Cloud Chasing

Tags

Bertha, black bryony, blue flax, bread-making, clouds, clover, fields, fleabane, gates, grasses, great black slug, greenbottle, hen and chicks, Kestrel potatoes, marsh ragwort, phacelia, Rain, red bartsia, René Magritte, rice, the Beck, thunder, tub-thumping priest, walking, wild radish, willow, wind

I had hoped to be able to stay at home on Saturday as the weather was so nice.  However, when I took a loaf out of our breadmaker and saw that, for the second time in a row, the bread hadn’t risen very much I realised that one of two things had happened.  I knew that I hadn’t made a mistake when measuring out the ingredients or when setting the programme.  The problem was either a faulty batch of yeast or, even worse, a faulty breadmaker.  I went into Halesworth and bought a very nice looking loaf from the health food/delicatessen shop as well as some new yeast.  I had been experimenting with a different brand-name dried yeast and thought that that may have been the problem so I bought some of the old tried-and-tested yeast.  While in town I also got some more vegetables and a couple of newspapers – The Saturday Times so that R could do the crossword (most of the rest of the newspaper usually goes straight into the re-cycling bin) and a Beccles and Bungay Journal.  This had a very nice account of our Requiem Eucharist last Sunday with a photograph and also a double-page centre-spread featuring Dolly and her memories of living in a village which is doubly thankful, in that all its people going off to war in both the Great and the Second World War came back safely. As I drove home I noticed such wonderful clouds in the sky!  The wind was picking up already so I decided to trot back down the lane and photograph them before checking round the garden to make sure all was well battened down and tied up before the high winds that had been forecast arrived. One of my favourite artists is René Magritte who painted clouds like these.

La grande famille Series 1 Lithography by René Magritte

I also saw that one of next-door’s chickens had had some chicks and was taking them for a walk on the grass verge of the lane.

There are six chicks there somewhere!

R was mowing the grass when I got home and he also made sure everything was ready for the storm so I didn’t have to.  What a kind man! We had some very heavy rain and thunder over-night and while we were in church on Sunday morning the rain came on again with more thunder.  The Rector is currently having a well-deserved, two-week break from us so the service was taken by a retired clergyman who lives in our benefice and is a great friend of ours.  The bible readings for the day were very apt – the earthquake, wind and fire from which God was absent and then the quiet whisper that was God, and the story of the disciples being tossed about in the boat on the lake and Jesus walking on water to join them and calming the storm.  I was waiting for a stormy sermon and got one though not quite the one I expected.  In fact, we all got a lecture about the current terrible situation in Gaza.  We were told that a lot of what is going on there was our (the British) fault and that we cannot wash our hands of it.  The priest even struck the edge of the pulpit with his hand!  Twice!  Our Rector might grumble and nag but I cannot remember him ever beating up the pulpit during a sermon! I think we have been lucky and haven’t had such bad weather as others around the country.  The rain didn’t last that long really and by mid afternoon the sun was coming out.  It was, and still is very blustery but the wind hasn’t been as damaging as we thought it would be.  We have lost a few apples and pears from our trees and some of the plants look a little sorry for themselves but on the whole, nothing to worry about. Once we saw that the rain had stopped, R and I decided to go out for a walk.  We chose one of our walks across the fields.

Evidence of recent rainfall

Before we had walked more than a few steps along the path we saw such a mass of fleabane!

Pulicaria dysenterica – Common Fleabane

‘Pulicaria’ refers to the plant’s power against fleas (pulex = Latin for flea) and ‘dysenterica’ recalls a time when fleabane was used as a medicine against dysentery.  When dried and burned, the leaves of fleabane were said to give off a vapour which drove fleas away so the plant was highly prized when houses were plagued with them.  The plants were used in an unburned state as an insecticide too.  Culpeper, the 17th century herbalist, didn’t think much of the flower itself – ‘an ill-looking weed’, ‘the flowers are a dirty yellow’, but he commended its effectiveness against insects.  ‘The smell is supposed delightful to insects and the juice destructive to them, for they never leave it til the season of their deaths’. I believe I have photographed this gate before.  It is in an even worse state than the last time we were here.

Something has been eating this clover in a crimping style.

R and I were quite surprised to see that the normally fallow field was full of plants and flowers.  We haven’t been this way for some weeks.

Wild flower seeds appear to have been sown here – not all native.

The purple flower, Phacelia tanacetifolia or scorpion weed, is often grown as a green compost but is dug in before it flowers.  It is also grown as a butterfly and insect magnet as the flowers are full of nectar.  It is not a native plant.  I spotted all sorts of plants that I recognised, for example…

Blue flax

I think this may be wild radish

It also appeared as if a trial crop had been planted here.  We did not recognise it at all.  After some research I have decided that it may be rice.  The kind of rice – arborio – that is grown in northern Italy.

