Owls and things

Firstly thank you to Carole Drake a professional garden photographer for this shot of the courtyard which she kindly sent to me after her 5.00a.m. photo shoot at Ednovean farm this summer.

It has been a strange gloomy day today sullen and unmoving as the year slides gently to its end. The sunset photo that I taken just looked boring to me and so I decided to remember the happy days of Summer - those endlessly long days and abundant hedgerows that feed the wildlife and haunt our dreams (well actually i have nightmares that Breakfast is late but that is by the by!)

We had a reminder today of the wildlife's struggle at this time of year when a small owl landed at Charles feet in Danilons stable this morning, thin and too weak to fly up again. I think we saw him the other night when we came home at dusk and spotted a small brown owl sitting on the five bar gate as comfortably as a tabby cat. I didn't get out of the car for several long minutes as we enjoyed the rare privilege of the close proximity to the wild creature. But today it was a sad little bird that Charles showed to me wrapped in his puffa coat and cossetted in a laundry basket (I've got lots naturally)

With ten stables to muck out our day was already full but luckily, A friend from the the village came to our rescue and drove the bird to Mousehole Bird Hospital where he was described as a small brown owl, a day time feeder and settled in with some milk and newly defrosted mice. If all goes well we may be able to release him again on the farm so fingers crossed for his recovery, this small frail casualty of winter.

I spent my spare time this week putting together the final manuscript for a Kindle book The Silver Stallion from Spain but there was one problem - strange horizontal lines that had appeared in the text and stubbornly refused all efforts to delete them. A few enquiries aound the village led to Kay of Wellyracks who diagnosed the problem as errant frames - I've no idea how they got there but was very pleased to get rid of them!

The upload prove fairly "Christine" proof - I only hope I ticked the right boxes and people can actually read the script. Its about an hours read for children nine to ninety best enjoyed by a warm fire with a box of tissues and a mug of cocoa!