Castle Aching

[MrWolf]

One of my friends had rats under his sheds. The solution being a motorbike and a vacuum cleaner hose. Quicker and more effective than poison, plus your neighbours pets and other wildlife aren't at risk.

[TT-Pete]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

One of my friends had rats under his sheds. The solution being a motorbike and a vacuum cleaner hose. Quicker and more effective than poison, plus your neighbours pets and other wildlife aren't at risk.

 

At first I thought you were referring to something horrible, nasty and unspeakable, but then realised you must be referring to this:

 

 

 

(RPM - Rabbits Per Minute :^) !!)

 

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

 

At first I thought you were referring to something horrible, nasty and unspeakable, but then realised you must be referring to this:

 

 

 

(RPM - Rabbits Per Minute :^) !!)

 

 

Rabbits and rats might both be rodents, but they're a world apart. 

Rabbits are useful creatures.

If you've seen what Leptospirosis (Weil's disease) amongst the other diseases rats can carry, does to other animals and humans, you'd have no qualms about gassing rats.

[TT-Pete]

31 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Rabbits and rats might both be rodents, but they're a world apart. 

Rabbits are useful creatures.

If you've seen what Leptospirosis (Weil's disease) amongst the other diseases rats can carry, does to other animals and humans, you'd have no qualms about gassing rats.

 

That was tongue in cheek, I hasten to add. Being a country boy have no issue with dealing with vermin, apart from our cats leaving the corpses outside my study on the patio, or half-eaten bunnies on the front step for me to deal with (why does Phoebe always start at the top and then lose interest when about 1/2 way down?!)

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

Rabbits are useful creatures.

Not if they are eating your bedding plants and, in the winter, stripping the bark off your shrubs!

 

Thankfully we haven't had that problem here, though there are some about.

 

Jim

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, TT-Pete said:

 

That was tongue in cheek, I hasten to add. Being a country boy have no issue with dealing with vermin, apart from our cats leaving the corpses outside my study on the patio, or half-eaten bunnies on the front step for me to deal with (why does Phoebe always start at the top and then lose interest when about 1/2 way down?!)

 

That sounds like practice hunting and gifts for the alpha cat who feeds them!

A big cat that isn't being fed so much at home will hunt rabbits all summer and only leave the lower part of the back legs. 

[MrWolf]

43 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Not if they are eating your bedding plants and, in the winter, stripping the bark off your shrubs!

 

Thankfully we haven't had that problem here, though there are some about.

 

Jim

 

Sounds like you're having a Mr McGregor moment! 😀. 

Grow some veg, rabbit stew is very good!

 

That's one useful aspect of a rabbit.

[Nearholmer]

55 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Not if they are eating your bedding plants and, in the winter, stripping the bark off your shrubs!

 

Your surname isn't McGregor is it?

 

I always love the bit where Peter Rabbit's mum tells him that his dad was eaten in a pie; makes such a charming bedtime story.

[Nearholmer]

Snap!

[monkeysarefun]

 There seem to like it down  here,  I guess its the beaches and the beer without bits in it.    

 

Turn down to avoid the "Good Ol Boy" music.

 

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

We've been overrun with rabbits since the Romans turned up.

 

Do you still have lots of cane toads?

[monkeysarefun]

34 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

We've been overrun with rabbits since the Romans turned up.

 

Do you still have lots of cane toads?

 

 

Yes thankfully, our fashion and fine art industries love making stuff out of them.

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Your surname isn't McGregor is it?

 

I always love the bit where Peter Rabbit's mum tells him that his dad was eaten in a pie; makes such a charming bedtime story.

Cats, not rabbits, but The Roly-Poly Pudding used to scare me witless.

[Edwardian]

I grew up in a village, but haven't lived in one since circa 2008, properties since then having been outside villages.

 

Now I find myself very much in a community. Before I had even moved in I had a welcome card and a request for my contact details from the parish clerk.

