Keeping watch on the Deer

 

Apples and pears chopped and bagged ready for feeding time, on arrival in the field i noticed the mum and young waiting close to where i had left there food yesterday, on inspection everything had gone including broccoli and stems, the deer were not at all nervous and looked to be very content, so i dropped more food and left them while i went in search of woodland golf balls, in just over 2 hours in woodland hacking down thorn bushes and endless prickles, i managed 72 very good golf balls.

A majority of these were brought out of woodlands by my golf ball dog Tilly-Miss who just seems to have a great sense of liking Titleist Pro V Balls, we had loads of that brand ball today, and as you can see from the pictures tilly is back home having a cuddle from my wife after we had gone for a long time.

I  managed some pictures of the deer waiting patiently for food, well i hope that is the reason why

This is mum and Thomas

What a beauty

But not as beautiful as this little lady

Who is now flat out on my settee sleeping and dreaming

And finally Golf Balls if anyone needs any ?

Deer back in woodlands, after weeks away.

Up and out early today in the hopeful search of the deer that had lived all last year in the woodland fields, over the last week i had been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of two new stragglers that had been wondering around the field, these two were very nervous as soon as you caught sight of them from a distance and were gone as quick as lightening, giving me the proof i needed that they were not linked to the family that had lived throughout the previous year quite happily with myself and tilly-miss.

The morning started well as can be expected, in to the woods and i am looking for tell tale signs of where the deer had been laying, hoof marks, and any sign of poo !

On walking through the path my first sighting was the dad Thomas as i have named him, a wonderful creature that has been friendly for a couple of years, remember i saw Thomas born in the woods and left in the undergrowth while mother rested, and so my friendship began.

Sadly the pictures are not that great as i was caught out and couldn’t focus properly, as time was against me should they decide to bolt, but i managed the best i could.

I was delighted to see them all back safe and started calling them, mum started walking towards me followed by the other three, i knew then it was time to head back home to get apples and pears, as they adore either and they wolf them down very quickly.

It is evident that they remember me and tilly and when we returned later with dinner for them they had there eyes firmly fixed on us and they were watching as the bag was shaken, they knew feeding time was close.

Open the picture for better view !

Tomorrow will be more apples and hopefully a few dozen golf balls, just like today !

Clearing more golf balls.

Hello to everyone, my apologies for a long absence from updating my page, things have been hectic in my life of late with illness of my wife and my time spent away working.

Hopefully i can start getting back to normal as can be and get ready to gear myself up for the late brighter nights and a hopeful increase in more people taking to the golf course.

Tilly has been in very good shape and as always my priority whether i am at home or away and i have so much fun, it would be unbearable to think of her not being here

I love get a picture of her whenever i can but tilly being tilly is indeed very camera shy

Even when she is stuck up a tree after chasing a squirrel.

We are still collecting golf balls and yesterday i packed 1000 golf balls to a new customer in Kent who found my details through this blog.

Its also a coincidence  that i was contacted by phone from a very nice lady asking if we are interested in clearing 230 acre golf course of all the golf balls, so it can be turned back to farming, this i thought was a job far to big for me and tilly so i passed this on to the professional service of my trusted friend Daz from the north of England who has the manpower and tools to do a good job, he will have to camp out for a while as the golf course is in Kent.

We will be back with some more very soon, i just need to download some pictures that i took today, still i have problems getting used to this new phone, driving me mad !

Under the leaves brings nearly 600 golf balls.

Well just by chance i kicked up a few leaves and scattered them which in turn showed a couple of pearly white balls buried in some mud, i walked further and noticed the green keepers cutting back tree branches which made it easy for me to get near the fence line, i couldn’t believe what started to appear right in front of my eyes, golf balls of all colours many that had probably laid there for a very long time, but quite warm and not as cold as i expected they would be considering the weather.

This is just a few of what we had, it certainly kept us warm, in the first day 127 recovered, 249 on the second day and today over 2 visits just short of 296 not bad going from a 12 metred area of leaves, i have to sort them as i have people waiting for ProV and Nike along with Srixon.

Couldn’t believe my luck to see this huge fella sneaking around the fields, and what a bonus on Wednesday to look out my window and watch 3 deer eating veg on the allotments.

As i sit here typing i can hear  the young foxes calling, it wont be long before Scraggy arrives for her daily feast, she arrives every night and her arrival time now is usually around 22:00 i am seeing them more in the woodland now than ever before in morning time, they must be quite hungry to be scouting at that time, so i must go and fix scraggy some porridge….it will fill him up for the night hopefully

Back soon bye bye !

The Deer have left the woods.

Sadly the deer no longer shelter through our fields adjacent to the wood and golf course, it is with sadness that 3 of our regular deer have been hunted and killed by some very nasty immigrants it seems who are not bothered where there next meal comes from.

For the last 5 years we have had young born and raised in the fields, last year nothing, which was very strange despite our young stud “Thomas” who roamed the fields and bedded down in wait for a mate to keep him company, oh how we miss the beauties on our walks and how Tilly misses the fun of the chase, we would spend hours sitting and watching them.

