CATCHING UP

Back from a break in Herefordshire R has attacked the buddleia around the septic tank, finished trimming the grasses and cut down the dead cardoons.
In between baking bread - it stuck again! - I finished the drain by the apple tree and hoed the asparagus bed - mostly goosegrass it seems.
The hen pheasant, looking splendid, if not as gaudy as her mate, is under the feeder.
 

Monday morning dawns with bright sunshine, the moorhen and three ducks on the pond - well two, the regulars, sitting at the side together, and another drake displaying on the water. Ten minutes later the drake has gone, the pair are on the writing shed roof, and so is the moorhen - a strange threesome.

 

The garden is creeping out of winter. Daffodils and primroses, crocus and flowering currant coming on quickly. Even one of the big cherries has fattening buds preparing to release their blossom in a white cloud. 

  Snowdrops are starting to fade forming seed heads. Once the seed is scattered the dividing and replanting can begin. Everywhere the first leaves of later plants - bluebells, hedge parsley, foxgloves - are growing.

    I have repotted the house plants and made a good start on the outside pots. The osteospermums have overwintered successfully like this blue specimen already covered in buds and the odd flower.

We continue to have a large flock of starlings rising from the field into out trees - a good double clap and they are off in a whirl hearing gunfire? The occasional cheeky bird comes to the peanut feeder.

So onward with the bird feeding, bed weeding, rhododendron slaying, pot topping, compost moving, pruning etc etc etc but not mowing (a bit early but thought I would give it a try - mower phut!! So service arranged - R had this idea that we could get away without it this year - won't listen next year.)

It is great to hear from readers that they do not want me to stop. Of course it will happen one day when I am too decrepit to garden (or write)(or both).

This is a scuba diving mallard drake showing off to his other half - who steadfastly ignores him. He throws water about, splashes, completely submerges and all she does is preen a bit.

Finally one of the thousands of starlings rooting in nearby trees has deigned to come in camera range. They have to eat and eat to maintain body temperature and they are also great mimics of other birds - apart from their incessant chattering. We have our own murmuration!

Waiting for the mowers to be collected so cleared and cleaned shed - an annual event. 

Finally the sun is out, spring is springing and the world is waking up - there is warmth in the sun -

AFTER SHE'S GONE (DORIS)

So having been blown away by Doris we have returned to rain and more rain but not the extreme gales. I have been out picking up, not just sticks but small branches from the ash trees.

The snowdrops bent before the gale as did many other plants. R has been in the garden cutting back the dead grasses whilst I was in the cutting bed, putting in gladioli and 5 different alstroemerias. I moved the white phlox and two clumps of rudbeckia to the main part of the garden  and forked over between the strawberry rows before feeding them and the rhubarb. 

And the next day is wet and dark. R wonders what it would be like after one of us has gone, sitting in the kitchen on a day like this - would be time for a dog? (Or another husband?)(Perhaps one will have been enough.) Then of course it might be the other way around. Time to think of sunshine and summer. (Of course one could just get drunk?) (If I/she/we/they drank.)

Move on - we have many hazel catkins in the hedge but as yet no frogspawn in the pond - blame the heron and the ducks?  

 The birds continue to thrive - and it is a pleasure to see goldfinches and the bright cock bullfinch outside the kitchen window. The next few days will involve nipping out between showers and longer spells of rain - the buddleias and the elder need cutting back.

We have early crocuses, primroses and daffodils as well as a few anemones and of course snowdrops in abundance.

The witch hazel, hamamelis, is in full flower casting its scent by the path down to the pond and Wendy House where the mallard are displaying.

They will not nest here though as the pond is too small and not safe enough for that.

And then at the pond the Moorhen has returned, and now a little later we do have frogspawn, and the daffodils are beginning to lower their buds, ready for flowering.

ELEPHANT, FROG, HERON AND OTHER BIRDS

Let me start with the elephant in the - rock. A fossil shores with sand ripples turned vertical near Brighouse bay. This was just before I ended up on my backside in wet mud sliding down the coastal path - and 30 minutes back to the car. Actually, as it is a fossil perhaps mammoth or mastodon would be a better title?

Here is the hunting heron performing for its audience of mallard.

And here a close-up of its intent.

In the second half of this video you are spared more torment as the heron takes the frog it has caught off screen to swallow whole. 

Mr Pheas is regularly wandering around under the feeders outside my window totally unflustered by whirling blue tits, grey tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits and strutting pigeons.

And the marigolds are still flowering as they have all winter. Thought I ought to mention flowers as this is supposed to be a garden blog.

Time for supplies - have just been to the local garden centre (just been sold) and stocked up with potting compost, pelleted hen manure and Growmore. Spring must be springing a bit. They say that it will be warmer in North-east Scotland than on the Med. this week. 

Trump, Brexit, weather - the whole world is nuts!

And whilst all this is going on we have a chaffinch with the Fringilla papillomavirus of a foot. Not a pretty sight. We have had a few cases over the years, all chaffinches so it must be infectious. The will have difficulties perching and I have only seen them ground feeding.

And suddenly the garden is filled with chatter - the trees at the far end are crowded with starlings.

Yesterday we walked the garden and were surprised at how the snowdrops had spread - this is not just  dividing and replanting, though that helps, they have self seeded abundantly. As we go around the pond the wild duck amble away up the other side - here on the right.

I have finally emptied the big sack of chippings and raked out on the path by the shed, R has weeded the strawberry bed and I have scattered some pelleted hen manure. whilst I was doing this I noticed a great tit with a damaged wing scurrying about looking for cover. There is not much I can do, something will catch it sooner or later.

