@Yviestevie what will you be painting with your lovely new water colours? I do dogs! 'Fraid the soup's all gone now. What kind do we all fancy tomorrow? As part of a Secret Santa, I got a wild flower seed calendar, especially geared to birds. Seeds include teasel, field scabious, yarrow and red clover. I may not sow all of these in our garden!! December is Mistle Thrush month
Good afternoon everyone. Weekly shop done this morning and all stashed away. Big batch of Bolognese sauce on the go for quick spaghetti dinners on dance nights. Onions cooking down for a frittata tomorrow. Pastry case baked for a Bakewell tart to take this evening - UK version of galette du roi - well that's my take on it anyway.
Frosty overnight but we've crept up to 6C now with rain on the way. Need to hang the Xmas branches up in the cave so we can use them again next year and then it looks like sewing for me unless I can find some thin plastic gloves. I've been busy removing seeds from chillies to save and share and then processing the flesh into ice cube trays. Makes my fingers very tingly after about 30 or so chillies and I have about 100 more Lemon Drops to do and then the Hungarian Wax and a black one.....
Hope everyone's cosy and well fed.
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)."
I de-iced the birdbath and topped up the birdfeeders earlier, and now the garden is full of birds ... mainly queuing up at the birdbath ... blue tits, Gt tits, two robins (being quite ok with each other so presumably a pair), several blackbirds, a dunnock and some wood pigeons ... there's also a wren skittering about the undergrowth and popping back and forth to the pond ... and there's a handsome magpie strutting around as if he owns the place.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@Nanny Beach - it is illegal to ride electric scooters unless they are the ones you hire in city centres. I can't see how they could ever be safe, either on the road or on the pavement. Just realised no-one gave me a diary for Christmas - though we did get a nice wall calendar. I won't bother buying one as I have all my appointments on my laptop calendar and a handy reminder pops up just before each one. I never transferred these to proper diaries so they are a bit wasted on me. Love thrushes but haven't seen one in the garden for a few years now @rholden_82. Was thrilled when I saw one bashing a snail against a big stone a few years ago. It breaks my heart when I think back to my childhood and how much wildlife there was around then and how much less there is now. We used to play by a little brook with fields yonder, as far as the eye could see. Now the M25 cuts across the horizon. If only previous govts. had invested in rail travel rather than road and enhanced the rail networks rather than cutting them... Do we really need to have everything so fast? @Ergates - if you lived in London you would be able to get your porridge within the hour simply by using an app on your phone. But you are happy to wait. Glad you have so many bird species in your garden @Dovefromabove. I will clean our bird feeders and start feeding them again now the weather has turned colder.
Pumpkin and ginger soup here. When I posted a couple of weeks back about the last one, I had forgotten the one I had brought in to the utility room, not as big as the last but it's made a decent batch. I also forgot to say that I have seeds saved, so if you want some to try @Dovefromabove let me know. Can't guarantee they'll, come out the same of course I'm sure you know how readily they cross pollinate. I'll mouth the word like Les Dawson's Cissy, Promiscuous 😱
Funnily enough I cleaned and stocked up our feeders today too. Loads of sparrows plus blue and great tits but I hardly ever see chaffinches now tho I put food out all year. We have a couple of robins and a wren and a whole flock of collared doves.
The small birds feeding on the ground have learned that the chooks are not a problem but they scarper when magpies come in. No thrushes or blackbirds tho I do see blackbirds about and hear their calls.
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)."
Posts
What kind do we all fancy tomorrow?
As part of a Secret Santa, I got a wild flower seed calendar, especially geared to birds. Seeds include teasel, field scabious, yarrow and red clover. I may not sow all of these in our garden!! December is Mistle Thrush month
Frosty overnight but we've crept up to 6C now with rain on the way. Need to hang the Xmas branches up in the cave so we can use them again next year and then it looks like sewing for me unless I can find some thin plastic gloves. I've been busy removing seeds from chillies to save and share and then processing the flesh into ice cube trays. Makes my fingers very tingly after about 30 or so chillies and I have about 100 more Lemon Drops to do and then the Hungarian Wax and a black one.....
Hope everyone's cosy and well fed.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Just realised no-one gave me a diary for Christmas - though we did get a nice wall calendar. I won't bother buying one as I have all my appointments on my laptop calendar and a handy reminder pops up just before each one. I never transferred these to proper diaries so they are a bit wasted on me.
Love thrushes but haven't seen one in the garden for a few years now @rholden_82. Was thrilled when I saw one bashing a snail against a big stone a few years ago. It breaks my heart when I think back to my childhood and how much wildlife there was around then and how much less there is now. We used to play by a little brook with fields yonder, as far as the eye could see. Now the M25 cuts across the horizon. If only previous govts. had invested in rail travel rather than road and enhanced the rail networks rather than cutting them...
Do we really need to have everything so fast? @Ergates - if you lived in London you would be able to get your porridge within the hour simply by using an app on your phone. But you are happy to wait.
Glad you have so many bird species in your garden @Dovefromabove. I will clean our bird feeders and start feeding them again now the weather has turned colder.
Now breezy and raining.
side?! I know you both love hostas, but …. 🤣
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'd rather thrushes in the garden than snails any day.
The small birds feeding on the ground have learned that the chooks are not a problem but they scarper when magpies come in. No thrushes or blackbirds tho I do see blackbirds about and hear their calls.