3 x 2
2 x 2
4 (not dead, just resting)
2 x 2
n x 8
Archive for the 'In the garden' Category
Reasons to be cheerful
Sky Art
Cherry Blossom
Pear Blossom
Hyphen Fail
Apple Blossom
Weeds
Tasty
Post Fail AND Apostrophe Fail
Result!
More snippets
In no particular order...
- The Aku Crodas are wearing-in nicely, they should be ready for a decent walk at the first opportunity. The soles are quite grippy now that the as-moulded shiny slip-on-yer-arse finish has worn off, and the uppers are now a fair fit to my feet.
- The Trezeta Peaks are now past their best, the toe-rand having worn through down past the membrane. These superbly-comfortable boots never did make it on a proper hike, but they've served well as wear-dailys for all sorts of duties.
- The Scarpa SLs, of course, are always on stand-by. Like dependable old friends, they're always there when you need them.
- I've broken a long habit of not wearing any socks other than Thor-Los... I've been trying some cheapo Crane Trail walking socks from Aldi. Tactel-lined and with a light sprinkling of Lycra, they seem to be doing rather well considering the £2.99 price-tag. I doubt that they'll cover the same mileage as my standard KXLs, but that's to be expected when they cost about a tenner less. The STs have been stashed in the kitbox awaiting the next outing of the winter boots.
- I'm still managing to resist the temptation of a pair of MSR Lightning Ascents in readiness for next winter. What's the betting that when the snow's back, I'm still snowshoeless?
- Likewise, the acquisition of a Scarp 2 has been resisted, not least because I'm still waiting on the availability of a UK-version fly as per the Scarp 1 changes detailed by Martin. Now that Alpkit are on the subs' bench in the tentage game, I'll have to wait and see what their two-person and geo offerings are like.
- Talking of outdoorsy stuff, we'll be off for our Annual Wildie together sometime in the next month, with the intention of bagging a few more Wainwrights. Expect details in due course.
- Furthermore, two family-rooms have been booked at Buttermere YHA for an autumnal weekend. This worked out quite well, as we're paying with Tesco Clubcard Rewards Tokens, our stash having been boosted by 1218 due to the purchase of a new washing-machine from said emporium.
- There's been much ado in the garden - the snowdrops and daffs have retired, giving way to bluebells and to the blossoms of the pear, the cherry and the plum. Remarkably, I've even got off my butt and done my bit - the lawns have been cut twice and even the hedge has been shorn. The old willow-tree is sending out new growth from where we had it hacked, so there's still hope for it.
- House-wise I'm back to the hell that is known as plastering. Ella's room needed a revamp, but it seems that the only thing holding up the walls was the wallpaper. Oh well, at least it keeps me off the streets...
- Blog-wise there are a few new things, not least the addition of a few user-options for comments. Feel free to test them.
All that and no mention of elections, volcanic ash or oil-slicks. Hardly news, is it?
A traveller through the fields
We have a couple of families of Song Thrushes in our garden all year, they're always pottering about on the ground, hunting snails and thrashing them against stones to get to their juicy innards.
In times of lasting snow-cover, however, their relatives come to visit, and they come in flocks of 20 or so. The hassle of hopping around looking for ground-based meals is not for them - they're a lot more acrobatic and they use this talent to raid whatever they can find in the fruit-trees...
The visitors are mainly Fieldfares, although there are a few Redwings tagging along.
All three species mentioned are on the RSPB Red List, and all three belong to the same genus: Turdus.
It seems a shame that these likeable little birds have been given such a crappy-sounding Latin moniker.
Global dimming
This morning there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It wasn't that clear, though:
All of that white fluffy stuff is due to contrails. Oh, and there's a Moon in there somewhere.
Here's an interesting article about the global effects of contrails.
Crew-cut
A couple of weeks ago our large Salix babylonica decided to dump an eight-foot long by one-foot dia chunk of rotten wood on the lawn. For safety's sake we had to put the garden out-of-bounds for a while until the experts had had a look at the thing. They recommended pollarding to reduce the weight, remove any deadwood and to reduce the "sail".
Yesterday their crew turned up to do the deed...
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That's a serious bit of trimming, eh?
We apologise for the loss of signal…
Life's been a bit full of other stuff for a while now, so the blogging has had to take a back-seat for a few weeks. I'll try to catch up over the next few days, starting now...
This year has been a good one for the number of butterflies in our garden, but not so good for the range of species. So far, the list of species found is as follows:
- Small Skipper Thymelicus sylvestris
- Large White Pieris brassicae
- Small White Pieris rapae
- Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus
- Painted Lady Cynthia cardui
- Small Tortoiseshell Aglaise urticae
- Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta
- Peacock Inachis io
- Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria
- Wall Lasiommata megera
- Gatekeeper Pyronia tithonus
- Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina
- Small Heath Coenonympha pamphilus
That's not a bad list for an urban garden in the Midlands, but there are a few notable absences - here's a list of species that we usually see here but which haven't put in an appearance so far this year:
- Large Skipper Ochlodes venata
- Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni
- Green-veined White Pieris napi
- Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines
- Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas
- Common Blue Polyommatus icarus
A few hours with the camera resulted in the following pics of some of the more obliging specimens:
EDIT: Just to let you know that Old Winter has blogged about his butterflies today at http://oldwinteramble.blogspot.com/2009/08/butterflies-july-aug-2009.html
Wildlife repair service
I was well into our garden butterfly survey (more on this in a later post) when I was interrupted again by another live contribution from next-door. Not content with his donation of a perfectly good young hedgehog ("it was curled up in a ball and I thought it was dead, so I brought it to you to see if you could look after it"), he's now given me this poor critter:
It seems to be intact with no broken bones as far as we can tell, but it's weak, flightless and has no parents around. We'll do what we can for it, but I suspect that we'll have to let nature take charge soon.
