Little Cotton Rabbits

A Panshanger picnic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, which looked like the best day of this week weather-wise, I took myself off for a picnic and my first solitary walk since March. Throughout the lockdown Toby and I have walked almost every day in his favourite woods, rain or shine (and sometimes very heavy rain), and the same route because sameness is a comfort to Toby and he has definite ideas about which paths to take in the woods so I am happy to let him lead. Walking so frequently in the same place as spring developed into summer has been fascinating - seeing the progression of greenery throughout the wood, the growth of different plants and emergence of different insects. But walking with Toby is all about his wants and needs and so there's not been time for the leisurely wandering that I like to do on my own with my camera in hand.

For my walk I head to Panshanger park, which is a nature reserve on the edge of Hertford. It's a wonderful site with the ruins of an old orangery (all that is left of a once grand country house); lots of ancient trees, including the famous one called the Panshanger oak and a system of lakes that are former gravel extraction sites now returned to nature and linked by River Mimram - a crystal clear and swift running chalk river. The park gets busy near to the carpark but once you work your way along the river and through the meadows you leave the picnicking families behind and it feels as though you are deep in natural countryside. I spent 4 hours there, wandering over 5 miles, stopping for a picnic lunch and taking my time to notice all of the natural wonders that can be seen by slowing down and paying attention. It was a wonderful tonic and I arrived home again tired, a little sunburnt (despite the lack of obvious sunshine) and feeling the peaceful contentment that I always rediscover when I've had a day out on my own in nature. So here are some photos of my day: the wandering pathways through frothy cow parsley and hog weed; the meadows full of wild flowers buzzing and chirrupping with thousands of insects; the cool and vibrant green-ness that banks the river course; the beautiful longhorn cattle that are now resident in the pastures and the wonderful variety of flowers, plants and bugs, some of them quite scary looking! I hope you enjoy them, I'll certainly enjoy looking at them again in the future, especially when I'm back to walks with Toby over the long summer break.

Well I hope your weekend brings you a little of what you love, and that you find the same peace and contentment that Panshanger brought me this week :)

 

The one all about Kit and her cubs

 

I know that you're most likely to be here for the knitting, but fair warning there's none of that here today. Instead this post is all about my lovely garden visitor Kit and her sweet cubs (eeeek!)

 

 

Kit started visiting my garden in February 2019. I'd see her peeking through the broken fence and managed to get a few pictures of her from a distance. She was drawn to our garden by the presence of our hens and when I wasn't in the garden she'd try every way possible to find a way into their run, causing much panic, consternation and a great many ruffled feathers in the process. But the run, built by my inventive and clever husband, defied all foxy attempts at entry and the hens stayed safe and well. I felt a bit sorry for the fox, who was very thin and scrawny, with a damaged eye and who showed such tenacity and ingenuity in her attempts to get a warm, feathery meal, and so I started to throw her small scraps of food whenever I saw her - it was always possible to know when she was around by the sound of alarmed clucks from the hens.Gradually over a couple of weeks the fox decided that the hens were not worth the bother and so stopped trying to chase and torment them and instead went close enough for them to sound the alarm, whilst seeming to understand that this would result in me appearing from the back door with something nice to eat in my hand. We found she's partial to leerdammer cheese slices, hot cross buns, raisins, cooked chicken skin, infact anything chickeny (though I never feed her cooked bones as they can splinter into sharp shards), digestive biscuits, bacon rinds but not definitely tuna, which she turns her nose up at.

Back in spring of last year she was visiting sporadically and we'd go a week or more without seeing her and then there she'd be again. I wasn't sure at that point whether she was male or female but one day in May I took some pictures of her when she visited in daylight and when I looked at them I could clearly see teats. So we knew at that point that she was A. Female and B. had cubs somewhere, and I decided to stop calling her fox and give her a name, Kit (from Kitsune, the fox from Japanese folklore). I hoped so much that she'd bring the cubs to the garden at some point and in June I did once have a brief glimpse of one cub with her but I have a feeling that the cub didn't make it as we never saw it again. Kit however kept visiting and I kept feeding her little tidbits. The hens grew bored of panic and became complacent, not even glancing up from their corn when she trotted by. I have a lovely video of Kit in front of the run and Bluebell, the biggest hen just looking at her and before we tidied the top of the chicken run ready for new fencing it was covered in a thick layer of ivy and was a favourite place for Kit to curl up and nap on, with the oblivious hens happily pecking below.

As 2019 ticked over into 2020 Kit was visiting daily and I felt very lucky to be regularly seeing such a beautiful wild creature up close.  I started to keep a note in my diary of when she visited and in mid February I noticed she was getting rather barrel-like around the middle and it soon became clear she was pregnant again. On the 1st of March she didn't visit and when she turned up again on March 3rd she was no longer plump, so we knew that she'd had her cubs and within a week her teats were clearly visible. Throughout March and April she's continued to visit daily for her regular supplementary snacks and has been coming more in the daytime perhaps while the cubs were safely napping in the den. Last monday I heard some funny noises in the garden just before bedtime and when I looked out there were a pair of cubs frolicking on the grass and pouncing on worms. I tried to take some pictures but in the dark they came out blurred and grainy and were not much to look at. We heard them again the next night and on wednesday we saw Kit with one of the cubs. But then on Thursday there was no Kit, and on Friday she didn't come, although I saw the two cubs in the garden at around 2am, and on Saturday still no Kit and no sign of the cubs and I was starting to worry that something bad might have happened to her.

