Fern Bales!!!

Another grey day - another 3 pets to feed! This time Gilesey's 2 cats and  1 fish! So off Kes and I went to Tavistock! I then decided to go look at the "Pimple" Gilesey had photographed and which I had never heard of let alone seen! It is just up the road from hers, literally! As I drove onto the common I saw the Pimple, but also all the sheep, and since Kes is a kelpie/collie cross and both breeds are bred to herd sheep,  I decided to head in the opposite direction! The common also bizarrely has a golf course on it and the golfers were out in force gaily whacking balls! So I drove till I spotted another dog walker, parked, and headed off into the drizzle. Well blow me down with a straw - hay bales as far as the eye could see! Only on closer inspection I realised they were fern bales - who knew such things existed! I spoke to another dog walker who said a local farmer creates them every year and takes them for bedding. This year pretty sodden bedding! So a happy time spent taking photos and throwing Kes's ball and repeated clearing my lens of water droplets!! I also discovered the ground was rich in fungi, brown, beige, yellow and bright red!  My fellow dog walker said they are usually picked by the locals to make "coffee", he reckoned iot would taste pretty bitter, but surmised it was not the taste the pickers were after but their magical properties! Tomorrow I shall return and try to identify them and take a photo of the Pimple! More fern bales here and a clutch of red fungi!