PROOF IS IN THE JAMJAR

So here is the proof - did make marmalade - albeit with frozen oranges - but it worked.

So the day I made Marmalade Bert Weedon died - did I use his tutor - well actually, no, I was too lazy and just mucked about with chords (which is all I can do now). Only good for jam sessions - Ha!

Did 4 lbs raspberry jam with old fruit today - yum!

Saw first swallow yesterday

and we had siskins on the birdfeeders, sir to the left, m' lady to the right.

Still no nuthatches but one can always hope.

In the garden a banking has been cleared by covering it for three years with black porous plastic sheeting - actually this was part of the great pumpkin and squash, oh! and marrow plan but this year I have scattered wildflower seed.

And there are bees in the garden - honey bees. Hardly saw a single one last year.

So to the celandines -

I no longer dig them up - have conceded defeat and now say how lovely they are. Anyway they will have disappeared by summer.

I have planted some parsley and three rows of leeks, the latter in their trenches, in the protected vegbeds.

There is this thought that runs through my head - Shall I mow? Shall I not mow?

I pondered so long the heavens opened and my dilemma was resolved.

One great success has been the ranunculi - never did well before so I emptied an old sink in the autumn and stuffed it with compost. R then put in the ranunculi and they are doing so well.

Is it rununculi or ranunculusses or, if neuter Latin, ranuncula?

Does it really matter?

Even to the ranuncs?

IT IS NOT MARMALADE TIME

but it is - explain later.

It is tulip time (and forget-me-not time and wallflower time) and, hooray, asparagus time. First steamed asparagus with a little melted butter due this weekend.

Clumps of tulips always give a good display as here by the sundial. It is a pity they tend to diminish over the years - some are worse than others (and I am not a lifter and storer) and one of the worst is Angelique - great first year but then phut!

I experimented this year by underplanting winter pansies in pots with tulips and this has been a success and will be repeated next autumn. The pansies have flowered most of the winter and now we have both.

In the garden the wood mice are busy under the feeders, Senor Blackbird still chases his Senorita (Senora?) around and around, rabbits dine on what they can get - two big fat ones this morning - and other inhabitants thrive - squirrels, mallard, goldfinches - and a heron and myself scared the ******* out of each other by the willow tunnel.

So to marmalade - out of the freezer came the forgotten Seville oranges, out of the shed came the jam jars.

Here is Sadie Howarth's Marmalade Recipe.

(Even a man can make this!) (It helps to have a Kenwood - I bought ours in 1973 in Kendal)

9 Seville Oranges

8 lbs sugar

2 lemons

1 sweet orange

9 pints of water (this can be reduced to 6 pints if the fruit are softened in the oven - Aga simmering oven)

Halve fruit and squeeze out juice. Save pips and put in muslin bag. Tie with string.

Put peel, with pith, through mincer.

Add water to peel etc, tie bag to handle and leave for 24 hours.

Boil up without sugar and simmer till peel transparent and soft - about one and a half hours.

Warm sugar in oven and add. Stir over gentle heat till all sugar dissolved.

Bring to boil and boil for 10-12 minutes.

Test for setting - cold saucer in freezer, take out - put drop of marmalade on saucer, let cool and push with finger. If it wrinkles it is done.

Unless you have a whopping pan you may need to do this in 2 lots in which case remember to split pips etc into 2 bags.

You should have put jars in oven to get warm so marmalade can be potted quickly. We, also, put the lids on a metal baking sheet so the heat of the oven will help sterilise them.

With modern jars there is no need for waxed paper discs. As the jars cool they will pop ensuring a good seal.

ps. Do not spill orange juice on a travertine limestone floor or it will be etched for life!

WET GRASS, MANY PLANTS, WHERE DO I PUT THEM?

The grass is wet, is wet, is wet.

Hence the mower is in the shed, is in the - well you get the idea. The garden is shaggy with grass.

Colour is everywhere, magnolias, blue sky (intermittently), red young sycamore leaves, yellow-green euphorbias (out of control and spreading wildly).

