Autumnal equinox

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

A good day's foraging

We had a great day foraging today in the New Forest.  We went specifically to find sloes for our annual sloe gin making.  Sloes are one of those fruits that no one ever wants to eat but they produce a wonderful flavour when steeped in gin for a few months, not to mention a lovely red colour.

When we got to our secret foraging site we found a huge number of very ripe cherry plums.

 

We kept on picking for quite a while and eventually picked 17lb of the plums!

 

 

We did find a good load of sloes as well, luckily, eventually picking 8lb of sloes, enough for several bottles of sloe gin.

 

 

Of course we also found the wonderful blackberry although we got a smaller amount of them as many were still red.

 

 

We were also told of some apples we could legally scrump and got some apples to add to our haul.

 

Luckily tomorrow is a bank holiday so we can attempt to process some of this bounty.  Other than sloe gin we are hoping to make plum jam and maybe even some plum wine. 

 

 

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....

Summer Solstice musings

Today is the longest day of the year, the height of summer light and sunshine.  I've already heard the jokes about how we are now heading towards winter, but it isn't quite like that yet.  The roses are at their most luscious and fecund.  I've brought several into the house today, the red roses are just stunning at the moment.

I'm not even sure the pictures show how deep and velvety the red is.  Sadly you will have to take my word for it!

The raspberries are starting to ripen and we have redcurrants and gooseberries starting to ripen too.  The last of the frankly disappointing rhubarb is just coming up.   All of this is made possible by the bees that buzz around our garden.  We usually see a large range of bumble bees and the odd honey bee.   However last Sunday we saw this outside the back door

A swarm of bees!  I'm reliably informed that bees swarm when they are looking for a new home.  I don't know where these came from although they are centred in next doors garden.  The garden next door is not cultivated at all and the people who live there rarely go outside so the bees have been using it for a home or whilst resting.  I'm not entirely sure they've gone as even though they seemed to buzz off, we've seen them again since.

After many weeks of barely being in the garden and feeling somewhat distanced from all that is happening, it was lovely to briefly gather some flowers today.  Everything is lush and twice the size it was the last time I looked...  The insects and the birds carry on regardless.

Dales diary...

I'm afraid this blog has been somewhat quiet again of late.   For several weeks life has simply got in the way.  Last week we went away to the Yorkshire Dales, an utterly beautiful area that I had never seen before. 

Having a week in such a lovely place has done us the world of good.  Even in the pouring rain this is a special place.  The wide open spaces, the mile upon mile of dry stone walls, the thousands of sheep, the rivers and becks and waterfalls are everywhere.

 

And then, finally when the sun comes out, the effect is quite magical. 

The tops of the hills are windy and slightly bleak.  You can see for miles and you can hear the lapwings and skylarks all round.  Down in the dales and in the meadows, the flowers and the woodland birds take over.

Buttercups, clover, germander speedwell and daisies are everywhere and the swallows dip and swoop over the fields.  In the evenings the swifts are up above the houses in their screaming parties, but the swallows dip low almost to our head height.  Occasionally they even rest...

The artist Turner came to the Dales and painted this lovely place, I like to think he appreciated the wonderful light and gentle wilderness .  He stayed at the King's Arms Hotel in Askrigg and the Green Dragon at Hardraw and drew many of the places nearby, including Mill Gill Fall and Hardraw Force.   It is a special place and one I shall remember for a long time.

"There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.” 

Alfred Wainwright

Hedgerow in spring

I always find hedgerows fascinating.  When you come across a proper English hedgerow, six foot high and three foot wide, it is a thing of real beauty.  We explored such a hedge last weekend in Devon, it was mainly made up of hawthorn, hazel, holly and oak. 

At this time of year, the trees and shrubs are growing very rapidly, the ferns and bracken are starting to unfurl and a huge number of wild flowers are scattered through the hedge.

Red campion

Stitchwort

Bluebells

Everything is sweet and fresh and so very very green.  The birds are chattering in the hedges and trees and all seems new.  I am still trying to improve my knowledge of wild flowers...

Unfurling fern

Primrose

Cow parsley

Wood spurge

In amongst all the flowers are a huge variety of insects.  Even in our own garden, we are constantly amazed at the variation, you can never keep up with it all.  In a hedge, it is its own ecosystem, everything is here.

Some kind of fly

A caterpillar?

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Little star and Little brown one

Now that it's spring, all kinds of birds that visit our garden here at Hazel Cottage are making more noise, and there is no bird noisier than the common starling.  We have been watching them closely and we have heard some quite remarkable sounds!  I never realised how much they mimic other birds - we heard a bird of prey followed by the quack of a duck today which sounded rather funny.

 

Starling and winter jasmine in our garden

 

Starlings are often seen as noisy and swaggering birds, which is probably true, but they are quite remarkable.  They are acrobatic in flight, you only have to see the photos of the wonderful murmurations in the countryside to see that.  We often see a little group at our bird table, squabbling and chattering amongst themselves and slightly intimidating the otherwise bullish woodpigeons. 

We've been learning more also about the Dunnock.  Its name means 'little brown one' and it is one of the unobtrusive birds in the garden, usually quietly hopping amongst the undergrowth.  For such a small, generally quiet bird it has many names, hedge sparrow, accentor as well as dunnock.  This time of year of course, the dunnock is singing beautifully - I think this year is the first time  I've heard it sing and known what it was. 

Dunnock in a small hazel sapling

Two common birds in the garden, but by watching them more closely we've learned quite a lot about them and probably learned to appreciate them more.  The weather this week has been bright and lovely and great weather for taking pictures as well as gardening.  I'm very pleased with how the garden is coming along, and we haven't reached the height of spring yet.

Today in the garden