Here s my beauty Tilly-Miss relaxing after a 2 hour walk and getting ready for a game or two.

 

The last few months have seen a few changes to the landscape in the wooded area, due to an application being submitted to build a large property around the barn area, over time the developer has moved a couple of ton of high quality Peat and has pushed this away from the build in to the wood, there has to be 3/4 Tonne of quality fertilizer which is available should anyone want to make a donation.

If any garden centre wants to clear this they are welcome, the top layer of leaves and twigs need raking away and underneath that compost that will grow anything you desire excluding male or female humans….

 

During my time away from keeping the blog running i have been very busy working with this fella doing xmas panto season, all good fun to say the least travelling the entire length of the UK hopefully i will be here more often as the weeks progress.

Take Care from myself & tilly

It has all been happening in the woods.

My apologies for not updating the pages for a while, I have been to my computer many times with the intention of adding new updates only to be called away for something else.

Anyway….we are talking golf balls….we are talking progress of the young deer…..and we are talking about the low life scum that think it is acceptable to break in to peoples property, and to round it of we have to also deal with someone shooting young foxes and leaving them on view very close to the golf course.

Nothing infuriates me  more than people killing wildlife just for the sake of it, the woodland close to me has been my trusted hunting ground since a child, i know the woodland inside out, i know the favourite places for the deer and the badgers and the foxes that creep quietly throughout the day and night in search of food, they are always a pleasure to watch and it can be amazing if you get close up, but we have a problem at present with someone who thinks it is fun to blow away our delightful foxes for no reason at all, this idiot also has no respect for people as he is firing in to the golf course which is yards away from where i witnessed two baby cubs blasted and left on view, the pictures are to graphic to put online and i was so angry to think why has he done this?

I have made online attempts to get the police wildlife inspector to visit me and look for himself, but sadly nothing, so i have been stopping in the woods until near dark in the hope of confronting the person responsible, my view is he will no doubt be looking to cull the young deer before long.

The family of 3 are doing fantastic but they are wearing me out as i look daily for them, i end up doing the fields and there hiding places just to know they are safe and by that time i am rather tired and in need of substance, still nervous of me is the young and they are away like lightening from one corner in the field to the other, but i realised they are not that switched on when they bounded away i then went round the opposite way and they were not expecting that, we walked straight in to each other and it was quite a shock for them.

Tonight i spent time coaxing them round the entire perimeter fence by calling them, it was the first real time they never bolted so lets hope that this could be the start of us getting to know each other better as one would say and with more calling they will understand i am here to not harm them….they are all so beautiful.

Golf Ball Crazy….it has been non stop collecting and selling, people turning up at the door, orders from film studios and more people arriving tomorrow, then i have a meeting with a few souvenir outlets in Windsor who will hopefully take an interest for our ball in a pot which features the star of the show tilly-miss in her glory in the woods we have a variety of poses that will hopefully capture the imagination of the many visitors who visit Windsor.

Thieves and Burglars i have no time for, i believe in a form of punishment such as a birching or flogging with salt rubbed in to the wound afterwards to let them know it is not the way to lead your life, it is not the way to feed your drug habit or is it the way for you to go to a pub and sell someone else’s property for the price of a drink.

This morning we walked through the grounds of the big house and i noticed a bike laying in the grass, strange i thought and carried on walking then i find a large padlock that had been cut in half strewn in the grass, then i find the shed door open which i thought was unusual as this hardly ever opens, the next thing this spotty faced man comes walking out and see’s me and he is holding items and he is on his toes sadly to quick for me, but he left his bike behind and i snapped a few pictures and they are available for the police when they arrive, hopefully someone will recognise the bike and that might just lead to the scumbag responsible.

Let me see what pictures i have to end tonight

Dam i have them on my phone….

Coloured Golf Balls and Pro V selling well.

No let up in the search for golf balls, really doesn’t matter if it pours with rain or we have an avalanche of snow, were out there in all weathers.

The last few days have been interesting as we walk round and today of all days would have been the best ever for getting pictures of the deer, but as my camera was on low charge i decided to leave it at home and give it a good charge as it was pouring down and i was thinking the deer will not be running round, but how wrong can i be as i walked through the copse the two young bolted out and headed across the field, i then took off the back way and waited and waited in the rain and guess what they appeared and after a long nervous wait by the young ones they started walking the fence line very carefully eating and nibbling what they could totally unaware that i was there stood under the tree, it was magical the two were almost side by side to me and i was just so pleased to stand there looking them both over they both looked like bambi from the film, gorgeous features with the cutest faces and the eyes said it all, i was so happy and yet so sad that my camera was not handy, but i will be back there again later.

Our colours are selling well and we have been adding to the collection after we found these in the ferns

We have also been collecting good white balls that just keep dropping

The above balls were collected in the woods within 30 minutes bringing our total to roughly around 200+ for a couple of days, not bad considering it is holiday time and lots of people are away.