I have too many plants - bad habits have caused this - every time I prune a blackcurrant I cannot refrain from sticking in a couple of cuttings. I did the same with buddleias and when I pruned the red leafed

maple I thought, well why not, and jammed in a few sticks to overwinter.

They are all sprouting!

If you then add in the 27 bay trees I got in a pot from the market for £1.20, 23 have survived the winter, a couple of redcurrants, suckers off the raspberries - well - WHERE DO I PUT THEM?

R has said, no more flowerbeds, we have enough weeding to do.

So I have stuck some of the stuff in the far corner by the wall to fend for themselves in the couch grass. At least the birds will enjoy the currants.

R has been manfully, no, womanfully dead heading daffodils. So many of their flowers have been damaged by slugs - cannot blame that on the bunnies.

After the warmth, the rain - ducks on the pond, king cups (marsh marigolds) out and flowers coming on the ash trees. Yes, they do have blossom - purple clusters of anthers etc before the leaves.

Tree colour is something, apart from autumn hues and the obvious like the cherries, we do not often consider. The flowers on sycamores are like small versions of laburnum, more green than yellow but very beautiful.

Time for a pontificate.

I have just been reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's Biography of Jerusalem. Nothing seems to change much in that part of the world (or never stops changing) - so many deaths, all related to power and religion.

I am so glad I live in this beautiful backwater,

The goldfinches are back outside my window and a small mouse had just scurried around the wall by the shed.

What do these creatures know of power and religion - a man made thing?

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with religion as long as men are not involved?

Women?

WHEN IN DROUGHT

go out and buy a sit-on mower, well a lawn tractor actually.

I have found that as soon as I was ready to mow the lawn with it, it began to rain and the grass has been wet ever since and the weather forecast is for more rain all week so it hulks in the shed waiting . . .

Todays pictures were all taken before the cloudy skies arrived - and now we have had our summer it is time to think of the rest of the year - gloom descends.

The daffodils at the top of the garden by the big ash tree (it has a Rambling Rector rose up it) are now bent and flattened by the rain.

So, what have we been up to - R has been taking candelabra primula seedlings and spacing them out so the triangular bed by the Wendy House will be only the primulas and some veronicastrums.

And moi?

I have been putting in some purple sprouting broccoli and broad bean plants raised in the shed, making a second compost bay and widening the garden's narrow areas so that I can get around with the new mower - when the grass is dry.

(By then it will be ten feet high and we will have to join the Wherearewe Tribe.)

The last image is looking over the top pond down the boardwalk to the Wendy House. The shrub on the left is an amelanchier and this is now in flower.

We must have gold finches nesting nearby as two have suddenly become regular visitors with their call of Coo-ee.

I must get into the garden and check who is now living in which nesting box - when the rain stops.

Finally here is a photo I took two days ago from the window of a B&B in Oxfordshire before breakfast. Stunning, isn't it.

BLUEBELLS IN MARCH?!!!

Yes, it is true. The bluebells are coming into flower in the wood six weeks early.

We have the usual primroses and snowflakes and so on but bluebells!

Now, you may notice that something has been having a good nibble at the primrose petals in this picture, well the daffs have suffered also and I have not yet found the beetle or bug causing it - yet!

It has to be said that the weather, 23C, is unseasonably warm and because of that I worry for the fruit. One cherry is already out and the buds on the plum, damsons and pear are bursting. Will we get a frost and no crop?

I love sitting here looking out of the window where I have placed 2 feeders and to one side a nest box. Last year spotted flycatchers investigated but decided against. I have improved the shelter for the box this year - fingers crossed.

And now 2 goldfinches have landed on the feeders - what birds.

Talking of birds we had

another tragedy, I think caused by a passing sparrowhawk. One greenfinch panicked and flew into the study window and breaking its neck.

Work goes on in the garden, the usual mower needs an overhaul badly - I have rather neglected it - and tomorrow Harry A arrives with a sit on mower for me to try in my senility. (Might be fun though and I am sure younger members of the family might actually do some mowing?)

I have been repairing

the woodland steps which are ageing and have begun to construct 2 large compost bays beyond the veg beds. This will enable me to get rid of those by the back door.