It was so wet last night the golf course was closed and R grabbed me for a walk up the disused railway line at Broughton-in-Furness. I find it strange that once I went to school on the train that ran here, from Foxfield to Coniston. )I only travelled from Torver to Coniston and back and only for a while until I got a small biker and rode the 2 1/2 miles there and back - no traffic then!) Of course it got Beechinged - it would have made a wonderful tourist line but . . perhaps it is better this way and the Woodland Valley is quiet and away from the visitors.

We are waiting for a storm to arrive the weather people have named Doris!
(Doris was a sea nymph, a child of Oceanus and Tethys - hence all the rain?)   

Thursday and she seems to have missed us to the south - lots of rain but, unless we are in the eye of the storm, calm now. Time to publish this blog.

IT'S BEEN TEN YEARS!

As another dark day emerges from winter's gloom

and the garden is shrouded in clinging mist

 and sodden from overnight rain

I think back and realise that on Thursday 16th we will have been in this house for 10 years!

And so - do I plod on with the blog, detailing the changes to the garden (let alone the world)?

Today I took the bulbs stored through the winter and forgotten, sprouting in their cardboard box, and planted them in small patches around the garden.

As I trundle about the cock pheasant grunts to himself and avoids me. I am not surprised that he rarely flies, being so chunky. We don't see much of his other half at this time of year - she is presumably exhibiting a low profile - not something one could say about him.

We are back from Scotland where on can see the most odd things in gardens, up trees. This is a small sample of the curiosities beside the lower road in Kippford - logs with eyes and even false teeth halfway up a tree.

Back here the witch hazel, hamamelis, is in flower (and scent). We have this orange one rather than the usual yellow.

Got this video from by the pond - note the plastic deterrent in the distance failing miserably. Glad I'm not a frog.

And there are snowdrops everywhere due to our replanting in the green after flowering each year.
The price of snowdrop bulbs from retailers is ridiculous but then we have a lot so . . . with a bit of work every year we have more.

So - 10 years here - time to stop the blog and take up something else? Like dieting?
Which I have.

R weeded today (Monday) and I had a big bonfire, cut down a large branch of elder clad in ivy and brought with it a lot of our giant rose. I am well punctured now despite gloves. The cold wind has eased and there is warmth in the sun.

And on Tuesday morning, apart from it being St. Valentine's Day, we had a visitor to the pond - a little egret.

One day the egret, next day the grey heron, today the pair of mallard are back. I went to get the video camera and it had blackbirds and collared doves drinking, a grey wagtail, but had been set too low and missed the above!

Better luck next time.

BOGGED DOWN AND BIRDLIFE

The thing about February is the feeling that winter is nearly over - but it isn't. Snowdrops are out, the odd shrub is flowering out of season, we have frost (or as at present loads of rain).

In fact the garden is a quagmire so I stay off then lawns. It was a good thing I cleared out the streams - though we have new springs and consequently patches of sodden grass.

It is all not helped by a bad back so no barrowing about of compost and such. (Anyway the wheelbarrow had a puncture. Put the inner tube under water - nothing, no little stream of bubbles. Pumped it up - next day flat. In the end took it to  a tyre place and they stuck a new tube in for a tenner.)

Up this morning to an avian world - heron by the pond, pheasant in the field and the mallard are back, bottoms up feeding in the pond. We thought they had abandoned us but not to be. They will, no doubt, eat the frog spawn from the frogs not eaten by the heron - but that's the way the world goes. Choices, choices - frogs or herons, tadpoles or ducks!

Sorry for no blog but been away in Bonnie Scotland. Cold and frosty at the moment but then the sun comes out and a sense of spring arrives with a little warmth.

Whilst away we saw lots of interesting birds - peregrine falcon, skylark, kite, nuthatch and on way home went to Caerlaverock WWT and saw lots of duck, 3 types swan and waders plus water rail.

Back home the tree sparrows are at the feeders. 

The cold weather gets into me bones and muscles - gives me a sinking feeling -

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

So I have been out finishing weeding the rose bed and plonking some compost around the plants. Most of the weeds are not truly weeds but forgetmenots that have seeded themselves across the bed.
R has been trying up and clearing the dead grass from the fig on the bank.
We have had help from JW and he has put a gutter on the Wendy House and dealt with a small bit of rot in the door. 
The calendulas are still flowering - strange, snowdrops and marigolds together.

So one day a frosty start and clear skies, the next overcast and gloomy. One thing to say about British weather, it is never the same one week (day?) to the next.

The new spring by the apple tree is draining but I shall have to get out the old slotted pipe.

Meanwhile a mole has dug a run across on of the paths by the rhubarb bed.

I am surprised by the tenacity of herbs in the garden - marjoram here - but even the mint is still green let alone rosemary, sage and thyme - yes we have a small bit of parley too - cue for a song?

And the snowdrops come and come.

As do the moles as you can see next to the snowdrops in this pic.

I have been to Potato Day at Greenodd Village Hall with R and both my sisters! R bought some gladioli corms and a couple of seed packets. A pound to get in and soup, cake and cup of tea for a fiver. Got home and attacked the stream - upper half, digging out detritus, sorting springs and carting loads of watercress too the compost heap. Now for a fire in the wood burner, a small beer and feet up.

Fog!

Wednesday morning and the day begins with  bird triple - heron hunting frogs from the pond, geese heading west to the Duddon and the song thrush is back, early, singing its triple phrases. It would be a gardening day if we were not going out. The Thursday and the temperature struggles to get above zero - where did that come from? (Actually Europe)(A bit like a last gift before Brexit.)