Pesky Ponies

These creatures are giving me quite a bit of grief this year. Climbing over the wall and tree-munching. Also eating their way through the layers of decomposing grass and therefore reducing the amount of nutrients available to the trees for next year and damaging established perennial plants, and not just with their chomping mouths, but with their great hoofed feet as well.

A high ranking member of the royal family owns the whole place and rents this land to a local(ish) farmer. The Farmer blames people for leaving gates open, but I suspect that he has been shrewdly putting them in there on purpose, as only locals go down here and they always shut the gates.

I am assured, however that such activity will stop and better care will be taken to keep them where their supposed to be.

At least this has happened when the trees are dormant, if it had been the growing season; serious damage would have been inflicted on the smaller trees.