Our basil in the kitchen which we bought from a supermarket 18 months ago has succumbed to overwatering - we both watered it by mistake. I managed to take three cuttings so we have three young plants. You just bung them in a jam jar of water and they root. Then they can be potted up.

Oh! What wonderful weather. The garden is Eden. Sitting with the Kakuro and a cuppa in a riot of birdsong and scent (from the Skimmias) looking out over Low Furness and Morecambe Bay is heaven.

But Bluebells in march?

MARCH IS BURSTING OUT ALL OVER

It is all happening - mowing, mulching, pruning (gooseberries), weeding - it is all happening.

This is the view from the wood.

So what do I put on the blog?

There is so much to do.

So I have decided to put up a lot of photographs of colour, of flowers and shrubs.

And the sun is shining and shining. It is 19C and the outdoor table and bench have

been moved onto the paved area.

R has weeded the primula bed by the stream (candelabra primulas.)

And I made a spur-of-the-moment purchase on the market which you can see below. This had to be planted and mulched.

The garden feels timeless yet hurrying on towards summer - actually it is a bit timeless as the watch I bought in Argos in Haverfordwest in about 1990 has given up the ghost. (Mm! However there is a rather nice Armani watch in a shop in Kendal . . . .)

So here is the Magnolia

I bought for £25 on spec.

Ah! The 'phone rings - R wants a lift back from church - back in a mo'.

I am back to be greeted by a jay squawking at me and the thundering song of a wren. How does such a tiny bird make such a loud noise?

The protectors on the magnolia stems are to keep rabbits from stripping the bark. Apparently rabbits love magnolia bark.

And, finally, here is an image

of THE MARIGOLDS -

just to show that they have flowered all summer last year, all autumn, all winter and are now still at it this spring.

No time to waste (unfortunately) so lunch, watching the news (this is what I say after lunch which means I might just nod off for a few minutes) and then back to the fray.

Should I have lunch outside?

Al fresco?

Perhaps tomorrow.

IT IS NOT AS HOT AS MYSORE

I will explain the title later but it is low 60s F and I have been MOWING the lawn - and finding out that it is time to change strategy.

While I am rambling on here is a picture of two big pots from above with a tip - they can be very heavy when full especially if crocks or stones are put in the bottom for drainage, so, use old plastic bottles and such - very lightweight.

Now back to mowing and the limitations of limping man.

Harry from the farm machinery people has been round and is coming next week to demonstrate a sit-on mower, one to which I can attach a trailer to go and fetch manure. Part two consists of selective mowing - close cut paths and sitting areas where the grass cuttings are removed and rougher areas mown orchard style with mulching or just leaving the mowings on the surface.

There are daffs everywhere but, for all the hybridising and cross breeding and so on the little wild daff shown here is the best, (mind you tete-a-tete flowers for ages.)

The pond is teeming with taddies, thousands of them and tulips are coming out. The Memsahib is brambling away and I have removed the posts and barbed wire from the far end to reveal a dry-stone wall carpeted with moss - beautiful but the wall looks a bit unstable.

Son R in India (hence Mysore) where it is 34C and he has Dehli belly (hence the title of the blog). I sit in the sun here and sip Indian tea and think of him. Funnily enough it sounds like his problems were not caused by Curry but a pizza!

So, to end with a poem - not mine - but from Gael Turnbull who used to live and work near here for a while.

While working in the garden recently, I dug

a small fragment of truth.

It was adherent all over with clay, and must have been

buried for many years, but I recognised what it was almost at once.

At first we kept it on the mantlepiece in the living room,

but it was often embarrassing to visitors and I eventually

put it on my desk in the study, for a paper-weight.

I asked several close friends what they thought I ought to do

with it, but no one was sure. 'Keep it for your children,'

some said, 'It is a great curiosity.' Others suggested

the local museum.

It was too heavy to take with us when we went on out holidays.

While we were gone, someone broke into the house and stole it.

The police said they would make investigations,

and asked me, 'Could you identify it agin as yours, if you

saw it?'

Perhaps. But I am not sure I do want it back. After all,

if whoever it was should have found some use for it ...

