Zoo Day.

Today's 70% chance of rain never arrived despite a morning sky full of grey clouds. The nearest we got was the tiniest spattering of raindrops on the terrace that lasted for no more than a minute. I stayed sitting in my dressing gown and soon the warm wind had everything dry again.

I've begun a system of collecting all the rinsing water from the kitchen sink into a bucket on the terrace and then tipping that water on the raised beds or the planters. It's been so long since those beds have had any regular watering and this way they should get water each day. The tomatoes and clematis in the back garden have been watered with the hose and I try and give them a good soaking every 2 or 3 days.

 

I took a chance and cycled to the zoo in the interests of the environment, my fitness and sparing the car. I still walked up the two short hills on the way home though for slightly less distance than last time.

There was a little mini drama at the zoo today. I was happily tidying up the grass maze when I heard louder than usual goat bleating. (They're very good at begging from the visitors.) As the bleating grew closer I wondered if one of the goats had escaped but then saw one of the zoo staff carrying a yelling pygmy goat to the empty loose boxes. 

This goat is low down in the goat pecking order and gets bullied by some of the others. Not so long ago one of her horns was broken in a tussle and it came off with copious amounts of blood all over both of the girls that look after the animals. And now the other horn was hanging off! Not spurting but a dramatic trickle of blood down the centre of her face and into her mouth. Which she did not like. The vet was phoned and would come later. For the time being the advice was to bandage the break to keep flies off. But by that time with all the crashing about from the goat the horn came off. Fortunately with a longer stump than had been on the other side and no dramatic spurting. I think the girls attempted to bandage the stump and then decided to spray it with wound spray that also has fly deterrent.

It turned surprisingly warm later in the afternoon. Is this the start of the next heatwave that we've been promised? I went to Pilates as usual but this is the last one until September while Rachel, our teacher/coach? takes a well deserved break. I will have to get into a daily exercise routine so that my fitness level doesn't plummet to a new low.