Autumn in a Suffolk Lane – Part 2

Tags

Acorn, ash keys, Astrantia, autumn, Bantam Cock, beach, chickens, Chrysanthemum, conker, dogwood, Dunwich Heath, dwarf gorse, eating apples, Elderberries, fungi, gardening, GERANIUM, Grove snail, Hibiscus, Jake Thackray, Knopper gall, leaf colour, Linstead Magna, Linstead Parva, liverwort, Michaelmas Daisy, moorhen, Pyracantha, rough sea, Salvia, silver birch, Suffolk, sunset, Tansy, viola

The beach at Dunwich Heath.

We visited yet another of our local beaches on a very windy, cool afternoon recently.  We only stayed on the beach for a short while because the wind was so biting; Elinor and I both got earache.

The mist in the distance is sea-spray.

The waves were quite rough but the tide was going out.

Foam was left on the sand and was blowing about.

This little fish must have come too close to the shore.

This Grove Snail (Cepaea nemoralis) attached to its bit of bracken was swinging about in the wind.

My ID guide suggests that the Grove Snail “is used to demonstrate the survival of the fittest in evolution, because Thrushes eat the snails which are least well camouflaged against their environment.”

The Heather (Calluna vulgaris) was past its best but the Dwarf Gorse (Ulex minor) was looking wonderful

Another sunset.

In a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the bright yellow of the Perennial Sow-thistle was not common at this time of year.  I will have to eat my words because most of the flowers I have seen since then have been yellow!

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) seen on the roadside between Linstead Magna and the village of Linstead Parva *(see below)

The Tansy has very aromatic leaves and the little button flowerheads are made up of disc florets only.

The genus name ‘Tanecetum’ and the name Tansy are both derived from the Greek word for immortality. The plant was believed to give  eternal life to the drinker of an infusion made from it.

Tansy used to be used as a flavouring in food until fairly recently.  Egg dishes especially, were enhanced by the use of finely chopped tansy leaves.  Tansy was also used as an alternative to expensive imported spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon and Tansy Cake at Easter was very popular.  Because of the strength of its scent, Tansy was also used as a repellent, keeping mice from corn and flies from meat.

Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)

Close to where I photographed the Tansy I found this hedge of Dogwood.  It was covered in large black berries – the largest I have ever seen on a Dogwood – and most of  the leaves had turned a beautiful red.  Dogwood leaves are usually a much darker, duller maroon in Autumn.

What also surprised me about these Dogwood bushes was seeing flowers in bloom at the same time as the berries and the red leaves.

It isn’t easy to see them in this photo so I cropped it.

One of the flower-heads is in the centre of this picture.  The couple of weeks of warm and sunny weather we have had recently had fooled the bush into thinking it was spring again.

Richard and I have been working in the garden, getting it ready for winter.  I only seem able to get out there a couple of days a week but I have managed to get quite a lot done.  One of my jobs has been tidying behind the garden shed and round the back of the greenhouse.  Behind the shed was rank with weeds, mainly stinging nettles, which I was able to pull out fairly easily as the soil is quite damp there.  I had stored lots of pots and tubs full of spring bulbs behind the greenhouse so these have come back out to be smartened up and got ready for next spring.  I discovered other flowerpots that should have been emptied and cleaned ages ago.

This pot was covered with liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. It has little green cups on the leaf-like structures (thallus). Do you see the baby snail?

We have a lot of fungus all over the grass in our garden. Nothing exciting or colourful, just brown and cream-coloured toadstools. These had been nibbled by something.

Two other unidentified types of fungi.

I have had this Hibiscus for about 26 years. It was a gift from my ex-mother-in-law who brought this with her when she came to see us when Alice was a tiny girl.

I love these double flowers – the peach petals have dark crimson bases.

Richard has a new Chrysanthemum flower

My Geraniums are still flowering

I like this pretty Viola

Three different Michaelmas Daisies

Salvia

The three ages of Astrantia

Elderberries from the bush at the end of the drive.

Acorn  This is the first time in years that these acorns aren’t affected by Knopper galls.

This is a photo I took last year of Knopper gall damage on acorns

‘Conker’

Ash ‘keys’

The trees in our lane

Our Silver Birch is changing colour

Birch leaves

I pruned our Pyracantha recently

We not only had a lot of aphid damage to our apple trees in the spring and early summer but the apples on this tree are now being eaten by Moorhens!  It is odd seeing water birds wobbling about in the trees gulping down our apples as fast as they can.

We are getting a little tired of next-door’s free-range chickens in our garden all day.  They kick about in the flower beds and damage seedlings; they peck off flowers and generally make a mess of the paths, beds and compost heaps in the garden.  We have spoken to our neighbours about it a few times but they don’t appear to have any intention of keeping their chickens on their own land.  They have a constant supply of chicks too.

Linstead Magna (large/greater Linstead) is now a small collection of houses and farm buildings.  The church no longer exists but I spoke to someone some years ago who remembered the church and used to attend it.  For more information about this church see here.

Linstead Parva (small/lesser Linstead) is a pleasant little village with a pretty church.  In spring the churchyard is covered in snowdrops and other spring flowers.

Thanks for visiting!

A Week in my Garden

Tags

bluetit, chickens, daffodils, goose eggs, greylags, hyacinths, mallards, Muntjac deer, photography, pond, sunset

Here are just a few photos I have taken over the past week in my garden.

I looked out of one of the bedroom windows early in the morning and saw this muntjac resting under our hedge.

 

We have had large congregations of geese in the field behind the house.

 

Another picture taken from an upstairs window of two graylags and two mallards feeding under the birdtable.  The birdtable is leaning a bit because of the high winds we have had and also because twenty or more rooks descend on it early in the morning and their weight causes it to list.