I HAVE JUST BEEN BROUGHT A CUP OF TEA

It is overcast, chilly and very still in the garden this morning - nothing is moving apart from birds - Mrs Pheas. is ambling up into the daffodils on the high banking. She nests every year in the rhododendrons at the top.

The big bud is Madame Lefevre

- first tulip and a glory when open in the sun, scarlet and black centre - what sun? My daughter tells me they are basking in Herefordshire.

Last night we had a lot of tuwhitting but not much tuwhooing so the tawny owls are just starting to get their act together.

I have made a gate (of sorts) for the rabbit proof pen - a bit of a cobbled job but it works. and R has been weeding and brambling like a trooper, plugging away and her only pay was a cup of tea.

Every day, if possible, I trundle down to the horse manure mountain in the field below the house and load up. It is a long slog back up the hill but the stuff is magnificent and have now done the rhubarb as well as the roses.

I have put out the last of the small oriental poppies and nearly forgot to water them, blocked another leak from the pond before the frog spawn dried and tinkered.

After a Witherslack walk in birdsong we were out buying again - cannot resist sometimes - to wonderful Halecat Nurseries - bought Mrs Bradshaw again (the

geum), a blue blue sea holly,

an even bluer delphinium (now with bottomless flowerpot over it - with a band of copper to try and keep away the molluscs) and, for R, the brief but abundant flowering Rose Albertine to go up the hedge by her writing shed.

I stand in the garden and all I can hear are the birds, the lambs and water tumbling in our stream.

It is time to shift manure again.

FLYING A RED KITE

Yes, it is true, there I was looking at the garden from the bedroom window when consternation erupted in the rookery next door and gliding over the garden went a red kite - presumably one of those released last year at Grisedale Forest. It makes a change from tits and finches though I did see a blue tit

chase off an aggressive greenfinch on the peanut feeder which surprised me, and the greenfinch.

So to a discovery - a Chinese Proverb - "Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come." I like that.

Just dug up all the leeks left and made some leek and potato soup for the freezer (or Vichyssoise if you like things cold.) The bed they were in will now become a cutting bed as it is outside Stalag Rabbit 1 shown here.

So sing -

things can only get better - some finches are FINCHES - but there are goldfinches on the feeder outside my study window!

And a treecreeper in the ash behind.

And Mr Pheas wandering by.

So here it is -

Recipe -

A load of leeks at least 6 large - get the bits of soil out of the top,

four medium potatoes,

one big onion,

3 pints chicken stock,

1 pint milk,

salt and pepper,

1/2 pound butter.

Chop leeks, onion and potato, melt butter in big pan, soften veg in butter, season, bring to boil (watch milk does not boil over) and put in simmering oven of Aga for 1 hour.

Allow to cool and liquidise.

Pop in freezer or reheat and serve with chopped chive and cream or creme fraiche.

In summer eat cold (if you want).

Actually it rarely gets hot enough here to want to do that!

KISSING TIME

Still there are wintry showers yet the birds visit my new peanut feeder in abundance - see photo to right - feeder on shed, snow on path.

R has been at the brambles and I went down the road to the horse ladies who have a gigantic heap of the best vintage and brought back a barrowful for the roses.

Yesterday I put up the chicken wire fencing around two of the raised veg beds and then buried the bottom nine inches of the wire angled out from the bottom. This stops the lovely little bunnies from digging under the netting. All I need to do now is make a gate and net that.

I have noticed that nesting and mating behaviour is winding up with the increased daylight, especially in the pond, though two mallard were feeding hard this morning. In the hedgerows and fields the gorse is, as ever, blooming.

THE CYSSAN BUSH

(cyssan - O.E. - a kiss)

Gold gorse

the kiss thorn,

with soft keels

and knives drawn,

spikes doused

in flaxen fire,

branches bound

in barbed wire,

Gold gorse

the wild whin,

one flower

and kissing's in,

but no bloom

kissing's out

and love drowns

- a kiss drought -

but kiss of life,

kiss of death,

saw, saying,

shibboleth?

Kiss the rod?

