A Whole Plotta Love

Allotment life and notes from the Boater's Garden

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May 2017

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Valonia and Rob

Setting the scene:

On a little piece of land in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, two garden novices are overrun by rabbits on an allotment plot they named A Whole Plotta Love.

Meanwhile, at home on the banks of the Thames, they potter about on a tiny segment of ground known colloquially as The Boater’s Garden. It floods a lot.

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I found a rabbit on the allotment and spent an hour chasing it around before calling for backup. Rob arrived, calmly built a corall, coaxed the rabbit out from behind the shed, and sent it on its merry way. He made it look easy, and he's rewarded himself by drinking the beer for the beer traps!
The following day a goose and her 2 gooselets strayed into Chekhov territory. This got rather fraught. Chevkov separated mother and babies and tried to drown the babies. With the help of a stranger we managed to catch the gooselets whilst Chekhov was busy chasing mother goose. We attempted to lure mother goose to the far side of the marina and to safety, but she just continually returned to the slipway where she last saw her babies. Our next attempt to save them involved me luring mother goose using her babies down the lane to a safer part of the river. It worked for a little while, but she spooked when she lost sight of the water, and flew back directly into the path of Chekhov. Our next attempt, saw us clamber in a boat to try and lure the goose to the safety of the main channel of the river. Chekhov was harassing her too much and wouldn't let her through. He knew we had the goslings so made for us at one point too. We figured we were making matters worse, so we headed for land and hoped that with the chicks out of sight Chekhov would stop. He did eventually, but the mother goose made one last ditch attempt to reach the slipway again, but to no avail. Chekhov was still waiting. We distracted the swans with food and rushed the chicks to the far end of the marina to catch mother goose just as she had given up and was leaving. I held up one of her babies and it called out to her. Mother goose shot over to us, and we were able to reunite them all. They all swam out of the marina basin and to the safety of the river. In all it took 3 and a half hours and we've felt emotionally exhausted ever since! We love a happy ending, though.
And here's a little clip of the moment of freedom for the swanlet.
And since the Chekhovs have had 8 swanlets, it's made Mr. Chekhov very territorial. Battle 1 featured Mr. Chekhov against this nearly grown swanlet who came looking for territory of its own. We had to intervene as Chekhov was crushing it against boats and holding the swanlet's head under water. We took it a little further downstream and released it in a safer spot.
It's been a busy old time on the river. First of all, the Chekhovs (because everyone names their resident swans) have had 8 swanlets.
Fancy that, our first sighting of Egyptian geese on this bit of the Thames and it just happens to be on our roof!

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© valonia and awholeplottalove.com, 2017. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Valonia and A Whole Plotta Love with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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