TOO EARLY FOR SPRING?

'Tis dogs delight to bark and bite
And little birds to sing,
And if you sit on a red-hot brick
It's a sign of an early spring.
                             Anon.

Now, you might think what this silly poem has to do with a photograph of a leaf I picked upon outside the kitchen doors.
Well - actually it is not a leaf but the ear of our metal nodding dog. (I will not say "What's this ear?")

I have shown you, in the last blog, crocuses and primroses but the weather is fickle in February.

We took all the branches of the privet to the bonfire. I trimmed back the most vicious plant on the planet - Rose Grouse - and I do not think I have yet forgiven David Austin Roses for selling it to me. It makes a bramble look tame. (And feel tame).

Having cleared all that away I spring(?)-cleaned the mower shed. It is full of unused, and by the recyclers, unwanted plastic flowerpots.

Anyway here is the house from the pond where I raised the level of the lower banking. Went down and all is soggy as it is now overflowing in another place where the pebbles are - so I will have to remove them and raise the liner there too. 👎😰⛈





I have already been up the field and in the wood raking out the drain and stream. It was overflowing and coming through the upper fence. The farmer drained his field into the top of our garden! (Before we came).
So - what signs of spring?
 
Euphorbias and foxgloves in waiting, just stirring with the lengthening days.

Pots of tulips and early rhubarb breaking the compost surface.

Azalea buds, fat and promising, hellebore coming through the stacks of uprooted paving stones.











Light on the pine next door and holes for birds to nest in on the old ash tree.








Then an oddity, especially in the depths of early February - Tremella mesenterica - Yellow Brain Fungus on a fallen ash log, strangely alien?

Monday was frosty to start but became a sunny early spring (late winter) day. I gave up on the high pond level and let it fall 3 inches (7 cm) to stop the quag by the shed. Elsewhere I tined the grass with a fork (and got a good blister). 
R came out and we pruned the bigger clump of buddleia and she took the stuff to the bonfire (which I tried to light having found an old petrol can with mixed fuel for a strimmer.)(I had given the machine to my son-in-law.) Using a long twist of paper as a fuse I tried to light the bonfire but failed - too damp I think. The "fuse" was important as petrol has a tendency to go whoomph!

And the first song thrush is singing, the first pigeon cooing, the first buzzard mewing. Birds are getting ready.

And on the camera the cock pheasant strutting his stuff in the wood.