Same here Dove- everything is very soggy, but it's to be expected for the time of year. The sun's up now, so the lovely ice patterns on the cars have gone, and there's a feeding frenzy going on out there. I'm throwing caution to the wind and I intend putting the washing out before I go for a tree. I might wait a bit though - don't want to be hit by a low flying blackbird!
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The garden birds are making a reappearance over the past few days ... they're using the feeders and there's a Gt tit out there chinking away merrily ... think they've all been in the woods and down on the marshes over the autumn but they're coming back to the feeders now ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Good morning. Grey and dull here and still very windy but dry now. I have sent OH down the garden to get us a couple of spuds for cullen skink for lunch. I am on minor carpentry repairs. The previous owners left a dining table and 6 chairs in the party barn - pretty but not very sturdy - and I cleaned it up and fed it and put new seats on the chairs but the table legs are wobbly. Today's plan is to wood glue the joints and replace the loose wooden wedges with metal angle brackets. We'll see.
Hosta - have you never heard of sunscreen and moisturiser? Dove moisturiser is cheap and good. I use solid coconut fat for some cooking, usually just a spoonful for stir fry or meatballs or some such. It doesn't give a coconut flavour and is interchangeable with rapeseed oil. You can buy coconut oil in Asian corner shops and supermarkets if you must and probably online too.
FG - Possum wants to spend time at Xmas going through boxes of photos to make a "montage" for her apartment. That'll be fun. She wants to go travelling when she's finished her Masters but has so far resisted my advice to learn some self-defence techniques - verbal and physical as well as being streetwise. Worrying child.
Better go and check the bird feeders. Our robin has learned to sit on the one that holds a fat block with mealworms to peck on the one that holds fat balls with seeds. Clever girl.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
You don't want people falling off the chairs Obs, although I expect if they have a few too many sherries, it would happen anyway! My oldest is very bright, but not streetwise at all, in the sense you're talking about. She'll happily look at bus timetables and work out where she has to go and on what bus, but she isn't aware of 'hidden dangers'. Youngest is very streetwise. Never get two the same. Robins don't miss a trick, do they? I hung the washing out, and moved a couple of pots - and had to come in and wash the feeders, which were soaking, to warm my fingers up. Cleaned the bathroom too, so I've thawed out Great tits in abundance here too Dove, as well as blues and coals. The coal tits are very frisky just now. Why don't they get a room.... That stroppy female blackie chases every 'suitor' away [and everything else too] I'm feeling quite sorry for them. Got something being delivered today [unexpectedly] so I've left instructions to leave in greenhouse. Thought I'd better take a look at the cuttings while I was at it, as I haven't looked near them for several weeks. All good.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
After a very quiet Autumn the birds are back, almost at Hitchcockian levels. Up to 50 woodpigeons at a time foraging for beech mast under the trees which will at least reduce the number of seedlings that sprout.
Great, blue and coal tits in abundance; goldfinch, bullfinch and chaffinch constantly on the feeders when the nuthatch lets them. Everything seems scared of the nuthatch and scatter when it turns up but I have never seen them attack another bird. We also see the odd treecreeper running up and down the apple trees.
Greater spotted woodpecker is a regular again and the bolshie blackbirds are very entertaining. The dunnocks just ignore them as does the wren but the robins always look like they are about to join in. The thrushes are busier dealing with the windfall apples.
Haven't seen any bramblings yet but they will turn up soon as will the long tailed tits I hope.
We have a family of jackdaws locally which will strip the bird table before the little birds get a chance and plenty of squabbling magpies as rivals for their patch. Even large crows will have a go at the bird table and jays will tackle the fat balls and peanut feeders.
It can be mayhem out there at times but it makes for a great free wildlife show so I am not complaining.
FG - it's the table that wobbles, not the chairs. Screwdriver battery is charging ready for action.
Cullen Skink has turned into leek and potato. The smoked haddock turned out to be something else and well past its usability. Bacon I think. Oops. Major freezer eating coming up and then a good clear out after NY.
Blackbirds and thrushes and woodpeckers and so on seem to stick to the hedgerows for feeding. See and hear them but not on our feeders. There seem sto be far less variety here - only blue and great tits whereas we had coal and marsh in the Belgian garden. Fewer little brown jobs such as assorted warblers; just tree and house sparrows and an occasional wren and dunnock. Chaffinches but no green or gold.
On the other hand, we do get jays and hoopoes and green woodpeckers coming to fossick about for insects and bugs and the starlings swoop in to scoff all the figs before they're ripe. We hear owls at night and get buzzards and a couple of small falcon types too by day and cattle egrets and pheasant families wandering about the further reaches of the plot.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Ah- that's what I get for reading too quickly Obs. No dancing on the tables then.... Bacon cullen skink - it could have ben interesting.... Great entertainment indeed steephill. I'm very jealous of your nuthatches as mine haven't come back We do have the goldies though, so swings and roundabouts Treecreepers are lovely - I wonder if they still visit my old garden round the corner. Judging by the butchering of the trees that's been done, and the replacement of the hornbeam hedge by leylandii - maybe not. Lovely to have all the variety of brids throughout the country, and further afield. We have lots of jackdaws around, but they don't tend to visit the garden. I've managed to deter the skanky common pigeons a bit, although they get the bits that get dropped from feeders. After watching a woody chasing it away from food earlier, I don't think I needed to worry about them hoovering up everything Lunch has been had [chicken soup I made yesterday] so I'll go and do summat else befoer the GC for the tree.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Thanks fairy, the photos of the sky are lovely i cant stop think of that girl, a family has lost a daughter sister cousin, not to mention all her distraught friends its not as if she was in a remote area, Auckland for heavens sake! we know the city quite well and I am so sorry for the folks there who will all be horrified went out and chose all the material for the garland and fireplaces dogs had a ball, lovely sunny frosty morning
Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” A A Milne
Posts
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I might wait a bit though - don't want to be hit by a low flying blackbird!