Scourge the punner?

Kiss the daughter

of the gunner?

Gold gorse

the crackling shrub

with brittle pods

and bodkin scrub,

with linnet nests

of woven grass

wrapped in shards

of broken glass.

Gold gorse -

paper of pins,

that's the way

it all begins,

that's the way

to love and bliss,

one flower -

one kiss.

I WAKE WITH THE GARDEN

Buddleias and roses pruned, snowdrops fading, daffs arriving, celandines out as are the first clump of primroses.

A mistle thrush sings in the big tree and a song thrush sings at the other end of the garden.

I have dug lucifer up as he was getting unruly and pushed his corms into a hole by the far wall and onto a bank near the veg beds. Jeanie got some.

The choysia which was blown over by the winter gales, and half out of the ground, has been moved to the big banking along with a red tree paeony. As I was moving the latter a bit fell off with root so now I have two.

Today a Rosa mundi arrived by post - at the request of R - and this has been put at the south end of the rose bed.

We have leaves on the flowering currant and bucket loads of frogspawn in the pond.

The whole place is going Billy Cotton. (Wakey! Wakey!)

To the picture of our 'Notable" Sycamore (c/o Woodland Trust Ancient Tree Search) and a desire to consider ladders and tree houses. The tree is very climbable as my son-in-law once demonstrated.

However, I do not wish to damage its grandeur so - ?

Just had walkabout with my brother and noticed the pulmonaria in flower, came in house and mud on shoes - not a good idea.

This is when one finds out what bulb is where and when surprises spring forth, when one mutters under one's breath having just put in a new plant only to find that in doing do I have dug up something.

The enemy has been seen but not using its retreat under the well.

I have not yet put the chicken wire fencing around the veg beds which I must do.

I hear a cry of shotgun again from the other room at which the scut vanishes.

Son R saw a green woodpecker nearby two days ago - we are used to the greater spotted variety - and the tawny owls are in cahoots all night long. Birds everywhere stuffing their beaks with my sunflower seed and peanuts - even a robin pecking the peanuts. The blackbirds are not too keen on melon but half an apple and they are anyone's bird.

So to this sign found on the top of Hampsfell near Grange-over-Sands.

I can understand left and right but straight up?

Is this the footpath to heaven?

EVERYTHING IS TOO NARROW

I have been contemplating a sit on mower for some time but as the cutting season draws ever nearer I realise that the garden is not made for one.

Paths are far too narrow in many places, the 'boardwark' by the ponds would be out of the question and there is much boggy ground, many steep slopes.

The snowy picture shows the

path up to the wood with the slope on the right. This path would have to be widened and, I think lose some of its character.

Edges of some lawned areas are impractical - I use the word lawned but really just mown field.

The banking to the right has daffodils - only three out there so far - and snowdrops, shown here as they should be - in the snow.

Trying to predict the weather at the moment is very difficult - it is freezing/it is abnormally mild, it is raining/no it is not/yes it is!

So garden work is pick up sticks, tidy beds, bit of pruning and shift muck.

The veg beds are ready for stuff and the rhubarb is just peeking through - the forcing pot is on.

Frogspawn has been moved from one pond to another - I do not know why they only ever put the spawn in the lower pond and not the upper but a bucket resolves the problem so we have taddies in both.

At the moment the world is a bit too much with us but we hope for escape soon.

Just thought I would stick a literary quote in to show how well read I am!

The Grandchildren are here and bananas in pyjamas are coming down the stairs so I will have to go.

As I extract a thorn from my finger I realise I was surprised how thorny young damson suckers can be - they are damsons, we had a few in the autumn.

So, with thoughts of suckers and bananas I leave you till the next time.

THEN THERE WAS NO WINTER, THEN THERE WAS

Just a few days of ice and a little snow - hooray for the slugs - or rather not the slugs.

The sheep in the back field were fed by the farmer and shrugged it off.

One day we had black ice - over everything. As one drove the rain froze on the

windscreen - well not as I drove because I didn't - I lit the woodburner and settled down.

