OLD GOLD & NEW BROWN.

Old Dafad here is struggling a bit with all that I have had to face over the last months trying to get this place sorted out and so the last weekend I just needed a break so took the daft dog for a short walk behind the village on a track we've not been before. The now old gold of harvested fields is starting to turn green again after the recent rain. As I drive round locally there is not a bale to be seen they have all been safely stored and what like houses mad of straw are appearing around all the farmsteads locally. Good winter bedding. Now the tractors are out and ploughing ready for the next crop sowing. Ah but what will it be, we shall see as the seasons change again.

A friend of mine was chopping logs for autumnal fires when the chopping log, literally fell apart and we found this ...

insect nibbled little tracks right under the bark but in amongst the softer wood, these ...

ugly little critters aren't they. They are stag beetle grubs which got fed to the chickens

all part of the free range proteins needed for better quality of hen and subsequently eggs.

Methinks that the ducks on the village pond might have liked a few too. >>>

These new ones are slowly getting used to the dog trying to say hello as he used to do with the old ones that were on the pond. They will come closer now and give out tentative, questioning quacks almost as if to ask "Are you safe?"

All around the village green there are falling leaves. Kids & parents have been shaking the branches of the horse chestnut trees, hoping to find shiny brown conkers inside those spikily armoured shells.

<<< along the back lane as the sun was just starting to set, the sinking rays were casting golden highlights onto some of the foliage like this ivy growing alongside and old back entrance door. Sadly where there were almost wild plums ripening along a part of the hedgerow, the council had been along there with hedge cutters and there was a total wastage of free fruit just lying on the ground alongside blackberries and sloes. One would think that they would have had the common sense to leave them for hedge foraging walkers. What a waste of fruit!

On the old "widershins" (meaning the wrong way round) weathervane, evening sun was highlighting the back drop behind it, causing a dark,  stark silhouette. There are no insect hunting swifts in the evenings now, they have sensibly headed off to warmer climes and will be in Africa for the winter as will other migrating birds such as swallows, house martins and cuckoos. Lucky them!

To end the evening, the sky  seemed to be on fire ... and all those thoughts of logs burning in an open grate, I hope my log chopping friend will have a warm cosy winter. Old brown logs and new golden flames to cheer up the bleak, dank and cold autumn and on the long  winter nights ahead.  May they be cosy and comforting.