 

Found this ball that arrived all the way from the Gulf and has a rather nice picture of a camel.

Now we head to our big field again to clear this, hopefully the rain has stopped and we can clear quite a few more.

Anyone wishing to purchase any amount of quality golf balls are welcome to contact me

Back to the woods.

It was so lovely to be back home with my wife and my best friend tilly, the welcome was amazing from tilly and the pooch has not left my side since walking through the door.

After a good nights sleep and endless cups of tea,we headed out in the sun to the woods with one purpose and that was to check on the young deer, hoping they were still in and around the woodland, it was only a few minutes before i caught my first glimpse of the young that were at full speed at the top of the field, the pace and speed is very frightening and they are still unsure of my presence but given time and patience they will get used to me.

Quite happy in the knowledge that the young deer were ok we soon started to collect the golf balls and it was not long before my arms were aching through the sheer weight of our findings.

On the right of the pictures are some lovely Titleist Pro V Balls that will no doubt end up in our vending machines, they have to be great value at £1 compared to golf outlets charging anything up to £4 per ball, once i get them in the wash those Pro V Balls will look as good as new.

The top field was not as good as i thought things would be, we were lucky to have counted double figures which is strange? also the main field again hardly returned anything exceptional, so i put this down to either golfers running low on money? on holiday? or we have someone helping themselves to our stock? usually after a 2 week absence the field would return anything from 500 balls, so something has to be done and maybe it is time to turn on the electric fences ?

Here are some logo balls we found yesterday, there were quite a few and i have more to add.

I done my good deed yesterday when i found an injured pheasant with a bad leg, the poor bird was first seen by tilly and the pheasant was wedged in thorns against a wired fence, so in i go and pick him up then let him down on grass and he managed 4 or 5 steps then collapsed so in the pouring rain i walk him to an animal sanctuary for them to check him out, hopefully everything is good and he makes a full recovery, when we walked back home and walked through the door we were soaked to the skin and my coat was still soaked this morning, i woke with a stinking cold and more aches and pains that i can think about….ooh happy days…..

Golf Balls all over the fields

We have spent the last couple of days clearing the hedges that run alongside the the field and golf course, never seen so many laying in nettles and under thorn bushes, but tilly is doing a great job going under where she can bless her.

This is just a small sample in less than an hour

It is very hard work and quite time consuming trying to avoid the nettles and thorns that would cut you to pieces. but we keep going !

Tilly took time away from the golf ball to have a game of chase with bugs bunny, it was quite funny to watch them chasing round the field in the heat and lucky for Bugsy i was there to stop tilly killing her, the poor bunny has the dreadful maxi virus and cannot see anything but i couldn’t let her life end just like that maybe i am going soft in my age?

 

so bunny took of quite slowly and possibly survived the night somewhere safe but with the red kite flying above and the fox out hunting i don’t give much hope

Sweet machines filled and another being added to a local pub so our selection of new treats should keep everyone happy and i am delighted to be adding more to our total out at the moment.

My mate Daz arrived yesterday and took the golf balls, always nice to see him and maybe one day we will get to have a slurp or two when he is down this way, if you need any lakes clearing of golf balls he is your man.

Had to laugh out loud on seeing this doing the rounds on FB

Back home and straight in the fields.

I have been away in Europe earning some money to keep the wolf from the door, my journey has taken me by road from the UK to Norway, Denmark &  France to some beautiful Islands especially in Norway, goodness me if i had the chance i would go and live there, it is an awesome place.

I arrived home late afternoon on Sunday to a welcome from my faithful companion tilly-miss, even my wife was happy to see me which is sometimes unusual (put your dog and wife in the boot of the car for an hour and see who would be happiest to see you…hahaha) not that i ever would ???

It was a scorching heat and in an hour we were collecting lots of golf balls that had laid idle and waiting no doubt for my return, was i happy to collect near enough a bag full in just a brisk walk due to the heat which played its part also on tilly, so i kept it low key and tried to keep as sheltered as we could in the woodland area.

Today i am cleaning an order of just Titleist Pro V Balls for a pub in Essex that has our golf ball vending machine sited, the request was for that specific brand of ball which is a bargain at only £1 at the moment i have a cleaning session going on in the back yard, lots of golf balls being washed, vending pots have been sorted and were almost ready to get the order in to a box ready for posting.

In the scorched field still no sign of Deer life, i miss those lovely animals and keep hoping they will return, i have noticed lots of Red Kite action today with near enough 8 flying mighty low around tilly and myself, have a feeling they are getting hungry?

Lots to do between now and Wednesday as i leave again Thursday for more travelling to Spain & Portugal for more music shows, also happy that i will get the chance to be at the Montraux Jazz Festival which i have also wished to visit, so dreams do come true?

Wishing you all happy and safe times ahead, enjoy the sun while you can and i hope to be back with some tales from my travels and some pictures.