I'm off bright and early tomorrow to track wolves in Poland. The title kind of gave it away, I think!
No doubt I'll have a lot to talk about when I get back.
See you later.
Sunday 15 February 2009
Monday 9 February 2009
Survival Cat
Now, I have two cats - one is a bit of a lardy stay at home ginger tom and the other is from feral parents. Obviously the ex-feral likes to roam a bit and is generally quite adventurous. This can sometimes be a problem!
We had quite a dump of snow here on Friday - 2-3 feet on average with drifts up to about 5 feet. This is the first 'real' snow that the cats have seen. So my adventursome cat thought it would be a good idea to explore and promptly disappeared for the rest of the day. We started getting worried as the day drew to a close and he hadn't returned. This involved donning winter survival gear and slogging out into the snow calling the cat. At one point we heard a couple of mews but couldn't locate him because he shut up again!
This went on for a few hours with us going out and calling but to no avail. My last trip out was a lengthy one whilst I checked out likely haunts and the like. Eventually I heard a plaintiff mew and caught sight of his eyes reflected in my torch light. He was a good long way off in the boundary hedge of our main paddock. It took me a while to wade through the 3-4 foot drifts but I got there in the end. I was quite surprised at what I say when I got there.
He had either dug himself a snow hole or had used a tunnel created by something else. Either way he was sat in a little snow tunnel, quite cosy and warm but just stuck! I was impressed. He obviously has been reading my survival books :)
That's my boy!
snow survival, snow hole
We had quite a dump of snow here on Friday - 2-3 feet on average with drifts up to about 5 feet. This is the first 'real' snow that the cats have seen. So my adventursome cat thought it would be a good idea to explore and promptly disappeared for the rest of the day. We started getting worried as the day drew to a close and he hadn't returned. This involved donning winter survival gear and slogging out into the snow calling the cat. At one point we heard a couple of mews but couldn't locate him because he shut up again!
This went on for a few hours with us going out and calling but to no avail. My last trip out was a lengthy one whilst I checked out likely haunts and the like. Eventually I heard a plaintiff mew and caught sight of his eyes reflected in my torch light. He was a good long way off in the boundary hedge of our main paddock. It took me a while to wade through the 3-4 foot drifts but I got there in the end. I was quite surprised at what I say when I got there.
He had either dug himself a snow hole or had used a tunnel created by something else. Either way he was sat in a little snow tunnel, quite cosy and warm but just stuck! I was impressed. He obviously has been reading my survival books :)
That's my boy!
snow survival, snow hole
Thursday 5 February 2009
Fox hunter wins High Court Appeal
This is an interesting result for the first hunter to be prosecuted under the Hunting Act. The Appeals court overruled the previous judgement thus making it harder to prosecute hunting offences.
Nail in the coffin for hunting ban
I can imagine that this will cause some controversy!
hunting ban, Exmoor,fox hunting
Nail in the coffin for hunting ban
I can imagine that this will cause some controversy!
hunting ban, Exmoor,fox hunting
Tuesday 3 February 2009
Snow joke
Well once again the UK grinds to a halt with a bit of snow. I know some places have been hit quite badly but even so there always seems to be a bit of hysteria about it. Obviously the media plays to it and, in my opinion, makes it worse!
A case in point is the school my boy goes to. The first phone call was to say that the buses were not running but school was going to be open. No problem I thought - I'll just break out the Discovery. Slightly easier said than done seeing as it had a flat battery and 2 flat tyres. Luckily we have one of those portable battery thingys that allows you to pump up tyres, jump start cars and run a normal 13 amp socket. Great bit of kit and proved very useful today.
Anyway, I drove him to school and the roads were pretty good even though it was snowing. Got myself home only to get another phone call about 45 minutes later from the school. This time it was to tell me that they were thinking about closing school and I should come and pick the boy up. Hang on I thought. Yes, it is snowing quite heavily at the moment but it is going to stop very soon (I could feel it in the air). I pointed this out but didn't get very far. Another 15 minutes later and I got the call to say that school was closing and I had to pick him up.
Guess what - it had stopped snowing by that time. I dutifully drove down to school - the roads were even better than they were about an hour earlier. Turned up on the doorstep only to be told that school was not closing they just wanted kids that had to be picked up to taken away because the roads were so bad. Being a little bit miffed by now I decided to leave him there because he was having too much fun!
If they had listened to me in the first place it could have saved a lot of us a lot of problems. The sun is out and the snow is melting fast here and my day of tracking in the snow has been ruined by other people's paranoia and over protectiveness. Damm. Though I do appreciate that there are plenty of worse hit places than here.
somerset, snow
A case in point is the school my boy goes to. The first phone call was to say that the buses were not running but school was going to be open. No problem I thought - I'll just break out the Discovery. Slightly easier said than done seeing as it had a flat battery and 2 flat tyres. Luckily we have one of those portable battery thingys that allows you to pump up tyres, jump start cars and run a normal 13 amp socket. Great bit of kit and proved very useful today.
Anyway, I drove him to school and the roads were pretty good even though it was snowing. Got myself home only to get another phone call about 45 minutes later from the school. This time it was to tell me that they were thinking about closing school and I should come and pick the boy up. Hang on I thought. Yes, it is snowing quite heavily at the moment but it is going to stop very soon (I could feel it in the air). I pointed this out but didn't get very far. Another 15 minutes later and I got the call to say that school was closing and I had to pick him up.
Guess what - it had stopped snowing by that time. I dutifully drove down to school - the roads were even better than they were about an hour earlier. Turned up on the doorstep only to be told that school was not closing they just wanted kids that had to be picked up to taken away because the roads were so bad. Being a little bit miffed by now I decided to leave him there because he was having too much fun!
If they had listened to me in the first place it could have saved a lot of us a lot of problems. The sun is out and the snow is melting fast here and my day of tracking in the snow has been ruined by other people's paranoia and over protectiveness. Damm. Though I do appreciate that there are plenty of worse hit places than here.
somerset, snow
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