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hosta - have you never heard of sunscreen and moisturiser? Dove moisturiser is cheap and good. I use solid coconut fat for some cooking, usually just a spoonful for stir fry or meatballs or some such. It doesn't give a coconut flavour and is interchangeable with rapeseed oil. You can buy coconut oil in Asian corner shops and supermarkets if you must and probably online too.
FG - Possum wants to spend time at Xmas going through boxes of photos to make a "montage" for her apartment. That'll be fun. She wants to go travelling when she's finished her Masters but has so far resisted my advice to learn some self-defence techniques - verbal and physical as well as being streetwise. Worrying child.
Better go and check the bird feeders. Our robin has learned to sit on the one that holds a fat block with mealworms to peck on the one that holds fat balls with seeds. Clever girl.
My oldest is very bright, but not streetwise at all, in the sense you're talking about. She'll happily look at bus timetables and work out where she has to go and on what bus, but she isn't aware of 'hidden dangers'. Youngest is very streetwise. Never get two the same.
Robins don't miss a trick, do they?
I hung the washing out, and moved a couple of pots - and had to come in and wash the feeders, which were soaking, to warm my fingers up. Cleaned the bathroom too, so I've thawed out
Great tits in abundance here too Dove, as well as blues and coals. The coal tits are very frisky just now. Why don't they get a room....
That stroppy female blackie chases every 'suitor' away [and everything else too] I'm feeling quite sorry for them.
Got something being delivered today [unexpectedly] so I've left instructions to leave in greenhouse. Thought I'd better take a look at the cuttings while I was at it, as I haven't looked near them for several weeks. All good.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Great, blue and coal tits in abundance; goldfinch, bullfinch and chaffinch constantly on the feeders when the nuthatch lets them. Everything seems scared of the nuthatch and scatter when it turns up but I have never seen them attack another bird. We also see the odd treecreeper running up and down the apple trees.
Greater spotted woodpecker is a regular again and the bolshie blackbirds are very entertaining. The dunnocks just ignore them as does the wren but the robins always look like they are about to join in. The thrushes are busier dealing with the windfall apples.
Haven't seen any bramblings yet but they will turn up soon as will the long tailed tits I hope.
We have a family of jackdaws locally which will strip the bird table before the little birds get a chance and plenty of squabbling magpies as rivals for their patch. Even large crows will have a go at the bird table and jays will tackle the fat balls and peanut feeders.
It can be mayhem out there at times but it makes for a great free wildlife show so I am not complaining.
Cullen Skink has turned into leek and potato. The smoked haddock turned out to be something else and well past its usability. Bacon I think. Oops. Major freezer eating coming up and then a good clear out after NY.
Blackbirds and thrushes and woodpeckers and so on seem to stick to the hedgerows for feeding. See and hear them but not on our feeders. There seem sto be far less variety here - only blue and great tits whereas we had coal and marsh in the Belgian garden. Fewer little brown jobs such as assorted warblers; just tree and house sparrows and an occasional wren and dunnock. Chaffinches but no green or gold.
On the other hand, we do get jays and hoopoes and green woodpeckers coming to fossick about for insects and bugs and the starlings swoop in to scoff all the figs before they're ripe. We hear owls at night and get buzzards and a couple of small falcon types too by day and cattle egrets and pheasant families wandering about the further reaches of the plot.
Bacon cullen skink - it could have ben interesting....
Great entertainment indeed steephill. I'm very jealous of your nuthatches as mine haven't come back
We do have the goldies though, so swings and roundabouts
Treecreepers are lovely - I wonder if they still visit my old garden round the corner. Judging by the butchering of the trees that's been done, and the replacement of the hornbeam hedge by leylandii - maybe not.
Lovely to have all the variety of brids throughout the country, and further afield. We have lots of jackdaws around, but they don't tend to visit the garden. I've managed to deter the skanky common pigeons a bit, although they get the bits that get dropped from feeders. After watching a woody chasing it away from food earlier, I don't think I needed to worry about them hoovering up everything
Lunch has been had [chicken soup I made yesterday] so I'll go and do summat else befoer the GC for the tree.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
i cant stop think of that girl, a family has lost a daughter sister cousin, not to mention all her distraught friends
its not as if she was in a remote area, Auckland for heavens sake!
we know the city quite well and I am so sorry for the folks there who will all be horrified
went out and chose all the material for the garland and fireplaces
dogs had a ball, lovely sunny frosty morning
A A Milne