Is this rice?

I think it looks very much like it.  Can anyone confirm this for me, please? Near to the hedge we found some red bartsia but my photo is very poor as you will see. I also found some ragwort which I think may be marsh ragwort. We walked past another field of dried peas and continued to admire the enormous clouds on the horizon. We were now approaching the Beck and we could hear all the ditches and little streams that join it gurgling and bubbling. We saw this Great Black Slug in the damp grass.

The Beck was flowing very fast

This willow has galls on it and one of its leaves is very distorted

We decided to walk a little further to the top of the hill and look at the view from there.

Greenbottle flies develop a coppery tinge with age

One of our favourite views

The road junction at the top of the hill

After all the humid weather recently it was lovely at the top of the hill with the strong wind blowing.     It looked as if we might have some more rain so we headed back down the hill. On the way I noticed some shiny Black Bryony leaves in the hedgerow. Another view of a field, a gate and some clouds.   The wind and rain had made patterns with the dried grasses. We got home and I started preparing the evening meal.  I used some of our home-grown Kestrel potatoes which are very tasty indeed.

Purple patterned potatoes

In fact, the clouds passed us by without shedding a drop of rain.  The skies cleared by nightfall and we were able to see the enormous full moon as it rose and then a couple of shooting stars as well.  A beautiful end to the weekend.

High Summer Walk 2

Tags

Bird's-foot Trefoil, bramble, bulrush, cardinal beetle, cat's-ear, common knapweed, cuckoo bee, dewberry, greater plantain, hazelnuts, hedge bedstraw, hemp-agrimony, Hoverfly, meadow brown butterfly, poppy, robin's pincushion, rowan, small white butterfly, spear thistle, speckled wood butterfly, straw baling, the Beck, the Washes

Before I continue my walk, I’ll update you on the local harvest scene.  Yesterday, all the farms here were extremely busy working on the fields because rain was forecast for today.  I was listening to combine harvesters working well into the small hours.  I think the last tractor to roar past our house with its laden trailer of grain was at about 2.00 a.m.  The rain duly came just a few hours later and this morning was very wet.  On my way to collect Mum for our weekly shopping trip I had to slow the car to a crawl with the wipers going very fast as I couldn’t see the road because of the torrents.  There were some very deep puddles and water was bubbling up from the drains in the villages we passed through.  I was about to say that this afternoon has been dry and bright when I heard that familiar pitter-patter of rain on the leaves outside and had to rush outside and close the garden shed.

Straw baling yesterday.

The tractor pulls a baling machine up and down the field which sucks up the straw and packs it into bales which emerge from the back of the machine and are then tossed onto the field.

The finished job

Last week I took a couple of photos of a field at the other end of our lane.  The farmer there was using a different type of baler.

I noticed that the field on the other side of the lane had had its first plough

This morning, before I went out, the field at the back looked like this – and when I got home, it looked like this – So, some progress had been made despite the wet weather.

Back to my walk …

The Hedge Bedstraw is still in flower.

Bedstraw and Common Knapweed

The Washes were showing signs that we had had a lot of rain recently.  The road here often floods as it is next to the Beck and in a little valley.   The Beck was flowing quite nicely but was very overgrown and difficult to see.

Reflections in the Beck

Common Poppy

A ‘Robin’s Pincushion’ – a gall on wild rose plants

The hazelnuts in the hedgerow are ripening

Greater Plantain

People with lawns do not like either the Greater or the Hoary Plantain as they are very persistent and can survive crushing and tearing.  New growth comes from the base of the plant.  Birds love the seeds and when caged birds as pets were more popular, people used to gather the dried seed-heads for them.  Another name for this plantain is Rat’s Tail. I tried many times, unsuccessfully, to photograph this male Meadow Brown butterfly but the camera was having none of it and kept focusing on the rose leaf.  So, I have gone with it because of the little red ball on the leaf.  Is this another type of gall or is it the very first stage of a Robin’s Pincushion? I was looking at all the brambles in the hedge and noticed these –  They are dewberries – a relative of the bramble/blackberry.  The flowers are larger and the fruits too, which have a bloom to them.  The leaves have three leaflets.

Here is bramble with a visiting bee

Rowan or Mountain Ash berries – a sign of the approach of autumn

A Spear Thistle with a Cuckoo Bee (L) and a Hoverfly (R)

This is the Great Reedmace or as it is now known, the Bulrush.  Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted ‘Moses in the Bulrushes’ and showed the baby in amongst a clump of Reedmaces.  Since then the Reedmace has been known as the Bulrush.  The brown sausage-like part of the flower is female and the narrow spire at the top is male.  In the Lesser Bulrush there is a gap between the female and male parts of the flower.

I think this is Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil. The flower stalks were very long.