 

The greylags have started laying eggs on the island.

 

A couple of photos of the greylags swimming on the pond.

 

 

Some early daffodils.

 

And some rather stunted hyacinths.

 

Some miniature daffodils.

 

Some cuddling, sunbathing chickens.  The cockerel forced himself inbetween the hens to get the warmest place.  The hens didn’t seem to mind – just look at their faces!

 

A bluetit hiding in the hedge.

 

And a lovely sunset.

 

 

March

Tags

bacon onion potato sauté, blackthorn, cattle, chickens, Coffee morning, common reeds, cooking, ditching, Dog's Mercury, electric fence, farmyard, good food, greylags, Italian alders, ivy, lesser celandine, Lords and Ladies, marble galls, narcissi, nature, phone box library, photography, primroses, quiz night, rookery, Rumburgh Church, sheep, snowdrops, St James South Elmham, St Margaret South Elmham, St Michaels South Elmham, stinging nettle, the Beck, trees

A wet start to the month.  R and I went off in the rain to the benefice coffee morning at the Rector’s house.  We could find nothing to bring with us this time and, as usual, I had not done any baking, so we just took ourselves and a little money.  We bought raffle tickets, a classical music c.d., a jar of the Rector’s home-made lenten three-fruit marmalade (i.e. without whisky) and a jar of plum jam.  After indulging in a bit of chit-chat and getting the local gossip (no raffle prizes this time!) we left to go shopping in Halesworth.  Boring groceries shop in the Co-Op and then, while R read the paper in the car, I walked in to town to see if I could find some flowers for the church.  I eventually found what I was looking for in the third place I visited – some really pretty multi-headed narcissi, some in yellow and some in a creamy-white.  The individual flowers very tiny and delicate;  I bought two bunches of each colour.

The rain was easing off a little by the time we got to Rumburgh church but the path to the church was very puddly and muddy.  The snowdrops were still looking good and the primroses were just starting to come out.  The churchyard will be a mass of wild flowers very soon.  We found a suitable vase in the cupboard and just put the poor flowers in water.  I cannot attempt anything more than this and even this made the flowers look as if ashamed to be where they were.  They all huddled in the middle of the vase and faced inwards and no matter what I did they twisted back and hid their faces.  I eventually gave up,  put the vase on a ledge and checked that the other flowers in the church were all o.k.

I went out to feed the birds later that afternoon after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Something, probably a squirrel, had pulled the top off one of my fat block feeders and had removed and taken away a block that I had only put in the day before.  I mended the feeder, replaced the block with a new one and wired up the top to prevent it being pulled apart so easily again.  We shall see!  I took a couple of photos of the geese and some of next door’s ****** chickens in the garden again.

 

 

I discussed with E what she would like for her evening meal and we decided on one of her current favourites – fried bacon, potatoes and onions.  I added some diced eating apple as I thought that might go well with it.  E was of a different opinion!

 

R and I set off for the quiz at St James at 7.00pm.  We had become quite reluctant to leave our nice warm home and get into my very cold, damp car.  It was just 1 degree celsius outside and it took the whole journey to de-mist the windscreen.  I drove most of the way bending forward and peering through the only clear bit at the bottom.  Fortunately, we met no-one on the journey but the real danger is in the deep ditches at the sides of the road.

The quiz was great fun and the six of us on our team all know each other and get on well.  We eventually came second which was very pleasing.  R and I also won two prizes in the raffle.  The food provided by the village hall committee (I suppose) and cooked by two ladies from the village was really good.  A pork casserole or a vegetable bake with a baked potato and a little pot of butter for the first course and then a choice of four or five (I can’t remember how many) desserts with cream or custard for the second course.  This was followed by tea or coffee with a chocolate mint – all for £8.00 per person.  There was thick frost on the cars when we left just after 11.00pm.

A lovely bright morning and hardly any wind the next day.  We went to church at St Michael’s.  This is a very small church in the middle of fields and has only recently had electricity put in – only a couple of sockets though.  There is no electric light, I think, and no heating except for an enormous very old gas heater at the back of the church.  If they have evening services they have oil lamps which makes it look so lovely.  The lane is very narrow and there aren’t many places to park.  R squashed up as close as he could to the electric fence and had great difficulty in getting out of the car.  The fence might not have been switched on as there weren’t any animals in the field – we weren’t going to take any chances though!

 

 

By the time we had had lunch and washed up the sun had disappeared and the wind had got up again.  R and I went out for a walk in the lanes near our house.

There is still a lot of standing water about.  This water is as the base of a hedge on St Margaret’s common.

 

In the village of St Margaret South Elmham is the old phone box which they have converted into a mini library.

 

The rooks are busy in the rookery near the old rectory.

 

The geese who live at the old rectory were resting for a change!

 

The churchyard is full of pretty flowers.

 

Lots of common reeds in the ditches at the side of the lane all waving in the wind.

 

The tributary to the Beck at Froghall.

 

Some lovely silhouettes of trees on the skyline.

 

Blackthorn just starting to come out in the new hedge.

 

Marble galls.

 

The top of our lane.

 

The fields in St James have very few hedges.  It is very windswept here and very cold!

 

Primroses at the side of the lane.

 

And lesser celandines.

 

A lot of work has been done here at the bridge to dig out the ditch again and lay new drainage pipes.

 

A row of Italian Alders with catkins.  Not a very clear photo because of the wind and my lack of skill.

 

The farmyard with sheep wandering about freely and cattle in the barn feeding from their manger.

 

Our lane again – muddier now.

Even worse!

 

More primroses.

And these are ‘weeds’ in our garden.  All lush green plants – the arrowhead leaves of Lords and Ladies, ivy, dog’s mercury and stinging nettles.