A Few More Things.

Tags

aubretia, bluetit, daffodils, daisy, dandelion, Elder, greylags, Hawthorn, heartsease, Muntjac deer, near-species rose, nests, pussy willow, rhubarb, silver birch, snail-trail, spear thistle, spring, Suffolk, willow

In between racing about in my car to Norwich and Mum’s house, the doctor’s surgery and the hospital, shopping trips to Harleston, Halesworth, Bungay and Diss, I have been able to take my camera with me as I walk round the garden, filling all the bird feeders.  I haven’t had time for any gardening for about ten days and I miss it!  The weather here has continued bright and dry with frosty, misty mornings and warmish days (as long as you are out of the chilly NE wind).  Today has been much warmer with a change of wind direction but according to the forecast, this will not last.  Rain and cold are set to return by the end of the weekend.

Hawthorn leaves. We have two types of Hawthorn in our garden hedges, Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata). This is probably Midland Hawthorn or maybe a hybrid between the two.

A Daisy (Bellis perennis). I love its simplicity.

The Elder leaves (Sambucus nigra) are now almost fully out and have lost the pink tinge they had. They are matte mid-green leaves.  Last year we had the best elder blossom I’d seen for many years.

Goat Willow or Sallow catkins (Salix caprea). Male and female catkins are on separate trees and appear before the leaves. Sallows are a food plant for many different types of moth. The catkins are known as ‘Pussy Willow’ when they first appear as they look and feel like silky cats paws.

I found a Heartsease or Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor) plant on the path round the big pond. Next to it there is also the first rosette of Spear Thistle leaves (Cirsium vulgare).

Silver Birch leaves (Betula pendula)

I love standing underneath our tree and looking up. Silver Birches eventually grow to be about 26 metres tall. I don’t think ours has quite got there yet.

This Bluetit (Parus caeruleus) sitting in the Birch tree looks a little strange. It has a black sunflower seed in its beak.

It spent some time taking the seedcase off…

…and eating the seed within.

The Greylags (Anser anser) have been amusing me a lot lately. The geese are much calmer than the ganders. The goose here is up close eating some food I put out for it. The gander is further away and hissing at me.

This one I found the other morning standing on top of the hedge.

The original goose on her nest on the island…

…was joined last weekend by another goose (nearest to us).

A third goose has made her nest on the edge of the pond. I surprised her and she surprised me when I walked round the pond yesterday. I am not sure how successful this nest will be as it is quite vulnerable to fox predation.

A Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Daffodils along the ditch at the front of the house

Daffodils at the top of the ditch between us and the old School House.

Our Rhubarb (Rheum x hybridum ‘Timperley Early’) looking majestic.

A very early flowering near-species rose has buds on it. (Rosa xanthina  ‘Canary Bird’)

Aubretia

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Richard pointed out this snail trail up the side of the house!

I saw this Muntjac deer doe very early the other morning. It was eating the crabapple tree! The leaf shapes on the window are meant to stop birds crashing into the glass but aren’t very successful. I usually have to pull the window-blind down to stop them!

Very blurred photo! You can see how stocky/thickset these deer are and also the white in their ears.

The does don’t have antlers but have a dark triangular patch on their foreheads.

I think I see her tongue sticking out as she chews a mouthful of leafy twig.

I had great trouble trying to focus on the deer. The camera wanted to focus on the window glass of the double-glazing or the daffodils behind the deer.

Richard on his new tractor-mower. The old one wasn’t working too well so we part-exchanged it for a newer, better model. It has a mulching facility which will be good to use in the summer.

I must share some good news I heard today.  My daughter Alice has been told she has her PhD.  She is now Doctor Alice!  I  am so proud of her.

Thank-you for visiting!

Wednesday 12th to Sunday 16th March

Tags

alder, ambulances, brimstone butterfly, chaffinch, church, cowslip, daffodils, dog violet, Eye, fields, figs, greylags, Harleston, hazel, heartsease, Lent, mallards, moon, moorhen, nesting, pond, prayer, pussy willow, quiz night, rooks, Rumburgh, silverlace primula, sunset, tortoiseshell butterfly, trees, Wissett

Wednesday began with frost and mist.  This soon cleared and the weather was then lovely for the rest of the day.  I did my usual shopping trip with my mother with a detour to a free-range chicken farm at Eye where Mum buys her eggs.  I had a little shopping to do for myself, so called in at Harleston on my way home.  I arrived home just after 2pm for a late lunch and had time for a few household chores and a quick walk round the garden to feed the birds, tidy up a couple of things and take some photos before R came home.