The pond froze, toes froze, nose froze and so it goes. Salt bin by the gate not filled by the council in the summer - this may be because of the coal tit nest in it?

Of course 3 oriental poppies I ordered arrived and so were popped into pots for now.

Then we saw that the heron had arrived in the field below the house and my son reported funny noises from down the garden in the dark.

So up I got and walked off to the pond (I had dug it out (a bit) two days earlier) and there was the first frogspawn - hence the heron, hence the croaking at dusk.

Windy last night - the weather - so picking up more sticks today.

The snowdrops are at their best and the first crocuses, daffs and even a blue anemone are out.

The wheelbarrow and horse manure await me - what a thrill. Must dig up the remaining leeks - one or two have bolted so will have that hard core in the middle of a flowering stem. Chicken wire needs stapling to posts - the rabbit has been seen!

I went to get a hammer but the ironmonger had run out.

I used to have hammers.

I used to have lots of tools.

I still have children though they are grown up - "Can I borrow this or that Dad?"

SOMETHING AVIAN IS STIRRING

I have moved a huge peanut feeder to the shed outside my study window and the coal tits love it.

The snow/ice is now going and it is foggy again this morning as the "warm" front comes in.

Adam Booth's birds have survived the cold after being forged in such heat at Piper's Forge in Kirkpatrick Durham in Scotland.

I was concerned that our wrens might have been taken by the cold spell but they are whizzing bout in the shrubbery.

I walked around the block yesterday (am paying for it today).

Birds are getting restless and starting to sing - even in the most dismal of weather, when a robin bursts into song, it is uplifting.

This blackbird just sat in the ash tree and watched me - obviously knew I could not fly!

Some of the snowdrops are beginning to go over and the marigolds (as mentioned before) are now looking decidedly droopy - but not yet dead

The robin on the barbed wire

- I like the contrast between the soft bird and the sharp wire - followed me along the lane.

Today it is foggy and sad. My brother-in-law died on Friday. He was climber, artist, miracle baby and raconteur - and tough.

So, time to go to the torture chamber upstairs and do my exercises and get on my static bicycle. I hope the investment will pay off later.

This seems such a bitty blog - cue for a song - "And a little bitty blog let me down" - Burl Ives for the younger reader, second line - "Spoiled my act as a clown" - well, there you are, I rest my leg.

OF DYING DUCKS AND STUNNED BLUETITS

At first there was mist over the fields,

then it rose and a watery sun tried to pierce the clouds.

The lone holly left from the ledge-laying last year stood out against the greyness.

There was snow on the field in front of the house.

Out with the spade and clearing track and gate. The salt left in the bin on the road from last year (they have not topped it up this one) was sprinkled on the hill outside the gate. Already there are sledge runner tracks in the field behind the house.

There is ice underneath the covering of snow.

I go upstairs with the camera to take pictures of the garden under its thin blanket.

This is the view from the bedroom window.

The wood on the right, the veg beds and fruit ahead and the end of the willow tunnel on the left.

In the middle is the glory of the septic tank now plainly visible as I have cut back the tall grasses. I have more buddleias to plant around it and one day it will be hidden by bushes covered in butterflies.

So to the bluetit which flew into the living room window.

Though stunned it is trying to preen - note the curled up left foot.

It took about five minutes to recover after I had put it somewhere reasonably safe from predators, then flew up to the peanut feeder - the bird I mean.

Unfortunately this was not the only bird problem we had.

My flying duck had lost two of its bamboo chimes so I had to bring it into the kitchen for repairs.

Hence the inelegant sprawl on the kitchen island. A little resuscitation and string on a bodkin did the job and he/she is flying once more outside the kitchen doors.

The chiming mushrooms on sticks M gave me have also been victim of wind and cold, cracking and falling off their stems.

It is hobby-horse time again.

I see it is time again for the luvvies to slap each other in the wallet - BAFTAS, Golden Globes, OSCARS - the cult of the Celeb.

The problem is, if awards were given to those who truly deserved it - carers, charity workers and other unsung heroes, then they might become Celebs too.

It is nice to receive recognition of personal sacrifice but should anyone get an award for just doing their job?