A dog mess or two is not too high a price to pay for an owner’s happiness

A month ago I was reporting complacently that peace and calm had returned to Stoke Park after a series of bestial attacks on my chickens and ducklings by foxes and birds of prey. No foxes had come to call since the spring, and seven of the eight Indian runner ducks hatched here in September had survived and grown big enough to deter avian predators. All seemed to be well in this little corner of south Northamptonshire. The hens seemed contented and were laying copiously in gratitude; the ducks were gliding dreamily on the pond. But my complacency was premature, for last weekend turmoil returned.

This had nothing to do with the supposed hurricane; for despite a warning headline in the Sunday Telegraph that St Jude was about ‘to unleash his howling worst’, I awoke on Monday to a pleasant day of unusual stillness, with not even a breath of wind to rustle the leaves on the trees.