Villager Joanne goes walking with her two huge dogs every morning past our cottage. I saw her today and she regaled me with a somewhat strange story about how she witnessed, what she thought was a big panther like cat slinking in a hedge down gypsy lane.
Now Joanne is not prone to flights of fancy, she is a level headed professional, with good eyesight and all her own teeth, so if she saw a big cat, a hundred yards from our house, who am I to disbelieve her? I just hope to high heaven that she is wrong.....it is bad enough having a fox beheading 8 of my hens........god alone would know, what carnage a black panther would do...though Nora, the largest of the sows would probably bite the head off any big cat, if it came too close.
Strangely enough the BBC website has noted that North wales (Especially Flintshire) is a bit of a hot spot when it comes from mythical cat sightings!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/guides/weird/mythsandlegends/pages/panther.shtml
Now Joanne is not prone to flights of fancy, she is a level headed professional, with good eyesight and all her own teeth, so if she saw a big cat, a hundred yards from our house, who am I to disbelieve her? I just hope to high heaven that she is wrong.....it is bad enough having a fox beheading 8 of my hens........god alone would know, what carnage a black panther would do...though Nora, the largest of the sows would probably bite the head off any big cat, if it came too close.
Strangely enough the BBC website has noted that North wales (Especially Flintshire) is a bit of a hot spot when it comes from mythical cat sightings!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/guides/weird/mythsandlegends/pages/panther.shtml
This afternoon I have planted onions and potatoes. Tomorrow when Chris and Sorrel do their usual days shopping. I will plant shallots and broad beans.I had to cut short my allotment work as Geoffrey and I "volunteered" to put up a security camera in the Church.
In between all this public spirit! I have kept a close eye on Jesus, who still remains rather quiet in his part of the field. Though not droopy, he is rather too quiet for my liking, so as he was sunning himself in the sun, I crept up behind him and grabbed him and gave him the once over.
Apart from a few peck marks on his head ( after his fight with Rogo), he looked ok. No diarrhoea, no lice, no ticks. I treated him for lice anyway, gave him a wormer and used the broad spectrum antibiotic injection I had left over from Scotty to treat any possible infection.
I have also fed him some extra cat food to boost him up, which he ate.
Sorrel arrives tonight......with the turkey pack now numbering 6 feisty birds, and her pathological fear of anything feathered, tomorrow on the field, should be fun!
Once, I described seeing a large panther-type cat dash across the road and come to find out it was a neighbors overweight, bobtailed cat.
ReplyDeleteWas it foggy when she saw the cat. I swear that anything that I see in the fog looks bigger than it actually is.
ReplyDeleteno it was clear this morning...apparantly Joanne had seen something very similar 10 years ago in the same spot
ReplyDeletec r e e p y !
I've seen 2 big cats and a timber wolf. The wolf was an escapee from dartmoor zoo. There used to be a huge black cat that stalked the fields around the farm I used to live on, it would appear in 3 year cycles in the spring around lambing time. I've seen a puma in the forest whilst out horse riding, that was very scary. was about 30ft away from me. The old estate nearby was inhabited by an eccentric old chap who apperently kept them as pets and they say he released them and they've bred. I once heard that the old owners of dartmoor zoo would find their female pumas pregnant, no male in the enclosure.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard some wierd calls at night, thanfully not round here.
Creepy stuff, there are tons of stories about beasts down here on dartmoor, mind you its a ideal habitat for them.
I feel quite frightened now, lol.
xx
Some folk reckon there is one near the orchard, but then we sometimes find empty beer cans in the orchard so I wonder...
ReplyDeleteHowever only a few miles away a sheep was mauled and the vet said it wasn't a dog that did it ...
The photo of the church was lovely... you had to put a security camera in the church, :O( I am sure there are plenty here with them as well.
ReplyDeleteJohn, just had to come by and see your blog. Nice.
ReplyDeleteOkay folks, I've been fantasizing about moving to the country, growing my own food, having a chicken coop (for eggs only and as pseudo pets) and all this big cat talk is making me sleep better knowing I live in the peaceful streets of Chicago! :-)
ReplyDeletei really didnt believe my friend when last year he regaled
ReplyDeletea story that he had seen a very large black "cat" on the mynydd road above trelawnyd late one summer evening when walking from trelawnyd back to llanasa about two years ago. it crossed the lane and stood by a five bar gate before slinking through it down towards pant-y-coed road. he marked the height of it by the bar of the gate it was standing by. when he checked, the animals back would have been approx 30 inches high. i must admit i did disregard his story but perhaps i should now be a little bit more aware when im regularly walking home at 2am from the red lion(hic!) down that pitch black pant y coed lane and check out im not being stalked!.