Two white butterflies – I think they are both Small Whites but as they were both battered and faded I can’t be sure

A Speckled Wood butterfly

Cat’s-ear and Agrimony Hemp-agrimony.  This is a member of the daisy family – Agrimony is a member of the rose family.  Early herbalists wrongly classed this plant with true Agrimony.  The leaves of this plant look like cannabis leaves hence the ‘hemp’. Cardinal Beetle and a saw-fly visiting the Hemp-agrimony I was going to return to the Hemp-agrimony a few days later to look at it again once the flowers had all come out.  Unfortunately, the common was mown the next day and all the flowers had gone.  The following photos are of a large clump of them that I see on my way to my mother’s house. They are tall plants – about 4-5 feet tall – and I think they look beautiful.   The walk I took was only about a mile in length – I was pleasantly surprised to find so many things to look at in such a small area.

A Good Day

Tags

barley, Common Whitebeam, Early Purple Spotted Orchid, English Oak, field maple, Lady's Smock, Lesser Whitethroat, Oak-apples, orange-tip butterfly, Red Clover, Red Horse Chestnut, Red May, St Michaels church, St Peter's church, stag-headed, the Beck, Turtle Doves, Willow Warbler, Wych Elm

I had a very good day yesterday.  The weather was much better than it had been for a week and I was nearly back to normal after my cold.  I hung some washing out on the line in the garden and then set off for Bungay where I had to get some shopping.  Just as I was nearing Flixton I noticed some birds at the side of the road, mainly woodpigeons but among them were a pair of Turtle Doves.  I was so pleased to see them I nearly shouted out loud!  Turtle Doves are becoming so rare, not only because of the reduction of places to nest in this country but also because of the dangers they face during migration – being shot for sport for example – and the lack of suitable places to spend the winter because of deforestation in Africa.  Even if we get no Turtle Doves in our garden this year I am happy that there are at least one pair in this area!  Their song epitomises high summer for me – a lovely drowsy, purring noise. We used to get them every year and they stayed around until the end of August.  In recent years we have had a Turtle Dove sing for a day or so and then go off elsewhere in search of a mate.  Last year they didn’t turn up at all.  Many people believed that was because of the terrible spring we had had.  Turtle Doves had arrived in this country and then we had the late snow and frost which killed some birds and others just turned round and went back to France.

I went to my usual car park in the centre of town and noticed all the trees planted around the car park had come into flower.  They are all Red May trees – Red Hawthorns – and look so pretty with their deep pink flowers.

 

Red Mays are not as popular here as where I grew up in Kent.  My father thought they were wonderful and planted one in one of the houses we had when I was a girl.  As I walked about the town I remembered having seen another red-blossomed tree recently and thought I would go and have a closer look at it later in the day.

I found the opportunity to go for a quick walk in the early afternoon.  The day had warmed up considerably but there were still a few black clouds around.  As I walked down to the end of our lane and out into the next I listened to a Willow Warbler singing in the top branches of a group of trees nearby.  The Willow Warbler is another bird whose song I couldn’t do without – it has a sweet song of descending notes in a minor key.  Weep, weep, weep, weep it says and makes my heart swell and I find I am near to tears at the beauty of it.  It is another bird whose numbers are reducing drastically.  Again, we used to hear them all summer long but not any more.  I hope this one finds a mate and stays to sing for me.  I stood under the Field Maple tree it was singing in and eventually saw it in the top canopy.  It sang and then busily flitted from twig to twig in search of food and then sang again.  I tried to photograph it but wasn’t quick enough.

This is the result.  Can you see it?  No, neither can I.

On the corner of our lane where it meets the other lane is a wide area of common land and a couple of ornamental trees have been planted there.  One is a Sweet Chestnut which is only just coming into leaf and the other is a Whitebeam, a native tree but not one that usually grows in this part of the country.

Common Whitebeam tree

Common Whitebeam blossom

Common Whitebeam blossom

The grass of this patch of common land was covered in Lady’s Smock flowers and a female Orange Tip butterfly was feeding from them.

The red-blossomed tree that I had remembered seeing is a Red Horse Chestnut and it had been planted only a couple of hundred yards down this other lane.  To get to it I had to cross yet another wide area of common land and in doing so I was surprised to see an Early Purple Spotted Orchid in the grass.  This one was a little past its best but I rather liked the colour combination of the petals.

There was more Bugle or Ajuga flowers and some Red Clover.

Red Clover

I love the pale markings on Red Clover leaves.  I am also fascinated by the grass in the photo which is just about to flower.  It looks like a row of tiny balls are packed into the grass stem or a lot of minuscule snails.

The Red Horse Chestnut is a fairly young tree so I was able to photograph the flowers easily.

A Red Horse Chestnut is a hybrid between a Horse Chestnut and a Red Buckeye.  On the way back to the road I found another Early Purple Spotted Orchid.

 

Our lane is looking very nice at the moment.

