We always see the deer in the clearing opposite to us and its normal. I go to work and there they are. I come home and they run out across the road in front of me. Nothing special, but recently we had a guest in the beggshill bothy who lived in a big city where deer are not a common occurance.
No problem I thought, just watch the clearing near dusk and you'll see them. Did they show? Not while he was looking. I saw them walking across the clearing one night and rushed over to let him know, but by the time he'd come to the door they'd gone.
But on the last evening of his stay I saw him standing outside the bothy and I checked the clearing and there were 4 or 5 deer grazing. I went out to offer him my binoculars and while we stood there, we could here the owl calling and then the bats came out of the barn and circle us chasing insects under the Elm tree. So my promise of deer grazing in the clearing came true.

It made me think how lucky I am to live out here in the wilds surround by deer, owls, bats, hare, all at close quarters.

pete

bodge job

If you look up bodge job on the many interweb dictionaries, they'll define it as to mend clumsily or to make a mess of. But bodging a job is a necessary skill if you are small holder like us at the beggshill bothy. Last weekend I broke my ride on mower. Without access to a proper tractor, my ride on mower is the next best thing. So breaking it was a disaster. I'd hit a tree stump and snapped off the bolt that holds the cutting blades on. I guess I could have spent hundreds on buying a new cutting deck, but I didn't want to do that. I figured that I could bodge it. After consulting with a few knowledgeable folk, I managed to get the broken bolt out, swap out the blades and re-attach them using the remains of the broken bolt. It was not a elegant fix, but it works and that's all that matters. And its saved me a couple of hundred quid.
Bodge job it might be, but it'll do the job. In the winter I'll do a better fix, but at the moment the grass is growing and I have a working mower to combat it.

pete