We have run out of geocaches near to home in the New Forest so are having to go a bit further afield so today we went close to Ringwood to search for a couple. The clocks went back last night so there were more people out and about early it seemed and the car park was almost full - not a good sign for me! Anyway, close to the car park there was a small herd of Belted Galloway cattle, this one looked like it had been in for a curly perm, maybe it got soaked in the rain last night and dried out curly! It was a nice look though.
As my dad used to say, rain's on the way - the cows are sitting down!
I wondered how long it would take ....... back to mud again!
The tracks were quite muddy today, it doesn't seem to take long for them to become soft, squelchy and very annoying, I have to say I'm not a fan of mud.
Today's two geocaches were set by the same people who are well known for hiding them in and mostly up trees. This one, the first of the day was a bit of a scramble but obviously not for me I just stood and watched - the art of delegation!
We saw the cache easily enough it was just getting to it that was a bit of a problem.
The second cache was easier (as long as you had a tall person with you with long arms, and I did!) and was reached with feet remaining firmly on the ground.
We saw quite a few of these beetles about this morning, maybe they like it when the ground is saturated and muddy.
As I mentioned the other day, there are masses of acorns and chestnuts about this year, and the acorns are like a carpet of crunchiness in places. Every year pigs are let loose in the New Forest to eat acorns, known as pannaging, as ponies and cattle can be poisoned by too many acorns.
This year because of the large amount of acorns it has been decided by the verderers and the Forestry Commission that there will be an extension of the pannage season until Sunday 15th December. (The dates for this year would have been 9th September to 7th November originally).
Today we saw some pigs for the first time this season out in the forest, a family in fact, mum and eleven piglets - ELEVEN!! - nightmare! They were all over the place.
At one stage there was a piglet bundle where they all bundled on top of one another, neither of us was quick enough to get a photo as it was all over and done with quite quickly.
Mum, it's a shame there isn't sound with this, as she was snuffling around grunting and squeaking.
All eleven piglets are in this photo- that wasn't an easy task either!
Just to complete the New Forest experience I took a photo of ponies, just so that we had cattle, ponies and pigs all in one post! And so ends another morning out caching and incidentally the new walking boots got properly christened today in the mud.
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