These should be hefty enough to take just about any birds that Nature shoves our way.
Condors, Bald Eagles, Albatrosses etc. should cope. Penguins might struggle with the upright bits.
Archive for the 'In the garden' Category
Sayonara Salix babylonica
It was a sad day when we had to have the old willow taken out.
We would have liked to have kept it but it was becoming unruly and dangerous, the remains of the middle trunk which we'd had reduced during pollarding back in 2009 had rotted all the way down to ground level and were no longer binding the other three trunks, so the whole tree had to go with dignity instead of being trashed by a storm.
It was much older than anyone thought - before felling it, all opinions were that it was just a bit older than the house, so about 60 years old. When the trunks had been taken down I went to see the stump before they ground it out, even at 2ft high it was 4ft across. I tried to count the growth-rings but lost count at about 80, we now think it was into its 9th or maybe even its 10th decade.
We've saved a few wands to plant elsewhere in the garden, so it stands a chance of regenerating from those, but when the ground has settled we'll be planting a large native Birch in its place.
And the wood wasn't all wasted - we've propped up a couple of huge chunks of cut trunk and have hung bird-feeders on them, and we've used a couple of cut rounds to make a hefty Flintstones-style bird-table. Pics soon!
Anyway, here's a rough & ready time-lapse of its last few hours:
Tree fellers at work
Actually there were five of them.
You can't beat a time-worn old-fashioned Irish joke.
More to follow.
Mild
It's mid-October and the outdoor strawberry troughs are still producing good fruits, plenty of new flowers and sufficient runners for even more plants next year.
At the first warning of frost I'll transfer them into the greenhouse, so we may still be cropping them in November:
The greenhouse-based chillies are doing well too, only a handful is yet to turn red:
Affordable green housing
Take a few offcuts, a few screws and a bit of eco fence-paint.
Add a few hours of sawing, clattering and pulling splinters from fingers.
Result? Hedgehog house:
Needs an IR camera. And a hedgehog.
The kids made me do it
After seeing Avatar they've acquired a liking for digital camo:
Instead of shelling out about £40 for a set of branded pre-cut vinyls I saved myself 90% by taking the cheaper option from eBay.
I doubt that the Woodpigeons and Grey Squirrels can see any improvement.
