Flying ant day

 

We termed Wednesday, 'Flying ant day' as hundreds of ants, flying and otherwise were everywhere.  I expect  it was the same in many other places this far south.  The weather has been warm and close for a while, but with not very much rain.   Mr C took some pictures of the flying ants.  This one is of them mating.  Sadly it seems after mating, the drone then dies...

 

 

This made me think of the hundreds of different insects in our garden.  I can't even name a lot of them, but I find them fascinating.  If the garden belongs to anyone, it belongs to them!

 

 

We found this one above, inside the house on some roses, but put it back outside.

Ladybird and ant combination!

Cinnabar moth sat in the grass. 

 

 

Hover flies mating.  A wonderful photo from Mr C.

 

 

The  garden is looking slightly messy and overblown now.  I'm entirely behind with deadheading roses, and the lack of rain is making the grass look yellow.     Excitingly, we seem to have at least two hedgehogs in the garden, so hopefully they are eating lots of snails and slugs.  Getting a photo of them is a far more complex issue without night vision goggles....

Flaming June

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” ― Maud Hart Lovelace

It's Flaming June and the garden is lush and abundant and teeming with life.  A mixture of rain and a lot of warm sunshine has done its job and everything is twice the size it was the day before!  The rose bushes are laden with blooms and I can't keep up with all the dead-heading I need to do.  Insects and birds of all kinds are buzzing and twittering and hopping around the garden.

 

Weeds are growing faster than anything else, although some plants grow and they are so lovely and pretty I don't mind leaving them especially if the bees love it.  I have no clue what this is - any ideas?

 

In spite of the best efforts of our massive slug and snail population it looks as if we will get some broad beans finally and there are carrots, beans, potatoes and swiss chard growing in varying sizes.

"Now summer is in flower and natures hum

Is never silent round her sultry bloom

Insects as small as dust are never done

Wi' glittering dance and reeling in the sun

And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee

Are never weary of their melody

Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine

Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine

That lift athirst their slender throated flowers

Agape for dew falls and for honey showers

These round each bush in sweet disorder run

And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun."

-  John Clare, June

Meanwhile inside Hazel Cottage, a lot is going on - our Parsnip wine has been bottled and stored away for a few months time....  I can't help calling it our Peapod Burgundy!

We are in the middle of having our fireplace transformed too as we are having a wood burner fitted.  Here are some photos of the work in progress, once it is complete, I will post more pictures.  Its really very exciting!

The fireplace has been cleared out and the brickwork re-pointed

The flue is in!  And the hearth tiles have been laid

Hearth tiles now grouted and decorative tiles fixed.

Butterfly and moth time

It seems that it is now high summer and it is butterfly and moth time.  This past weekend has seen a plethora of butterflies in our back garden.  At one point looking out of the back door I counted eight large white butterflies dancing around the lavender bushes and a small blue butterfly floated past.  On Saturday afternoon we found a dead moth in a paddling pool at my sister's house.  It was an utterly beautiful red and black one and we wondered at the time what kind it was but then moved on to something else. 

Yesterday we were trying to clear the overgrown mess that is our garden,  Sitting down on our new table and chairs, we looked at the work still to do.  I noticed that there was a small patch of ragwort in a corner, which probably needed taking out and clearing.  Looking more closely there were at least twenty or so yellow and black striped caterpillars covering the whole plant, eating everything in their path.  We will leave them and their ragwort alone for the time being until they have all left (or eaten the whole plant!)

A close up of our cinnabar caterpillars taken by Mr C

Looking them up we found that these were the caterpillars for the Cinnabar Moth.  In a strange coincidence the moth we found in the paddling pool was a cinnabar moth.  Interesting the cinnabar moth caterpillars only eat ragwort, a plant that is poisonous to most other animals (it is often something that farmers are particularly concerned about their animals eating).  The bright colours of both the caterpillar and the moth itself are a warning to predators.  This is needed especially as the cinnabar moth flies during the day time, unlike most other moths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tyria_jacobaeae-04_(xndr).jpg

 Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued,

is always just beyond your grasp, 

 but which, if you will sit down quietly, 

may alight upon you.  

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Live in each season as it passes..

