!

We took an old Ash tree down (before it fell down) which has considerably opened up the view:

before:

after

a couple of close up shots - again on a not very good camera and it was raining :-(

 Note the straight line of the Tarka Line railway (from left to right in the centre, then curving back to the left over the bridge). Before we moved here I would visit my editor who lives near Barnstaple... many a time I took that train from Exeter St Davids to Barnstaple, little knowing that I was passing within a mile of my future home!

The train!

Finally, little Siren made her first trip up the lane to 'Lean on the Gate'

she's growing up now, having come off the Exmoor in November 2014 as a 6 month old.

Pretty isn't she?

January 11th 2016