Wonderful Wednesday

I know it’s supposed to be ‘Wordless Wednesday’ but we’ve had lots of completely wordless Wednesdays in the past so I don’t feel too bad about writing some words this week.

It was another wet and soggy day today so we haven’t been for any long walks, just a couple of quick runs up in the field. We also went next door to visit Aphrodite and take her some grapes. She was snuggled up in her nest box but came out to see us.

Aphrodite eating her grapes

We spotted some other strange birds lurking in the flowerbeds.

The musical chicks

I hope they don’t keep us up at night with their music.

What’s that? You’re wondering when you’re going to find out what was wonderful about today. Well, I’m just getting to that… we went out in the car to go to Nurturing by Nature in Upton!

Nurturing by Nature

What a fabulous place, I love it. There are lovely boxes on the floor full of delicious treats like pigs ears, pizzle and hooves.

I’ll have 10 penny chews please

Can you see the size of those pizzles?? There are just so many delicious things that I wouldn’t know where to start if I got locked in there on my own! Hmmm I might dream about that tonight.

Unfortunately we weren’t there to buy chewing treats, we were there to buy proper food for my dinners… so mum filled a basket with some chicken & lamb tripe, chicken & offal, chicken & oily fish, chicken & venison and some plain lean beef tripe. I’m also trying some of their blixed fruit and vegetables.

I’ll use my gold amex card to pay

I even managed to wander off when mum wasn’t paying attention… and snuck out through a door to try and see where they do all the mincing & packing!

It’s mine, all mine…

When we got hone it all had to be put away into my drawer in the freezer, but not until I’d booked it all in & checked the packing.

I didn’t think the day could get much better but a while later on the doorbell rang and who should it be but our twitter friend @true_belle and Jack Spaniel! I like Jack, he’s such a handsome chap and always makes himself completely at home when he visits.

Checking out the Orvis throw and the squishiness of the cushions

There was lots to check out in the garden and the best viewing position is from over the back of the sofa.

Is that a blackbird I see?

And then he checked out the other chair

Another comfy chair

But then he decided to check out the beds upstairs as well

Just checking the beds for bounce

We had such a lot of fun going a bit bonkers and running around the house but then it twas time to say goodbye.

Bye bye Jack

I really do like Jack a lot. In fact I like him so much that I gave him  a packet of my Nurturing by Nature minced chicken and lamb tripe to take home and try. I do hope he likes it.

After all that excitement I’m worn out… so I’m off to bed now to dream about what I’d do if I got locked in at Nurturing by Nature on my own.

Lambs and Monday Maintenance

Today was bank holiday Monday so daddy didn’t have to go to work today. He did have to do some work at home but at least he was here so we all got to go for a walk together this afternoon. We had to go and re-deploy a munzee that disappeared – some rotten person just ripped it off the post that we’d stapled it onto. There was a little bit of a technical hitch in producing the replacement munzee… the laminating machine ate it!

Inside the laminator

It was very difficult to get all the bits out so if you’re laminating small things, put a piece of paper underneath! Anyway, that’s the boring stuff… we laminated our munzee and set off on our walk. We met the cutest bunch of lambs in a field… there were six of them in the field with a little foal.

Six little lambs!

They were really friendly and came to the gate to talk to us.

This one had a cute black face and ears!

I have two good sides

And this next one was a lovely colour.

My turn for a close up

In fact he wanted more than a close up, he wanted a kiss!

Just one kiss!

I’ve never had a kiss from a sheep before, I think it was a bit more delicate than a cow’s kiss!

We couldn’t spend all afternoon talking to the sheep, we had a Munzee to perform maintenance on, so we said goodbye to the lambs and off we went.

There are pheasants hiding in here..

And I think there might even be some in this hedge too

I can smell you in there

On the next part of the walk we all got quite wet. I got soaked running in the rape field and mum and dad walked through the long green stuff because it wasn’t as wet as brushing against the rape.

I’m very wet

At the top of this hill is where we had to do our munzee maintenance. This time we placed it a bit more discreetly… and then we set off back home. From the top of the hill we could see our house in the distance.

I can see our house from here!

