Muddyboots

Follow the fortunes of Muddyboots & Family on their East Yorkshire farm which has changed from dairy farm to luxury ice cream manufacture

Monday 8 October 2007

of rabbits & the north west passage

It's October & it's mild. The last week has seen nothing but sunshine & blue skies, ok so it is a tadge over cast now, but cold it ain't. What is going on with the weather? Who's doing the messing about then? On this morning's Today program on radio 4, a chap was saying that in the arctic, the North West Passage had been clear of ice for the longest time in recorded history. Perhaps the fate of Franklin will be exposed, so to speak.

The un-typical weather has meant that during the weekends, people are out and about. The car park here was full for most of Sunday as people enjoyed that walk down to the sea. How many got down onto the beach l'm not sure as the sea has been over the cliff top once again at Withow Gap, scouring out all the pebbles from the dyke & bringing down a large chunk of peaty cliff-face.

We are starting to get large flocks of birds coming in now for the winter, yesterday a large skein of barnacle geese came swooping in over the hedge swearing violently at each other, or so it seem, as they jostled for final landing checks. last week, flows of human twitchers were out. A rare bird had been sighted so car loads of Bill Odies were to be seen scurrying about in search of this rare visitor!

Well, there is one animal that doesn't seem to have suffered at all this summer. The rabbit, or shall we say Oryctolagus cuniculus. We have been inundated by the pesky varmites. Hundred of those dear little fluffy bunnies EVERYWHERE.

Normally, we loose a good few through myxomatosis, but this year nothing bar the odd one. Even Gordon & Lucy-Piglet's efforts seem to be little more than a scraping across the surface. The amount of damage that they do is amazing. All our trees have the longest available plastic tubes around, even the hedge plants, in order to save them from those sharp teeth. To a rabbit nothing more delicious than a lovely, juicy, nibbleable sapling! We must have a breed of Super Rabbits, oh where are you the Anti Pesto Team?

14 comments:

Chris Stovell said...

Lovely post - we've had some glorious weather this week too but I enjoyed reading about yours. I'm not sure if we have more rabbits than usual or if they have just become more careless as there are lots of squashed ones on the roads round here. Head count also seems to have been bad for badgers too. Oh dear, must think about sunshine instead!

Casdok said...

Yes lovely post. And where are Wallace and Grommit when you need them?!

laurie said...

gorgeous berries.

our neighborhood is infested with rabbits, too.

Anonymous said...

Amy and I absolutely love Wallace & Gromit!!

We have been watching the geese fly over here a lot recently.

Crystal xx

mountainear said...

Ditto dead badgers recently - and grey squirrels. Presumably they are young ones who've not learned the rules of the road. There are a lot of young and naive pheasants on the loose as well. They don't seem to have the wit to keep out of the way of the car. The dog on the front seat goes POTTY!

Suffolkmum said...

We're overrun with rabbits here too. And pheasants. Lovely berries. We've had all that lovely sunshine here too, until today - dismal and pouring.

Fennie said...

We have lots of rabbits here, though none in the garden that is the extent of our agricultural operations these days.

What was the reference to Franklin?
Benjamin Franklin? He of the famous autobiography? Or was another Franklin involved with the NW passage?

Posie said...

The rabbits atre just beginning to return to the fields here after mixi nearly wiped them out. Lovely blog, gorgeous to see the sun.

Milkmaid said...

We've had a lot of rabbits too, got some ferreters in, they did well, one was Marco Pierre White's brother
I'm guessing it was Harry who left the second message on my blog about YFC, say hi to him
The girls say their club won the small clubs cup at the rally and were 6th overall and there are 56 (or something like that) clubs in Yorkshire

Chris Stovell said...

Popped back to say I'd like to pass on a Bodacious Blogger award to you, if you'd like one, before I retire from awards.

muddyboots said...

thank you for that!

Gwen said...

Believe it or not I was sunbathing in the back garden last Sunday. It was sunny and warm. Today is overcast and rotten but the weather definitely is very strange.

@themill said...

Would you like to borrow the terrorists?

Bluestocking Mum said...

There are loads on our country lanes too despite 2 years ago all being wiped out with Myxi

warm wishes

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