Taking stock....

Thanks to Hettie Brown for this idea which seems to be sweeping through blogland... August is probably an ideal time to take stock, all the summer madness is fading away and the glories of autumn are not yet upon us.  This morning I woke to a beautiful sky and the birds going crazy in the garden.

 

This week I am mostly...

Making :   The first batch of Marrow Pickle this weekend.  We use this recipe which is gorgeous!
Cooking :  Chocolate and Courgette cake - Hebegebe Cake in River Cottage Baking book.  Very moist and dense and doesn't taste of courgettes at all.
Drinking :  Copious tea with one sugar.  I will eventually get used to just the one.
Reading:   Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours.  A beautiful and poetic book.  If only I kept awake to read more of it.
Wanting:   Autumn to arrive soon.
Looking: At the bees and butterflies and birds every day in the garden
Playing:  More music than usual, trying to listen to CDs I haven't heard for a while
Wasting:  As little as possible and trying to live as simply as possible
Sewing:  Very little but always planning the next project.  Applique birds perhaps?
Wishing: For good health and happiness for all
Enjoying:  My new sewing/craft area and our new bathroom.
Waiting:  For the new series of the Great British Bake Off next week.  So excited!
Liking:  My new (old) cheese dish (see right)

Wondering:  If we will get enough rain.  Its been rather dry.
Loving:  Mary Wesley books,  I've recently read four in a row
Hoping: To make mixed fruit jam out of our harvest of raspberries and strawberries and redcurrants soon
Marvelling: That after ten years or more I still have lots of my family tree to look into.  It helps to have a problematic great grandmother with a fascinating story.
Needing: Some time off work to do nice things
Smelling: The lavender outside of our door
Wearing: Clothes that I'm utterly bored with.  What to do....
Following: Many lovely blogs - do look at the list
Noticing: That I haven't seen/heard any swifts for about a week, have they gone?
Knowing:  We can make our new bookshelf look far nicer than it is with a bit of work.
Thinking: I shall come back with something from a Vintage Fair I'm going to tomorrow.

Bookmarking: Some new web pages.  I need inspiration, please suggest anything that interests you. 
Opening: Presents.  It will soon be my birthday and I'm still a small child really and slightly excited
Giggling:  At a slightly poor James Stewart film called Pot O' Gold.  He was still wonderful of course.
Feeling:  Like taking stock and planning some lovely things to do.

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!

The hopeful Brown Bear comes to stay

Recently I read about a hopeful Brown Bear.

He was looking for a new home and the more I read the blog posting the more I was sure that Brown Bear belonged with us in my new sewing table area in the spare room.  So I bought him and the other day he took his place in Hazel Cottage.

He will now keep me company when I am doing crafty things and sit there and be hopeful. He already has his first social engagement at a Teddy Bears picnic at the end of July.

Thank you Hettie Brown for Brown Bear, I love him!

The glory of the English countryside

It's beautiful the Summer month of June
When all of God's own wildflowers are in bloom
And sun shines brightly most part of the day
And butterflies o'er lush green meadows play.

Francis Duggan, June

 Those wonderful wildflowers in the English countryside grace the hedgerows so beautifully at this time of year.  On a walk in Devon at the weekend, walking along the lane we saw the last of the late bluebells mixed with buttercups, ox-eye daisies, herb robert, lesser stitchwort, and other flowers we couldn't identify.

The sun was so bright it caused my photograph to glow!

Does anyone recognise this?  Sorry about the blurry photo!

Cow parsley and sweet cicely, we think we saw hogweed as well.

Foxgloves were everywhere we went and were still coming out.  I think everything is a little late this year.

 

The ransoms or wild garlic were everywhere along the route - especially in the shaded areas near the steam.

Looking back downhill along the lane.

 

“In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day"

Aldo Leopold   

The butterflies and birds flew about our heads and I took a lot of photographs and we stood and gazed at the view. We saw at least three buzzards over the weekend and on the walk also saw an owl fly past.   On a June day when the sun is blazing and the hedgerows are alive with life, the English countryside is just the best place in the world.

"A bird in the boughs sang “June,”
And “June” hummed a bee
In a Bacchic glee
As he tumbled over and over
Drunk with the honey-dew."
  Clinton Scollard (1860–1932) 

Bunting, Granny's bonnets and frogs-a-hiding

I did promise to report back on the open garden day the other week.   We spent days in the garden before the open day digging, cutting back, planting and weeding and planning what we can feed everyone.  On the day itself the weather was rather changeable but it looked like it was staying dry at least!  We visited the Rectory garden, which was first on the list, had some tea, and then raced back home to prettify the house and garden.  We put up some bunting at the back and the front, put out the homemade lemonade, fruit cake and shortbread biscuits on the table, put out some chairs and then waited.

I had lots of excuses in my head to explain why the garden isn't completely devoid of weeds and dead leaves, and why some areas are still a work in progress (honest!).  I was going to explain how the patches of long grass are actually to keep the frogs and birds happy, and the ivy was there to feed birds and insects...And...And..

People were slow to arrive, but they did arrive and I needn't have worried.  Almost without exception they were all gardeners themselves.  They understood that every garden is a work in progress.  More importantly, the garden itself actually looked utterly beautiful.  Although the frogs hid out of the way for a change, the finches and blue tits sang like crazy, the bees and hover flies and wasps buzzed around every flower, the swifts swooped overhead and the garden played its part to perfection.

 

 

As one of the visitors commented, it feels like a haven.  When you stand in the middle of our garden, all you can hear is nature humming and growing around you.  I was quite taken aback with the lovely comments about the peace and the lushness of everything.  After being at Hazel Cottage for almost three years I think the garden is looking at its best so far and we are very proud of it.

The work continues and the slugs still arrive...and we think the birds have managed to get into the netting around the redcurrants as we have about two left....