SPRING IS SPRUNG?

Not quite yet, the grass is not yet riz - but one friend, P, says he has given his lawn a first mow.

First I have to get my mowers serviced - if they ever come and collect them.

Come Sunday and in the morning we walk into a gale force freezing wind on the shore beside frozen sea water. By the afternoon it is raining and warmer.

At least we are not having what is happening in the southern USA around Texas - very cold.

We have flowers - primroses, iris, hellebores and, of course, the odd snowdrop.

And then there is the bird feeder problem - called squirrels - 3 of them plus, this morning, rabbits and pheasants waiting for falling seed.

I put up a so-called squirrel proof feeder with a wire mesh around - but the crafty rodent just went to the top and opened the lid. So I tightened the lid so it was very hard to open - but it just flipped it back and feasted. 

Now the lid is wired shut and we will see how it works that out.

Underneath the chaffinches and a dunnock search the flower bed and paving for seed.

Back in the house we are submerged in aloes. I lifted one pot and the container it was in was full of shoots grown through the bottom of the pot. Now have 5 on the utility windowsill.

Everything looks so much tidier for a good spread of mulch. Which brings me to a find - I was spreading compost, collected in 2019, when something shiny caught my eye - it was a potato peeler. obviously dumped in the compost bin with the peelings.

Out in the garden I have pruned back the yellow buddleia and taken four cuttings. There are now in the cutting bed. I have finished mulching the blackcurrants and removed any errant raspberry canes. The dead sweet peas have been cut back and the not dead parsley has had five plants transplanted nearer the house.

The birds are starting to sing with the song thrush belting its repetition from the big sycamore.

But not all things beautiful are large - the moss on the roof of the mowing shed roof is in full sporangia if that is the right expression, its fruiting bodies highlighted in the sun. sometimes one has to do the Blake thing and peer into a small flower to see its glory.

Saturday starts wet but later I go out and do a bit of tidying. I bring in the trail camera but all I have are chaffinches, pheasants and wood mice.

The Covid restrictions are starting to weigh heavily - fed up.

Last poetry zoom they asked for something more cheerful from me, perhaps a garden poem so here goes - 

I WAS IN THE GARDEN

I was in the garden, dawn rising,

Walked the moss-scraped hoggin 

To the wood. A dunnock scratted

In the litter, a thrush turned leaves.

The only song, if you can call it that,

Was the drone of a collared dove.

There had been snow, a light cover,

Enough to show the straight line of prints 

Where the fox trod, squirrel pairs 

And the two one one of a rabbit.

Snowdrops under snow were white in white,

One startled primrose hinted at spring. 

At the top of the wood, on the far grass,

Was an old gatepost laid on log legs.

It was damp. I put down yesterday's paper,

Sat and stared out through the sycamores,

Across the fields, across the sands 

Of Morecambe Bay to hummocked Bowland.

Our wintry garden was neglected,

Weeds thrived, brambles threw shoots

Through the dead tangle of woodland floor,

Small bluebell leaves lanced the leaf litter.

A wren, high-sterned like a galleon,

Thundered from an elder, all cannons blazing.

There was an expectation in the air,

So much to be decided, done, dug,

Compost heaps to turn, muck to spread.

I strode through early midges

Caught in the rising sun, kicked dew

From the grass, set about the day.