September 27 - Day 135 (134.5) - 'For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.' - Longfellow

Cycling this morning was not fun! That could be enough said about the matter but I perhaps deserve a little bit of sympathy for getting completely drenched and having to change every item of clothing when I got to work. Three hours later and I still haven’t warmed up properly but I am sure all the car and lorry drivers who, on very flooded roads, managed to cover me completely in spray, all had a good start to the week.

So - it might be a bit pathetic of me - but I didn’t stop to take any pictures this morning. Luckily I knew that I had some from cycling home on Friday that I wanted to share with you. On December 8, I talked about the silage wrapping and included a picture. Last week, I couldn’t work out why some of the green wrapping had been strewn across the field. That is - until Friday evening - when I came across the culprits (see picture). Now I can’t find any reference, apart from a comment about clear wrap, that explains which colour should be used to prevent deer munching- but green clearly isn’t it.

What I did discover, however, is that this isn’t the first time when plastic and deer has been a bad combination. In 2016, the BBC covered a story about Bradgate Park in Leicestershire where a deer’s stomach was found to be full of plastic dog poo bags. It’s thought that the deer were mistaking them for picnic/food bags. At least the deer in Derbyshire are going for an actual food source and hopefully not eating the plastic while doing so. Either way, I suspect the farmer will not be over happy. but then, given many farmers will have managed three cuts this year and wrapped bails before this mornings downpour, I suspect a few damaged wraps are not too deer a price for them to pay.