A moorhen and a chaffinch at the front of the house.

 

The moorhen again.

 

A couple of photos of the daffodils that have come up round the big pond.

Some violet leaves that have struggled up through the dried mud round the pond.

 

And some cowslip leaves too!

 

Reflection of trees and cloud in the pond.

 

Afternoon moon.

 

I had decided what we should have for an evening meal and was about to start it when R offered to cook and I gladly accepted his offer.  I didn’t have time to eat anything as I had to go out at 6.45pm to collect Mum and take her to Eye to attend a Lent course.  The course in her area is a deanery course.  A deanery is a collection of benefices and a benefice is a collection of parishes.  In rural areas to have benefice and or deanery meetings or courses means that there will be more people attending and any speakers kind enough to visit will have a good audience.  The only downside is that the distances to be travelled by many parishioners is very great.  This year’s course is on prayer and Wednesday’s talk was on ‘Prayer with Words’.  The speaker was the Precentor from the Cathedral at Bury St Edmund’s; a really pleasant man who gave an interesting talk.  He introduced us to poets and poems that were new to us as well as reading from old favourites.  My journey home was very difficult because of thick fog.

Thursday.  I was woken just before 6.00am by the rooks!  I had remembered to bring in the sunflower seed feeder but the rooks were trying to get the remains of yesterday’s seed off the bird-table and were tapping loudly on it with their enormous beaks.  I have a cage round the bird-table which is supposed to prevent large birds from getting on it. However, it doesn’t stop the birds from clinging on to the edge of the table with their claws, flapping their wings for balance and pecking food through the mesh!  Another lovely day.  Went in to Halesworth for a haircut and to get yet more shopping (I always manage to forget something each time I go!)  My usual hairdresser is on maternity leave so her Mum did my hair and we chatted about babies.  Both her daughters are having their first babies in the next two weeks and they are getting a little apprehensive.  On the way home I saw a tortoiseshell butterfly and an enormous brimstone butterfly.

I spent the afternoon gardening as well as having a short (for us!) conversation with my sister who was planning to visit Mum at the weekend.  The geese have been very argumentative this week.  The gander of the pair who have claimed the island has been spending most of his time swimming in the pond and seeing off any other goose/gander who dares to come anywhere near the pond bank.  He must be exhausted as he doesn’t seem to have eaten anything either.

A couple of photos of the mallards in our front ditch.

Miniature daffodils in the grass.

 

Goat or Pussy Willow.  Salix caprea.

 

When R got home he wanted to go out for a short walk across the fields.  The wind had got up a little and it had got cloudy but R managed to take some decent photos while we were out.

Alder catkins and cone-like fruits from last year.

 

Hazel catkins.

 

More fog overnight.

Friday.  A cooler, cloudier, breezier day.  I did some more gardening and lots of ironing.  The geese seemed to have resolved their differences.  The resident pair came to sit near me while I gardened and whenever I looked up they gave gentle honks.  I knew they were asking for food so when I had got to the end of my weeding I fetched some special goose and duck feed I have for just such an occasion (to quote Foghorn Leghorn) and cast it on the grass near by them.  Of course, the gander then hissed at me while the goose ate the food.  He is a very protective mate and even though I have provided the food he has to warn me off and so I do keep my distance!

Saturday.  A quiet morning and another beautiful one.  Still very breezy but much brighter than yesterday.  Did some housework and spoke to A on the phone.  We drove to Mum’s in the afternoon to see my sister F who was visiting with her eldest son and her dog Ben.   We had a lovely couple of chatty hours and we then had to leave to get our evening meal before going to yet another quiz night.  This one was in aid of Rumburgh village hall.  I think it was the noisiest event I had been too since going to dances when I was young.  The hall had just been insulated and redecorated but there were no curtains or blinds at the windows yet and I think this was the reason it was so noisy.  The two farmers on our team were both a little deaf (caused by driving noisy farm machinery) and they were finding it really difficult to hear anything above the hubbub of loud chatter.  Our local Member of Parliament was taking part too.  He lives in Wissett, the next village along on the way to Halesworth, and is very good about taking part in local events and is a truely supportive MP.  He had been out all day on the ambulances as there has been an enquiry about the time it takes for ambulances to get to emergencies.  He was talking to R and one of our farmer friends and said he was very sympathetic towards the ambulance crews, as he had seen for himself the great distances they had to travel and also how many wasted journeys they had to make.  R told him about my sister’s job as a paramedic in Kent and some of the problems she has to put up with too.  Unfortunately we came ninth today but R won a picture of a tree in the raffle.

