GOLDEN AUTUMN, CLAGGY GRASS

This morning I was wakened at 6.30 am by a pair of tawny owls hooting from the tree outside our window. As the sun came up it lit the now yellowing ash leaves with golden light.

Bramleys weighing down the tree - the apple picker came - a mesh thing on the end of a long wooden handle - and it works. Three boxes of paper wrapped apples in the shed. 
Then I picked the sparse damsons - many had split with the rain but got 5 pounds in the freezer and one for Sammy for his gin. The dodgy ones are cooking in the bottom oven of the Aga range. The over ripe ones on the tree covered in butterflies.
Of course I ended up on my backside in the herbaceous border picking them due to a change of pills for my little bit of blood pressure making me airy headed.

In the main lawn the eucryphia has been in full flower but is now going over and the leaves on some of the trees, especially the birches, are definitely autumnal. 
Having cleared under the magnolia I now am thinking what bulbs to plant there - or even cyclamen?

There is an abundance of yellow in the garden giving a bright blast to September.
 

 As I drove in late this morning a sparrow hawk led me up the track like a guided missile, small birds scattering in alarm. The pheasants have bred well - this night time video showing not one nor two nor three but four young pheasants.

Just been to Abi and Tom's amazing nursery at Halecat in Witherslack (there is a link to their site on the left of the page) and we bought a variegated euphorbia. He took us on a tour and it was very interesting. Also met Fiona Clucas again, she was doing a painting in the garden with wonderful Chrome yellow rudbeckias.

One thing he said was how it is wet that does for plants in this area, not cold - how right!
Here is part of our lawn (R calls it the mown field) where I have replaced the washed away planks over the stream but then, in mowing - with the little mower - have gouged wheel tracks in the grass.

And so to autumn and the changing of the colour already coming -

Geranium, euonymus and acer.

Just been to Scotland for 3 nights, the land of John Muir - by that I mean went to Dunbar. Thought R would not want to go to his birthplace but she enjoyed it. Took them ancestry of his maternal grandmother though they probably know all that. (JM was my grandfather's cousin.) That is probably why I like a wild garden. R has just had her DNA results back (birthday present from the offspring) and she is almost two thirds Sami or Lapp! And most of the rest is Scandinavian so, as she says, Abba eat your heart out.

500 UP AND A LOOK BACK

So February comes to a close with my younger son's birthday.
I have a discovery - we have frogspawn in the pond despite the heron - and a loss - the gold signet ring given to me when I was 21 by my Uncle and Godfather John Hay is gone - slipped off my little finger, I think in the garden. We have searched everywhere without success.

So to a look back and I will throw in a cake recipe for good measure.
This is the house and "GARDEN" at the time of building in 2006/7.

By the summer much of it had grassed over and a start was being made on early flower beds and the veg and fruit patch. Much of the far garden was a grassy bog. I had not yet hand dug the stream through the garden nor constructed the path into the woodland area.

To move on a few years and the change was dramatic - a bit of labour and a lot of muck and sweat.

The path had been constructed in front of the house and much planting done including the two cherry trees. The next shows both the path and one of these trees as seen from the house.

The blue seats, cheap and cheerful when bought, have long since disintegrated.

Down in the lower garden I had planted up a willow tunnel donated as withies cut from Urswick Tarn. (Thanks G). This grew out despite attempts at restraining it and this year was removed by order of the Boss.

Fifteen new white birches have been put in at the far end to add to the six already maturing.

Then there is the pond, now greening over, the stream has been rerouted and plans to drain the garden await implementation.

So the garden has grown up but will never be finished.
Threats await us with the spreading disease of ash die-back - most of our mature trees are ash - and the age of the gardener becoming more relevant (in other words he is becoming decrepit unlike his wife who gets (annoyingly) fitter every day. I will be told off now for mentioning that I am getting older and being pessimistic etc etc.

So to a recipe and my grandmother Hester's Sponge Cake. This is a well used page held together with old browning Sellotape.

3 eggs
Same weight in sugar as the eggs
Half the weight of plain flour
Grated rind of orange or lemon
Small teaspoonful (UK) of baking powder
2 tablespoons (UK) of cold water

Separate whites and yolks. Put yolks in basin with sugar and rind and beat till pale - then add water and beat again.
Whip whites of eggs till stiff. Add flour and baking powder to yolk mix and then fold in the whipped egg whites.
Put into lined (greaseproof paper) deepish cake tin.
Heat in oven at 380F or just hotter than moderate for 40 min to 1 hour.
It is worth while taking time to line the cake tin carefully buttering the paper thoroughly.

Yum, yum.*

*This was a record by my bro' and his band banned by the BBC after being played on Children's Favourites by Uncle Mac as they had not realised someone says the word S**t loudly in the intro!

So to end with a few more pics -

And finally Fiona Clucas's painting of our wood.

So is this the last blog - ?? Probably.

STUCK IN A BLOG

As  walked up into the wood I broke one of the steps - then realised that most of them were rotten and will need replacing.
Another job with ditches and scything and planting and removing and cutting back and so on and so on.

I have just extracted two large damson suckers from the bed by the shed to take down to Herefordshire for my daughter and son-in-law.
The damsons seem to be spreading everywhere.

Today the light up in the wood has been beautiful - real F. Clucas stuff. She called the painting she did for my Christmas Present from R - The Enchanted Wood - spot on.

