So . . . We've sorted out the wild goats. . . sort of!
We still get occasional visits, but I think we have a more relaxed attitude with them now. We have come to realise that if we can't beat them , we have to accept them. After all they were on the mountain a long time before us.
Maybe they think we are the pests?
Fortunately for us, rabbits haven't caused us as much of a problem as they have to our neighbours. They must have tastier plants and veg!
The squirrels appear to have decreased in number. We think this has come with the arrival of Boogaloo, who likes to give chase when she can see them - which isn't really that often as we think she has dodgy doggy eyesight. She makes up for this by using her over-sensitive nose which is constantly to the ground sniffing out the last animal to cross her path.
Talking of which, it appears that she had a confrontation with a 'pest' of another sort which frequents our mountains, and I am yet to see. An adder! A recent swollen painful leg turned out to be a snake bite, which caused her some grief for at least a fortnight.
And today, look what we found clinging onto Gizmo (the cat). . .
Eeeewwwww
Yes, lots of ticks in the fields around here, as well as snakes!
And with the warm days and evenings a thing of the past, even the slugfest has packed up and gone. They aren't even invading Boogaloo's food dish any more, but that could be to do with the small hole I found in a dusty, cobwebby corner of the stone wall not far away from the doggy dish. Since filling it in, there have been no sign of the slugs. If that's where they were hiding during daylight hours, I'm sort of hoping they were out for the day when I filled in the hole!
So, you might think, as I did, that we are winning the pest battle . . .
But ha! No surprises - look what I found in the garden. . .
Several small fruit trees totally decimated!
They looked like this only a couple of days ago . . .
The culprit? . . .
Hmmmmm! We'd best be having a good display of butterflies next year!
Next blog - One can never have enough wood!