Sunday.  There was a Morning Prayer service at Rumburgh today but I couldn’t attend as I took Mum to her church.  She hasn’t got anyone to give her a lift at the moment and as she doesn’t usually see anyone at all during the week except me, and all her friends are at her church, I think it only right that I take her there.  I got back home at 1.00pm and had lunch before doing some chores, putting a loaf on to bake and then back out into the garden.  I fed the birds which took nearly an hour – all the feeders were empty, I have a number of them scattered about the garden and the garden is well over an acre in size.  I had noticed this morning when I looked out of the window that the goose has started sitting on her nest on the island.

 

A dog violet in flower.

 

A silverlace primula.

 

A heartsease flower.

 

Figs are starting to swell on the tree.

 

Lots of pictures of this evening’s sunset.

The rookery in the sunset.

 

Winter Gardening

Tags

cold-weather gardening, heartsease, moles, Speedwell, violas, worms

I have realised that winter gardening is a race against time. 

  I have been trying to do at least one garden job every day.  I go into the garden to top up bird feeders, put rubbish or recycling in the bins, collect the post from the box at the gate –  I’m already out there so I might as well stay there a little longer and do something useful.  I love gardening and would much rather garden than do anything else.  However, I have this nasty little puritan voice in my head that tells me that as I enjoy it it isn’t real work and therefore should be left until all my other chores are done.  As anyone who has a house knows, housework is never-ending so I sometimes leave the garden for weeks without doing anything in it at all!  If I do look around me on my walk to and from the post-box, bin etc it is only to see the mess and feel miserable.  What stupid behaviour!  Hence the decision to do a little bit of gardening work every day.

I usually go out to see to the feeders during the afternoon so that is the time I have decided should also be gardening time too.  I go out in all weathers so rain, wind and cold shouldn’t be an excuse not to garden.  The days are lengthening now and as I put my coat and boots on I think that there will be plenty of time to do all that I need to do.  All goes well at first.  As soon as I get out in the fresh air I begin to feel more relaxed.  I look about and decide what needs doing – some jobs, of course, cannot be done in bad or cold weather – but plenty can be done, especially tidying up – sweeping paths, clearing brushwood, some pruning/cutting back etc.  However, as I work I realise that maybe I won’t be able to do all that I wanted to.  The rain is getting heavier, I am getting too wet/cold/tired, it is getting too dark to see!  Also, the cold makes my eyes water and when I stoop to look at the ground my vision is so blurred with tears I can’t see properly.  My nose runs all the time so I have to keep stopping to blow it.  Despite gloves and thick socks my fingers and toes have become painful with the cold.  Can I manage to finish the task I am doing before having to give in and escape indoors?  I think of the ease with which we garden during the rest of the year and never appreciate it at the time.

One of my flowerbeds is thickly covered with speedwell.  I have never noticed it on that bed before so seeds may have been in the compost of some plants I put in last year.  I spent some time today trying to remove it which was very difficult because it was growing amongst viola and heartsease seedlings.  I find it interesting to observe that many weeds grow next to plants with similar leaves.  The weeds are not noticed until they are quite established and starting to swamp their neighbours.  These speedwell plants were so close together and had also wrapped themselves so well around the poor violas that I was finding it almost impossible to remove them.  I then remembered that R uses an old kitchen fork to thin out and prick out seedlings so I fetched that from the greenhouse and found I could remove the weeds without damaging the seedlings too much.  I spent the rest of the time outside tidying the edges to the paths – trimming long grass away and sweeping soil back on to the flowerbeds.  Moles have pushed hills up along the side of the paths too so I stamped those down.  Moles tunnel in search of worms.  Worms are more plentiful where there is damp soil and soil is damper next to paths because of the water run-off.  Moles like to tunnel near the ditches and ponds in the garden for the same reason.  There are more worms in flowerbeds because of the mulch and compost we put there;  the moles are in the flowerbeds after the worms and disturb all my plants.  The large crabapple tree at the front of the house has had so much mole disturbance under it that the ground is pitted and lumpy.  The moles have pushed up many of our snowdrops so I have to replant them regularly.  Moles are off in search of mates at the moment so the garden is covered with hills.  Oh dear!