As I came down from the upper garden I noticed this rather grey looking wild angelica. Then I realised it had a very bad dose of mildew. It is not too prone to this fungal infection - not like the meadow sweet.
The gooseberries seem to have avoided it this year - probably because the weather has been dry.

 Coming back down I went to examine the sweet peas with all their lack of flowers - perhaps put in too late after early failures (slugs and snails).

They are really very disappointing as we usually have a house full of their scent and colour.

Next year I will have to plan better and deal with the pests.

We had a morning of light rain and the alchemilla leaves were stunning.

The birds seem to use the feeders by the rosa rubifolia a lot and I think that is because it gives them cover and somewhere to queue up.

The ground feeders - pheasant, pigeon and chaffinch - also like the placement.

Now, I could go not further without a pond pic so here you are -

The green thing on the banking, what is it? No, nothing exotic, actually it is a dock - a weed.

To finish a burst of colour for you to give this blog a little something extra.

A little something extra is just what I could manage at this instant.

Sad - but the diet goes on - but I am chuffed as I am now 19 pounds down since January.
You would think that would take such a load off my shot at knees but it does not.

Life is a limp until I can steel myself to the alien crutch and have the right one replaced.
However, after having the left one done, a smidgeon of reluctance hangs around . .

OF PAINTINGS, PONDS AND PLANKS

Let me start with nothing to do with the pond - phew!

At this time of year, late on a sunny afternoon the light in the top wood is a delight (light a delight? Mmm, need to be careful). Well, I am not going to use that awful word, 'nice'. There are millions of intonations one can use with that word, none of which have anything to do with its original meaning.

This is looking up into the top wood with backlit grass and old flower stems and heads.

One plant that really works well with this is the woundwort, its old flower spikes are beautiful. Grasses, campion and dock are also good, even the dreaded nettle.

There is a magical, peaceful quality to the place and yesterday was just such a time.

All the stress of painters and ponders dissipated for a short while, birds are beginning to sing again after moulting - it was a little patch of heaven.

A lazy buzzard floated out of the top of one of the mature ash trees and drifted off over the fields, gulls were working their way west to their roost, swallows and martins whirling after insects - heaven.




It was up here, earlier in the year, that Fiona Clucas did her preliminary work for her painting so here is today's photograph of the same spot with her painting.

You can see she has no need to worry - her work is so superior to my pic and she has reproduced the place faithfully.

One plant that is going great guns is the white cosmos that Sue gave us. The ones I tried to raise etc all went phut! but her seedlings have thrived - Oh! for green fingers.

Finally one has to mention pond stuff - the planks from the walkway have been either salvaged, reused somewhere or chucked on the bonfire.

New mower bridge over ditch to the left, bonfire in the making to the right.
The best planks are awaiting my brain to click in and think of a 'good idea'.

Finally the new stream is about to be dug - the trajectory (if that is the right word)(which I doubt)(but is a good word) marked out in red spray paint from the existing stream to the ditch under the hedge.

Meanwhile there is mowing - yuk - weeding - yuk, yuk - and dead heading - 3 yuks, the plums are all going to have to be picked and frozen (put in with last year's crop) so are the damsons. The pears have decided to fall off the tree on by one and very small and tough.

Good heavens! The two clocks (I wind them every Sunday) are chiming in unison. That almost never happens.

To relieve painter/pond stress R has gone for a walk in a wood with J, and I am sneaking off for some golf leaving all the garden jobs unstarted.

An awful thought is beginning to creep into out consciousness - after we have paid for painting and pond we may not have enough dose to escape for out autumn sunshine holiday.

We may need to go somewhere really cheap - like Syria or eastern Ukraine?

IT'S POND TIME AND A NEW PAINTING

It's pond time, happy go lucky pond time, hey - etc  etc, lots of nonnys and nos.
R is pleased as the mini digger moves in and mayhem starts.
Do I help?
No, I would just get in the way - I make tea for the men (and the painters, they are still here. Outside it looks like a car park for a rave!)

The initial question was can we find a pond because of the jungle - I'm a pond get me out of here. (A minor pond).

So a digging they will go. We saved some variegated yellow flag iris and waterlilies. The problem with the rotten boardwalk has been resolved by burying a lot of it and tearing up the rest. Some of the wood is salvageable, the rest will be burned. As they dug, frogs scattered or were relocated - slippery customers.
The boss has made the pond bigger, hope the liner will take it, consigned a twisted willow to a terminal fate and is making decisions - brooking no argument.

The copper beeches must go (anyone want a copper beech hedge?)(about ten of them six feet high).

Back to other things to soothe me 'ead.
This is the view from the emerging pond up the garden. The poplar is beautiful but unstable depute its stake. Gary suggests we pollard it - ?not sure.

Time to escape from the hurly burly - here is a pretty corner of the garden, pink and white and nothing to do with clay and pebbles and digging.

The pink Japanese anemone is spectacular but too big and a certain amount of chop awaits in the autumn.
I still like the glaucous grass in the Cambodian pot but must sort out the stones in the plant dish thing.
I have tidied the roses.
I have picked the plums - well some of them - and eaten some of them. Oh! Off the tree, wasp chews and all!

One plant R does like is this small creeping sedum. I may spread this a bit.

Just been to get my Fiona Clucas painting of the wood (a Christmas Prezzy from R).

It is smashing. She is such a good artist.

It rained this morning but they kept a-digging, did not seem to mind.

More tales of the pond to come, no doubt.