On my way back home I heard another summer bird but this was one I hadn’t heard before.  It’s song was a little like a part of a Chaffinch’s or a Yellowhammer’s song but without the end flourish.  It also had a few little sweet quiet notes to start off the song and they sounded very much like a Warbler.  When I got back I listened to a few of my bird recordings and found I had been listening to a Lesser Whitethroat.

I managed to get all my washing dried outside which was really good and took some more photos of the garden while I fed the birds.  I had started on a great heap of mending by the time R came home from work.  He didn’t seem to want his evening meal straight away so I suggested a walk across the fields.

This is one of many ancient oaks we saw on our walk.  Once they get to about seven or eight hundred years old they start to die back a little.  A little like us humans:  when we get to a certain age we start to shrink a bit too.  When they get dead branches sticking out of the top of the canopy they are described as being ‘stag-headed’.

A young Horse Chestnut.

View over the fields.

A field of ripening barley.

A Sycamore tree with flowers.

The Beck

Bridge over the Beck.

Views across the fields on the other side of the Beck.

The lane going up the hill from St Peter’s Washes.

Another ancient oak tree.  I think this one’s trunk must be about twelve feet in circumference – it must easily be about a thousand years old.  I must try to bring a tape measure with me next time we walk this way and see if I can get through the hedge and measure it.

I love standing under trees and looking up through the branches.  Trees are the most magnificent awe-inspiring things.

We looked down across the fields in the direction from which we’d come and then down the lane.  Many people think that East Anglia has no hills and no hedges.  This proves that we do have both though the hills aren’t very steep or high.

St Peter’s church over the field.

 

Fruits on an Oak Tree.

The top of the tower of St Michael’s church can just be seen above the trees.

More views across the fields from the top of the lane.

The signpost at the end of the lane.

Another view from the top.

An oak-apple with fruits

An oak-apple.

This is a picture of a Lesser Whitethroat!  It is just below and just to the left of centre and has a curly leaf over its face.  You’ll have to take my word for it that it really was a Lesser Whitethroat.

A Wych Elm and fruits.

Toadstools

Late sunshine.

We walked back home quite content and I cooked our evening meal.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Candlemas

Tags

'washes', Candlemas service, greylags, the Beck

I went to Flixton St. Mary’s Church yesterday to celebrate Candlemas – the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The church was prettily decorated with very many lit candles on all the window ledges and other surfaces. I went to church on my own as R was in Manchester visiting his family and E doesn’t usually come to the local services. Snowdrops and aconites in the churchyard.
Making my way home afterwards, I had to find a passing place very quickly as a police car with flashing lights was driving towards me on the single track lane. A rare sight in this part of the world! In driving through St. Peter’s washes I saw that the Beck had recently flooded the road. The water had gone down quite a bit but had left the lane very wet and muddy. Our little river is called the Beck. One usually thinks of Yorkshire or Cumbrian brooks being called becks but as the danes took over East Anglia in King Alfred’s time and it became part of the Danelaw many place-names are of Viking origin. Washes are low roads prone to flooding – best avoided in times of high rain fall. Because they don’t often dry out for long in winter they can be very slippery in icy weather. The Beck is a very pretty brook and used by lots of wildlife. E and I had to walk home from Flixton after my car broke down the autumn before last and in stopping to rest at the bridge we saw not only a kingfisher but a watervole in the space of a few minutes.
I didn’t do much gardening yesterday afternoon as I had washed all the gardening gloves and my warm coat and despite the weather being quite mild and sunny yesterday the soil was still very wet. The birds were all singing very loudly, dunnocks, robins, a song thrush, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits gold- and greenfinches. A third greylag (a female) had turned up and kept being chased off by the male of the original pair. They were all quite noisy. I had forgotten how loud they can be – we will soon be used to it I am sure. The females are less suspicious than the males and will come closer to us. Greylags in this part of England are descended from feral birds. Owners of country estates brought wild birds from Scotland, I think, to stock their ornamental lakes and the birds liked it here and stayed. They prefer to nest on islands in lakes away from predators and East Anglia with its Fens, Broads, old gravel pits and abundant ponds provides ideal sites for them. Greylags are also ancestors of the domestic goose. Lag is an ancient word for goose and Greylag means ‘grey goose’ – to call them Greylag geese is tautological. Lag is also, in origin, a word used in farmyards to call geese – ‘lag-lag-lag’. The goose in our garden has already started laying her eggs on the island. I am so sorry they have arrived so early and the work we have planned hasn’t started yet.
Today has been spent in doing a fair amount of housework. In the garden, I only had time to pull up a few stinging nettles, dig out some cow parsley seedlings and dig up a few tussocks of grass under the large crabapple before R arrived home from his travels. We have had four beautiful days – frost this morning but no ice. The roads are beginning to dry out but the ponds are still filling as the land is still draining in to them.