Monday 28 October 2013

Low Sun, Blustery Wind...Oh & Giant Puffballs !

Sunday's weather was to be hurricane force winds in the south of the U.K. with a wet & windy forecast for here in East Lothian, so I woke up to a grey sky threatening with rain & a bit of a gusty wind, so giving it half an hour to see what the outcome would be which was enough time for another coffee.
 A few spots of rain the wind much the same & finally the sun breaking through the cloud albeit a low sun I decided to get the bike out the shed & hit the trails...



Passing by Easter, Meikle & Little Pinkerton farms then following a farm track along the bottom of Doon Hill before heading downhill to Brandsmill farm.
Unsafe bridge, so through the Spott burn it is.

A Kona in the grass.



The weird & wonderful Giant Puffball fungi, in their different stages of maturity, you can see the what looks like brown smoke on the bottom picture where I am standing down on it, but in fact it's the spores being released from the Puffball. You can eat these when they are at the young white stage.



Beautiful autumn colours through Oswald Dean.
Another ram I passed going through Ozzie Dean with the ink pad bib on for identifying which ewe's have been mated.







Bourhouse pigeon doocot surrounded by autumn rusty coloured foliage. 
I love old pigeon doocots & it's a real shame that they are aloud to decay so badly. As I've mentioned before that there are more doocots in East Lothian than any other county in the U.K, this style is called a 'Lectern' style doocot.

Passing by Pitcox farm with some of the farm's derelict cottages, and what size of wheel is that 26", 650b, or a 29er or a 50" slick ?



My designated target for the day, after battling through head on gusts of wind & the low sun barely peeking over the hills I arrive at Meiklerig woods for my weekly fix of geocaches :-) there are 5 caches to be had here at Meiklerig woods but with the ongoing forestry work I did have my doubts if they would still be in place but the GPS co-ordinates were spot on & I managed to find 4 out of the 5, the caches are hidden with logs, stones etc to make it harder for you or anyone else to find, the fifth eluded me as the co-ordinates would not settle in the thick woodland & time was pressing on, I'll leave this one for another day.



Yet more beautiful woodland fungi, I'm going to have to buy a reference book on British fungi, I would love to know what they are called & if they are edible or not ? Who can pass on natures bounty of free food ?
A hunters high hide amongst the trees.


Came across some kids 'gang huts' don't look as if they have been used for a while though & yet again another shotgun blast into the corrugated iron sheet, a close range effort right in the 'o' of Bob.



The low sun creates some great light & shadows throughout the trees.


A great view point at this location looking over Traprain law, North Berwick law & the Bass Rock & again the low light enhancing some amazing colours.
End of the month new tyres will be ordered, I'm sick of spinning & slipping !! These tyres are not good enough for the places I go, they are fine for roads or hard packed surfaces so a replacement it will be !




Colours, shadows & fruits of autumn.

En route home passing through the village of Spott with the witches stane & a finger post pointing the way, a big huge steep hill called 'starvation brae' awaits me.

More low sun & shadow pictures looking over the hills of the Lammermuirs.



Some pictures along the way home, young pheasants & partridges for the Brunt shoot days & it's nice to see the local council have given the fingerpost a fresh lick of paint.




After descending down the Brunt hill I noticed the gate to the field was open, meaning that the cows have been taken out of the field to allow the pheasant shoots to take place :-) great news for me who seems to attract the curiosity of cows as a chase item ! I love cycling through this glen as it's pretty wild for spotting nature deer, buzzards, woodpeckers etc.

Exiting the glen just before Thurston manor caravan site up through these hidden steps.
One of the Thurston manor pigeon doocots from the days when it was an estate, there was another doocot identical to this but was for some reason sadly demolished as was the manor house too.
Well that's all for today folks, I hope you enjoyed another tour of the area where I live until the next post thanks for looking & bye for now... Oh going back to the cows harassing & chasing me every time I enter their field my daughter sent me the following picture much to her amusement !!!
And I seem to be their No.1 target !!
Cheers for now :-)