Although we try to live seasonally as much as possible, when the seasons bring difficult or overwhelming weather it can be difficult to appreciate it.   Henry David Thoreau once wrote 'Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.'   I love this quote, it sums up so much about how we want to live.  It also made me a feel a little guilty for being such a grump about this current heat wave.

Last summer was marked by rain, constantly falling upon our heads and stopping many fruits from developing properly.  Everything in the garden seemed to rot or fail to thrive.  This year Spring took a long time coming, but when it did, the garden exploded in a riot of colour and energy.  The last couple of weeks has seen temperatures of the high 20s and low 30s every single day.  It has been difficult for me to enjoy I must say, never feeling any breeze, always trying to cool down, being attacked by mosquitoes.  I agree wholeheartedly with Jane Austen when she wrote "What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."

I am trying to take Thoreau's attitude more to heart - yes the heat is a bit much and we are having to water some plants daily at the moment, but we have picked an excellent crop of raspberries this year, the apples on our little apple tree are looking fabulous and our courgette plants (especially the ones sat on the bathroom roof) are flowering madly.  

Of course the lawn is looking yellow and crispy and quite ugly at the moment. 

However on a positive side, we now have a lovely table and chair set in the garden!

I hope you are all keeping cool - I think this hot weather has come over from the USA where it was even hotter and more unbearable.

"In lang, lang days o' simmer,

When the clear and cloudless sky

Refuses ae weep drap o' rain

To Nature parched and dry,

The genial night, wi' balmy breath,

Gars verdue, spring anew,

An' ilka blade o' grass

Keps its ain drap o' dew."

-  James Ballantine   

Cole Porter had it right....

If any song could sum up how I feel about a summer's day when its almost 30 degrees, it would be this one.....  Cue Miss Ann Miller:-

The old songs are the best I've always said, but especially Mr Cole Porter when he wrote this one.  Ideally on a day like today we would be sat under a large tree with a slight breeze keeping us sane and a lot of cool drinks available.  But I'm at work.  And it is Too Darn Hot!

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

I mentioned in my last post that we had seven different roses in our garden.  We inherited them all when we moved in - the previous owners had obviously loved them. I have to admit to having had a problematic attiude to roses until recently.  Most of the year they look like dry sticks and don't provide any greenery, and only look good for a few weeks in May and June.  I've always loved the roses themselves, but they seemed hard work with their aphids and deadheading and need for pruning.  I wasn't about to dig them up, but they seemed more work than anything else.

This year has been different though.  I've fed the roses early in spring, I've bought organic aphid spray  to keep them in check and I've deadheaded more often.  And this year they have rewarded me with the most wondrous smelling, beautiful blooms.  As an impatient gardener, I am learning a lesson here - some plants need a little more care, a bit more effort and planning in order to produce at their best.  I also seem to have fallen in love with roses a little.  So I hope you will forgive my indulgence and enjoy these photographs of all seven rose bushes in Hazel Cottage garden:

 

 

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

James M. Barrie

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, a box where sweets compacted lie.

George Herbert

They are not long, the days of wine and roses.

Ernest Dowson

Summer and the strange owl

It truly felt like summer this morning as I gazed out into our garden, wishing I didn't have to go to work.

I yearned to wander around deadheading roses and yanking out miles of the dreaded bindweed.  I've been really pleased with how the garden is coming on, in spite of the odd weather patterns this year.  This area was mostly barren last year - its a man made raised bed/rockery which was built rather badly and is mostly just brick rubble and poor soil in places  I've planted a couple of geraniums and thymes, and let the golden marjoram take over a little and it is starting to look lovely. 

Our fruit harvest is small, only two apples on the tree we planted last year.  Seeing as we had three apples last year, it should be a little better, although Mr C tells me this is the pattern everywhere, apples and pears have really suffered.  We have started to pick raspberries and strawberries though, although we will have to be far sharper with protecting the redcurrants from the birds next year.  We have only harvested 4 currants, although there were double that amount last week!

I thought I would share a picture of my random purchase that I made at the weekend at our local summer fete.  I'm rather taken with my strange little owl, though have no clue where it will live.  For now he lives on the dining room table next to the flowers....

 

A clock we found in a charity shop that will hopefully live in our study.  And some of the beautiful roses from one of seven rose bushes that bedeck the back garden.