Our house is just to the right of the white chimney you can just see in front of the big dark pointy tree that’s nearly in the middle.

The barley is getting really tall now…

Yes, that’s me. The little black blob! I’m doing my springing and getting very very wet indeed.

Wet dog

It was a good job we were nearly home…

Hurry up daddy, I’m hungry!!

We were very lucky and didn’t get rained on today, but I did get hosed down so it may as well have rained on me. After a quick towel dry it was time for some tripe and a nice afternoon snooze to dream about today’s adventures.

Sunday Geocaching

Today we went walking in Wareham forest and set out to do two multi-caches. We don’t often go walking in the forest but we like doing geocaches there. The first one we did was called Ware Fort Art Thou – being a multi-cache we had to go to several locations to find information that would help us get the coordinates for the final cache location.

Off on the trail

It was all on good footpaths but after all the rain we’ve had lately there were some great puddles! It’s very popular with cyclists and we saw quite a few of those and some dogs out for a walk too.

Could I get any closer to the ground?

This was a cute little dog we stopped to say hello to but we were busy following our coordinates so couldn’t stop to chat for long.

The next clue must be up by those trees?

Can you see how nice and sandy this part of the path was? I just love sand and whenever I feel it between my pads I just get taken over by the urge to go completely mad and do my ‘bonkers zoomies’.

But we had a cache to find so I only did a short spell of zoomies. Oh look, here we are already at a post. I think this might be one of the clues.

Lots of posts like this along the footpaths

And then we were off again…

Hmmm I wonder which way we go

It was quite hot when the sun was shining so I was glad to find some puddles and streams to cool off in.

Stinky water? Never… it’s lovely

Look what we found, a marker stone with daddy’s initial on it! I don’t think it’s his date of birth though, he’s old but not that old!

The second geocache we did was called Old Ram Boundary Stones and it was another multi-cache with similar clues and yet more stones! The big one on the left has had W.B. carved on it. I wonder what that stands for…

W.B.

The next clue was one of my favourites because it was right next to some more water.

Lovely water

If you’re thinking of looking at these to get the clues we’ve edited them to take out the vital information! So you don’t have to worry that we’re spoiling all the caching fun.

The final clue

This is one of the cycle track markers, there are lots of posts marking different cycle and walking routes. After this we had the information we needed to work out the coordinates of the actual cache but we’re not going to post a picture of where we found it!  On our way home we stopped off to do just a quick one called Woodlake. We didn’t have to walk very far from the car for this one.

It’s around here somewhere…

So, three geocaches and we discovered one Travel Bug, so a good day… especially as we didn’t get rained on!

The Drought

There’s a drought on. It may have been raining for days on end but there’s still a drought. On our walk up the field this morning I sniffed for rain and could only sniff sunshine!

No rain in sight!

But there’s no need to worry because after tomorrow’s sunshine we are due to have a rainy Thursday, a dry Friday and then rain at the weekend.  What fun. Anyway, tonight we had to go and pick daddy up from the office because his car has a flat tyre and he has used up his miles driving on it and needs to save them to go to the tyre shop tomorrow morning. We took our usual route through the lanes, cutting through Sturminster Marshall and Cowgrove.

Oooh er... a rather large puddle

We saw the sign saying “Flood” but who believes signs? It’s been a long time since mum & dad lived in the village and she’d forgotten about the flooding. So, we drove on through…

The meadows are all flooded

The fields were all really wet… unfortunately we couldn’t keep stopping to take photographs because there was a car behind us, ha ha.. obviously thought we knew that we could get through the water.

The bridge down at White Mill

It looks like the water is going to pour over the top of the bridge doesn’t it, but it wasn’t that high, just very high.

Another big one

Nice reflections in this puddle don’t you think?

More flooded fields

There were lots of happy birds swimming around on the water.

The parking spot!

I think the parking is only suitable for boats today! Usually there are lots of cars down in that open space… it’s a popular place for walkers and dogs to walk along the river bank, but not today!

The traditional build house

Quite a while ago the two houses that were here had a fire and they were empty for a long time but now they’ve been completely re-built using traditional methods.

