Welsh Dragons

After a grim August you can pretty much guarantee that the first weekend in September will be gloriously warm and sunny.  Sparkling dewy mornings with a gentle nip of autumn in the air, the start of my favourite season.  

It coincides with the Burghley Horse Trials in Lincolnshire, for years I worked at the event and loved being outdoors during the change of season.  Recent years we have only visited for Pimms, Cross Country walking and "Burghley Bingo", this year however was spent on Eight Little Acres.  With the humidity levels dropping and my pretty white pony on her holiday after a busy competition season we can start to get back into some pre winter graft.... oh and a little nature watching too;

I could have sat by the pond and watched....and been watched it seems...the red damselfly and the huge Hawker Dragonfly for hours, but poo picking the pony paddock beckoned.  For more info on British Dragonflies; british-dragonflies.org.uk

Woody has been putting his tractor to good use shifting some of the massive logs and scrap metal remnants, it is all looking a lot tidier. 

I spent half a day "weeding", digging and shifting huge rocks to create what is just a flowerbed on the driveway...I am sure I could have been doing more useful jobs but once I started it I just had to keep going!   I have ordered some bluebell and snowdrops bulbs and will plant these along with Narcissus "Jetfire" in the next month.

We have begun to feed haylage to make sure the ponies are all in good condition going into winter, if we have a flush of grass in October I can re-balance their intake but would rather start preparing for the winter early.  We are still missing dear Jen and have started eyeing up potential horses to join the gang, now alot of the gorse has gone we have much more land to graze.

It is a privilege to be able to watch the colours changing on our own trees, the first to turn gold are the Beech Trees that look iridescent against the bright blue sky...

 

The gorse is also turning gold as it is just starting to come into bloom, sitting its yellow buds next to the complimentary colours of the purple berries and heather (nature is amazing!)

Welcome to autumn!