On Sunday morning I woke up at just before 7am and got up to feed the chickens and just as I was coming back into the house I heard a sound behind me and there was Kit again. I was so pleased to see her and found her a snack, which she promptly carried off to a corner of the garden. There was a movement in the bushes and as she came back to enquire about further snacks a small, plump and fluffy bundle came running after her. I sat on my kitchen floor for the next 40 minutes with my camera, feeling immensely priveledged to be witnessing the scene before me as Kit washed and cleaned her three little ones: nibbling at their fur to groom out fleas; snuffling their plump bellies and licking their ears. Like all small children they squirmed and complained and played up, running off to investigate various bits of the garden and giving some of my garden furniture a nibble in the process and she was wonderfully tender and loving with them. Eventually she came right up to the back door again to see if I had one last snack and two of the cubs followed her. By the time they all trotted of into the bushes again I'd taken 240 photos on my camera. So these are the highlights :)

 

I just wanted to add that although there is a small element of trust between us she definitely retains her wild instincts and I'd never try to get close to her. She will come into the garden when we're outside too, but she keeps her distance and we never approach her but leave it for her to decide how close to us she is comfortable with. I never feed too much and do everything to ensure she does not become dependent on us or in any way tame and I only ever give food to her when she arrives, so she can take it to the cubs herself. When she first arrived I only started to feed her in order that she didn't chase the hens and this arrangement has become a satisfactory one for all involved parties, she leaves the hens in peace and, most suprisingly to me, they now ignore her :)

 

Over the last month

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures above are a little selection of things from the last month here:

I've been working on several new patterns: clothing patterns for the small animals, including dresses, sweaters and dungarees; more small versions of my animal patterns; a regular sized badger and there are a few other ideas that I'm also playing around with.

Spring has been arriving in our garden and the countryside around us, with blackthorn blossom, catkins and the blossoming of our plum tree.

Kit, our foxy visitor, has been coming almost every day. Back in January she seemed to be getting into lots of fights and was quite injured one morning - you can see in the pictures above her patches of missing fur and scrapes but she also had a bad limp and a broken canine tooth. She spent a day licking her wounds and curled upon top of the chicken run - the ivy-covered netting forms a comfy hammock and happily the chickens seemed oblivious and carried on life as normal! More recently I noticed that she was pregnant - she was distinctly plump around the middle and I think that she had her pups on the 2nd or 3rd of March as she didn't visit on those days and when she arrived on March 4th she was back to her skinny self. Since March 12th she's back to visiting every day for food and her teats are now clearly visible, so her cubs must be thriving. And yes, I am keeping a fox diary :)

The last month has seen unprecented times arrive around the globe and I think we’re all at least a little afraid right now. I'm trying not to shut out that fear and instead embrace it and let it guide me to socially responsible and sensible decisions. We're keeping Toby off school for now as he's vulnerable and we're practicing 'social distancing', going for our wood walks but avoiding other people. That's something we all need to be doing - not just for ourselves and our loved ones but also for the wider community. If you can go out into busy spaces less then do choose to; wash your hands often and keep compassion and kindness to others as your goal - you never know when you yourself might be in need of the kindness and compassion of a stranger.

Please let's all stay safe out there and keep others safe through our actions xxx

 

Hibernating

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first few months of the year always feel to me like a time for quiet rest and a gentler pace of life. Perhaps it's the short daylight hours of winter which make me feel a little like hibernating and using less energy. In summer I might walk in the woods in the evening or we'll be in the garden until after 10pm when dusk falls, but in January and February, with darkness falling before four o'clock in the afternoon, all I feel like doing in my free moments is curling up in a cosy corner by the fire and reading or knitting.

Along with bunny knitting I've been knitting lots of mittens. I have lots of wristwarmers, which I wear constantly throughout the winter months, but have been getting cold fingertips on my woodwalks and so it seemed a good plan to knit something a bit more cosy. This was a free pattern that I found on Ravelry and it's perfect, knitting up very quickly and with such a clever and comfortable thumb placket. It's called Garnomeras enkla vantar by Maria Samuelsson and I've loved knitting these in the 'silver birch'  organic merino Viola yarn that I gifted myself for Christmas, a beautiful hand-dyed yarn which has so many subtle tones. In fact I love the pattern so much that I've knitted a second pair, also in Viola Organic merino yarn, colourway 'frozen earth'. I have made a few modifications to the pattern (which is written for worsted weight yarn) in order to accomodate the DK yarn weight and I've added a little texture too - notes are over on my project page.

This morning there was a spectacular sunrise, which made me want to get up, dressed and out for a walk. So I headed off to the woods to see if the wood anemones were up yet but there was no sign of them, not even the tips of their leaves breaking through the soil. The woods are still deep in winter's pause, and we've not yet had a cold snap so it will be a little longer before the growing season starts again, although tree buds are starting to swell and small bird songs were all around as they start to pair up ready for spring. At least I'm now ready for ice and snow if it does arrive soon, and my hands will stay toasty and warm in my new mittens.

 

Home comforts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was the school half term break here last week and we had a fun time keeping Toby active and busy: lots of wood walks, tandem trike rides, swimming and rides on the mini steam train that he loves. Alongside our outdoor adventures there was also a little time for some indoor comforts: a couple of lazy lie-ins with knitting and tea in bed, quiet evenings by the fire and some baking of raspberry and white chocolate muffins - just the thing to come home to when you've had an afternoon in the breezy autumn woods :)

The shawl above is being knitted from Elizabeth Doherty's 'Rose Gold' pattern in sublimely soft 'Nomad' Yak DK yarn from The Wool Barn I'm hoping to finish off the lovely and unusual side-joined border this week and then it will need blocking (my least favourite part of handknitting) but with any luck I'll have it snuggled around my neck for our next wood walk, as woolly armour against those cool and intrusive autumn breezes.

I'm also busy with pattern writing, but more of that another time - for now I'll leave you with some of the pictures I've taken over the last 2 months of the fox that has been regularly visiting our garden since early spring, we've nicknamed her Kit (from kitsune) ...