Sunday morning lie-in was disturbed today by the realisation that we were not alone...
A trio of ponies had escaped from the field opposite, which (for historical reasons) is known as The Walled Garden, and were munching on our grass. They also broke an old bird bath (no great loss) and generally expressed their opinion over the lawns.
A neighbour kindly closed our gate to stop them straying further (please don't ask why the gate wasn't closed in the first place), and a girl came from the Stables (up the lane) to recover them.
She promises someone will come and clean up a bit - I'm not sure how far down the food chain in the Stables hierarchy you have to be to do the bucket and shovel job. I'll be pleased to get the mess cleared up, since a lady is coming to look at our garden this week, with a view to taking over as our regular gardener, and it might not be a good start to have the place covered in you-know-what.
Anyway, panic over, no horses were hurt or upset, and our day is definitely up and running. It is surprising how large a smallish pony is in the wrong setting.
Perhaps fertilizer budget can be reduced a bit this year thanks to your uninvited guests? Sure does not look like winter. Garden hose and sprinkler are still out!
ReplyDeleteHi Jon - is this an audit? Today is the mildest day we've had for a couple of weeks, right enough. The hose and attachments appear to have been dragged out from their normal stash by one of the ponies walking through them during their visit. If it stays above freezing for a couple of days, first priority is to shift some leaves. Have to avoid the potential new gardener running away screaming.
DeleteOwner of the Stables has now arranged for cleaning and tidying up, and has left a bottle of Prosecco and a box of choccies for us, which is nice. We live surrounded by horses, but they normally stay in their fields and we stay in ours.
As a bonus you got reference photo's for horse colours too.
ReplyDeleteVery true. Grey horse, grey hair; brown horse, brown hair. Check.
DeleteOur next door neighbor had 2 horses, a small barn and paddock for many years, to the delight of my younger daughter. They have been gone for some years now, but never made any unauthorized visits! Bears are another matter...
ReplyDeleteBears?? The people from our Stable were pretty frantic this morning, since they'd been searching for the ponies for over an hour before they found them. The girl in the hi-viz jacket rode past our gate about half a dozen times on a quad-bike - she hadn't thought of looking inside the garden. Perhaps I can tentatively suggest that we go back to closing our gate. One further argument is that it is not unknown for couriers to drive in to turn around.
DeleteCould be worse - you might be living next door to the elephant enclosure at a zoo. Useful though, I hope you measured how quickly they could advance!
ReplyDeleteThese ponies have got very short legs. What my grannie used to term "suffering from ducks' disease". You know, I suspect that my Covenanter cavalry at Kilsyth the other day may have been riding horses like these. Maybe a new category; I should have Trotters, Gallopers and Waddlers.
DeleteMy gardening consultant says you should have kept the manure...and maybe get a regualr supply from the stables. But Prosecco and Chocs sounds good to me!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's sound advice, but the Prosecco + Chocs is more my preferred flavour too. It's very nice to have an active livery and riding school next door, but since - especially at weekends - we have a decent amount of manure spread over the farm lanes and the insides of our car wheel-arches, extra free donations on the lawns are not much in demand. About half a mile from my house, on a headland overlooking the sea, there is a big farm midden which is attracting its own climate, so we can obtain supplies if we feel the need.
DeleteAnd let us not speak of slurry. There is a piggery on the next farm...
Apparently horse manure is good for the rhubarb. Personally I prefer custard.
DeleteThat was a big ass problem you had.
ReplyDelete(Sorry, I promise never to do that joke again).
Indeed so - we were down in the dumps.
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