New brush cutter and chanterelles

First go with my new brush cutter in the morning cool. I like it and it will make a big difference to how much I can get done in a given time. The only trouble is that I couldn't start the engine. I had to get Toad to do it. I was thinking maybe I would have to buy a more expensive Stihl machine with an "ergo" starter cord. Then, thinking "what have we missed?", I did a quick google and learnt what we'd missed from this young lad.

We'd missed the whojimmyflippy squeezy button thing (fuel pump priming button?). I've just followed young lad's instructions and the strimmer engine started. Woohoo!

The strimmer came with a single shoulder strap. I've ordered a better two-shoulder harness but in the meantime, thinking about how DerbyshireDaughter tied her babies on her back with a long piece of strong fabric, I reckoned there must be something I could cobble together. I found an old strap (the blue one) that had hook attachments on the ends and, though it looks odd from the front, having a strap over each shoulder and crossed over at the back does spread the weight satisfactorily and comfortably. The only drawback is that the blue strap is a fraction too short if I want the business end of the machine to get closer to the ground. It'll do fine for the tall rough stuff till the harness arrives.






In other news, on Thursday I rang the farmer who has the field next to us on lease about a dead sheep. For the last four weeks or so there has been a flock of sheep, ewes and big lambs, in the field. This has meant I can ease off my attacks on the Himalayan Balsam that was thriving just over the fence and also that the bracken has been trampled down by the farmer's quad bike when he checked the sheep-proof-ness of the fence. We wouldn't mind a few sheep in the garden (they could do some much needed grass and weed munching) but there's no gate into the lane and they could would wander off down to the road.

The dead sheep looked as if something had attacked it by the throat. Big dog on the loose?

I had to tell an adventurous lamb to get back in the field just the other day after I saw it in the lane. I wasn't sure how it would work when I walked towards it along the boggy lane, but it just squeezed under the gate using one of the deep ruts.

Yesterday someone came for the carcass and the rest of the sheep vanished very quickly without my noticing how. The only way this could happen is if they were driven over the broken bridge across the burn at the back. The stream runs parallel to our back fence inside the wood above us and then does a turn down hill where it falls steeply down to the loch along with another burn coming straight down the hill. There is an old bridge made of wooden railway sleepers after the streams join.





The bridge used to be strong enough for a tractor or a herd of cattle but five or six years ago I had to ring the farmer because Toadlet and her friend had casually told me that there was a dead cow in the burn when they came in for tea!

I hope it was a quick death for the poor animal. I think we would have heard it if it had been lowing in distress. Presumably a couple of the old sleepers gave way under its weight, or it lost its footing on the slippery surface. Fortunately other heifers didn't follow it but went back the way they'd come.


It would seem that the couple of remaining sleepers, which are strong enough for people to cross, are also allright for sheep.

The farmer brought a small digger when he came to collect the cow but it wasn't big enough to reach into the ravine so he had to go for a bigger one. This ended with my seeing at our front gate the bizarre scene of a cow hoisted by a rope being transferred from big digger to small digger before it was taken away.

On the other side of the bridge (in the photo on the left I'm looking back towards our back garden fence) the farmer had cut back some rhododendron (the muddy patch) and stacked it in such a way as to guide the sheep the way he wanted them to go. The space between our back and the bridge had been used as a holding area a couple of times and the sheep had chomped all the vegetation so my way to collect chanterelle mushrooms just before the bridge was well clear. It's chanterelle mushrooms in a creamy pasta sauce for tea tonight. Yumtastic.

Last September the lane between our back fence
and the forest looked liked this: a single file roe
deer and chanterelle hunter's path.