Aidan 13, 9th & 10th June Dyrham Park

9th June

Today we went to a village to see some cottages with thatched roofs. The thatched roofs are made of flax grass.  

They layer the grass so water does not get in the roof. It takes a long time to do and it costs a lot of money. Then we went to a place called Castle Combe to look around the village.  We found a little creek and went paddling and tickled for trout.  We had some come close but we didn't catch any.

Then we went to have lunch. Holly shared a burger with Dad, Mum had a prawn sandwich and I had a bowl of chips.

10th June
Today we went to a fallow deer park. It was called Dyrham Park. 

We did a guided walk with a ranger.

These are some of the things she told us about the deer and the park. There are cows in the paddocks now with deer to eat the long grass because the deer only eat the short grass. The cows spend winter in the barn and then come in for summer because the combination of deer and cattle is good for the pasture.

This is a herd of wild deer. If any of the deer get hurt the rangers watch to see it they start to heal.  Because they are wild they do not get looked after by a vet so if they do not get better than they have to be shot.  

When the deer have babies they leave the group and go to long grass to give birth. It only takes about hour to give birth. Then after an hour the babies called fawns can get up and run. There were no baby deer there yet but there was a doe that was lying down and the ranger said that she might be getting ready to give birth. The male deer are called bucks and they are good at looking after the babies. The males don’t charge at humans. 

We also saw a tree that was hit by lightning and half the trunk was missing. There were badger sets which is where a badger lives but we didn’t get see any badgers. 

In one of the cattle grids there was a little ladder for hedgehogs so if they fall in they can climb back out again. Just after we crossed the cattle grid there were two more trees that with big holes in the trunks that we went into. 

We went though the house that someone lived in a long time ago. When we got to the end of the house there was a man giving out hot chocolate, it was very tasty. It was made from cocoa beans.

On the way home it was raining so we got a bit wet going to the supermarket