Click to make it bigger if you want to read this

At least we were past all the flood water now and almost in Wimborne, on our way to the office.

Does this one look flat to you?

And there was daddy’s car. Only 4 tyres in the entire country and the tyre shop couldn’t get one before tomorrow morning. Hmmm I hope no one else gets a puncture.

Yay!! It's daddy!!!

Well, a bit of daddy, the important bit that was giving me tummy tickles. See I even have a spare bed under his desk for when I go to work with him!

On the way home

Soon we were on our way home, here we are just coming up to the Worlds End.

Mysterious posts have appeared

Now, can you see that post? They’ve appeared all along the A31, every 100 metres… if you know what they are there for and where they’re counting distance from or to, please let us know! Daddy reckons it’s so that people going to the olympics can tell someone exactly where they are when they get lost or break down. If it wasn’t such a busy road they could be pee posts but it’s far too busy for dogs to walk along.

Today I am Four!

Today it has mostly been raining, but it’s my birthday so I didn’t mind. I had snuggles in bed with mummy and daddy this morning and then we got up and had breakfast. I opened my cards and then we didn’t go out for a walk because it was raining too much.

My birthday cards and my "I'm Four" badge

I also had a nice card from my twitter friend Annie Bella and her sis Maisie.

Card from Annie

Oh my, that was small wasn’t it! Oh well, small and very perfectly formed.

In he afternoon dad took me up to the woods at Clenston for a walk. It rained quite a lot and we both got very wet! Mummy was clever and had stayed at home in the dry. After we had got home and dried out we went up to the pub for my birthday dinner.

Happy pup at the pub

I was wearing my yellow cupcakes collar and also had my birthday badge on it.

My cupcake collar & my birthday badge

My friend Mooney was in the bar with his daddy.

Mooney and me

This is a better picture of Mooney

I had my dinner at the pub and then I had some roast beef from the carvery. It was super tasty and didn’t last very long at all!

After eating my dinner I was a bit thirsty so I went up to the bar to see if I could get a round in.

Talking to Jan at the bar

Well, I’ve had a very nice day. It would have been better if it hadn’t rained all day long but we’re in a drought so what can we expect. I’m just glad that mum and dad hadn’t organised a surprise party up in the field for me because I don’t think many of my friends would have turned up!!

Time for bed… now that I’m four I need to make sure I get my beauty sleep – mum says I’m getting the odd grey hair on my ears. Shock horror!! I’m only four, I don’t want grey hairs yet!!

The Green Cross Code

Now, my mum’s a little bit ancient and she was telling me about this thing they used to call the “Green Cross Code” back when she was a little girl at school. Whenever we cross a road now I usually have to sit and wait but she thinks I should learn how to do cross safely. So, I’ve been practising my “Green Cross Code”.

We did one of our usual walks this morning and got to the spot where we have to go from the field and onto the bridle path. No cars around and, thanks to a fallen tree, no horses either… so a good place to practise. So, pay attention. Here goes.

Step 1: Check out where you're going

Step 2 : Look Right

Step 3 : Look Left

Step 4 : Look Right Again

And if all is clear…

Step 5 : Cross the Road

Don’t run, just go carefully and keep looking and listening as you cross… you shouldn’t really jump either, but I was crossing a fence and had to jump to get over it. See? It’s easy once you know how.

Just to finish off quickly, here is the rest of that particular walk… starting off with the bridle path, which is lovely and green at the moment. It may be a bridle path but the horses do make a mess of them with their galumphing great feet.

Great spot for sniffing out pheasants

At the end of the track we did our Green Cross Code again to cross the road and then walked all the way down to Anderson and took the lane up through the farm, past the church.

The Church at Anderson

You may remember seeing that from one of my earlier posts when we did a geocache here.  There was a skip full of lots of interesting looking rusty metal items.

All a bit heavy to put in a pocket

Then we went through the field, past one of my Munzees, and along past the farm buildings where they do lots of noisy metal work.

We have to walk through the wheat

And then we go into the sheep field which is quite full at the moment with all the mums and their big lambs.

Lots of sheep

The big fields near Abbots Court have been seeded now and it won’t be long before they are full of poppies! We like fields of poppies, they’re almost as nice as the yellow rapeseed fields. There are going to be a lot of poppies this year.