 

After a brief conversation over the wall with my immediate neighbours, a very pleasant pair of shrinks from the SE, all they had gleaned was known throughout the village. 

 

Then, this Wednesday evening, only two days after I moved in, I was 'encouraged' to attend a parish council meeting.  I almost didn't bother as I was tired and running late with the moving schedule, but my son said it was important that I go, adding "for the greater good", referencing Hot Fuzz. Everyone was so very welcoming and friendly.  After only an hour and a half I emerged in a pleasant daze having listened enthralled to about an hour of discussion of the main agenda item, the mowing of the village green. Truly I have awoken, if not in Wonderland, at least in a episode of The Archers. 

 

The green is the chief glory of the place, an elongated feature running the length of the village and, this being Yorkshire, sloping, with banks at 45 degrees and steeper.  

 

So, after 14 years living as a recluse, it is time to celebrate belonging to a community.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Edwardian
spelling

[Donw]

Beware the WI mafia

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, Donw said:

Beware the WI mafia

 

Or being mown down by spinsters cycling to matins through the morning mist! 

[Nearholmer]

I grew-up in a small country town, and have since lived in “suburban villages”, localities with parish councils, a distinct identity and community, but parts of a bigger whole, and I’m not at all sure I’d like to live in a “proper village”, because the amount of beakiness, small-mindedness, and cliqueing in the places I have lived has sometimes begun to border on intrusive, but stayed just the right side of the line, and I’d fear that in a “proper village” the line might sometimes be crossed.

 

Mowing? Material for endless debate. As long as grass grows, or refuses to grow when wanted, and dogs defecate parish councils will never be short of something to discuss.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Now I find myself very much in a community. Before I had even moved in I had a welcome card and a request for my contact details from the parish clerk.

 

After a brief conversation over the wall with my immediate neighbours, a very pleasant pair of shrinks from the SE, all they had gleaned was known throughout the village. 

 

Then, this Wednesday evening, only two days after I moved in, I was 'encouraged' to attend a parish council meeting.  I almost didn't bother as I was tired and running late with the moving schedule, but my son said it was important that I go, adding "for the greater good", referencing Hot Fuzz. Everyone was so very welcoming and friendly.  After only an hour and a half I emerged in a pleasant daze having listened enthralled to about an hour of discussion of the main agenda item, the mowing of the village green. Truly I have awoken, if not in Wonderland, at least in a episode of The Archers. 

 

The know how to recruit. With your CV, you're a marked man.

 

Make sure that any position you are volunteered for comes with an exit strategy (succession plan)!

Edited April 8, 2022 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m not at all sure I’d like to live in a “proper village”, because the amount of beakiness, small-mindedness, and cliqueing in the places I have lived has sometimes begun to border on intrusive, but stayed just the right side of the line, and I’d fear that in a “proper village” the line might sometimes be crossed.

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Mowing? Material for endless debate. As long as grass grows, or refuses to grow when wanted, and dogs defecate parish councils will never be short of something to discuss.

 

Argh

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Edwardian

[MrWolf]

Lawn mowers? 

 

The Americans got it right.

 

[CKPR]

As I commented a few weeks ago in The Gruaniad, round our way on the Shropshire - Herefordshire border (literally as the county border goes through our village), it's basically the 18th century with electricity... 

[alastairq]

8 minutes ago, CKPR said:

it's basically the 18th century with electricity... 

You have electricity???

[Schooner]

5 minutes ago, CKPR said:

...the 18th century with electricity... 

 

How exciting!

(Okay okay, early 19th C)

[MrWolf]

The nearest village to us is very 21st century, all modernized in the style of the worst that money can buy. Range rovers on every drive and a general air of footballer showiness.

 

Not sure what I'd rather tolerate

[Annie]

Now if you want people knowing what your business is try living on an island like I did for ten years.  I was told when I first moved there that if I never knew what I was doing all I had to do was ask one of the local residents and they'd soon tell me.