This will soon be a sea of pink

A big aeroplane came flying over us, he was really close to the ground. It’s just left of center under the branch sticking up on the left and above the brown tree.

Can you see how low it is?

We went across the dog field and there was a man installing a brand new water trough.

A shiny new water trough!

I wonder if it’s just for us or whether they’re going to put sheep in here. Gosh I do hope not, it’s just a field for dogs to walk in, we don’t want horses or sheep in it.

A field for people who do short dog walks

The footpath goes right across the middle. And in the middle is an old stone water trough which is 100 times better than the new galvanised ones. A couple of weeks ago they dug big holes around the old water trough… and now we know why. Perhaps they’re cutting the water supply off, or maybe they just needed to do maintenance.

Big holes around the old trough

Well, after all that exertion and brain work learning my Green Cross Code, it was time for bed. Mummy and daddy’s bed… I like to warm up mum’s side for her.

Aghhh not the flash, I'm sleeping

I hope you will all make sure you do your Green Cross Code whenever you cross the road!

Night Caching

A new cache was published just over a week ago. It was a mystery cache and the description was written in morse code. It was only 2.8 miles away from home so we decided that we would do it as soon as we could. After spending hours and hours deciphering the morse code to find out what we had to do (okay, maybe it just took five minutes to cut and paste the code into an online translator, but that doesn’t sound half as interesting) we knew that we had to be at a designated spot at precisely 9 pm and have a torch to signal with. 

After a quick check of the location in daylight, we set out from home at 8.30 pm on Sunday and by the time we’d walked up to the spot we had almost 10 minutes to spare.

The view from the designated spot

The wiggly lights are because mum didn’t hold the camera completely still while she took the picture… I think perhaps we should use a tripod for night time pictures. Anyway, we did the signalling, received the missing coordinates by flashlight and then we were off to find the cache. It was quite easy to find but there wasn’t a pen in the container and we didn’t have one with us… honestly, you just can’t get the staff. They didn’t even have some of my special “Teagan found it” stickers. So, we just looked, put it back, and headed off home again. Which was kind of good really as we could go back to sign the cache and follow the same route in daylight and take some proper photos – well, a whole bunch of photos of the darkness aren’t exactly very exciting are they?

A wiggly path through the wheat

Today I was really eager to get going, I knew the route and couldn’t wait to get there! It’s a very neatly cut path through the field, it’s a bit wiggly, we think the farmer must have had a beer first or been texting on his phone.

We're heading for the line of trees

It was lovely and warm, nice blue sky and sunshine, just over 12 degrees, but we could see a big grey weather front in the distance.

Nearly there!

We’re not going to post pictures of the actual spot we had to stand in and tell you the direction and signals we had to make because a local geocacher might be reading this.

The cache container

We found the cache again but this time we were prepared with stickers and a pen so we could sign the log. Job done! As it was such a lovely day we continued our walk on over the brow of the hill through the field of rapeseed.

Another neatly cut path

Once we started going down the other side of the hill we could see all the houses in the village.

Milborne St Andrew

We spent ages last night wondering where the Human Man had been doing his signalling with his mega torch! I forgot to mention that he had a really massive flashlight that was impossible to miss. We only had a little 9 LED torch that mum had to hold over her head when she flashed it. We figured the rapeseed had grown quite a few inches in the last week so we wanted to make sure he could see us!!

Another view of the village

We walked on down to the fence at the top of the horse field. This is a route that we’d decided not to try walking in the dark… it wasn’t at all dog friendly and we didn’t fancy bumping into horses in the dark.

Not a very nice stile into the horse field

Anyway, at that point we turned round and walked back up the hill to retrace our steps.

On our way back towards the row of trees

And then it was all down hill back to the car that was parked just at the entrance to the farm.

A really cool sign!

The sign is made of what looks like bits of farm equipment. But it also looks a bit like a basketball net too.

So, that was the daylight version of our night caching expedition!

LATE EDIT
Newsflash: We have great news… Human Man only has a small torch!! And here it is!!

Almost identical to ours!!