Autumn Cottage Diarist

A Quick Whip Round!

A wander round the garden to see what has changed over the last couple of weeks

 

 

Making Themselves at Home!

We seem to have some new guests in the garden...

 

 

Who Did the Poo?!!

We get a number of nocturnal visitors to Autumn Cottage garden, who leave their calling card - in the form of their droppings - dotted around and about. There was one such prominent 'set piece' in the middle of the garden yesterday; about 1.5 cm in diameter and filled with undigested seeds. I had my suspicions as to whom the remains belonged - but the evidence was incontrovertable after setting up the trap-camera and leaving it out overnight. This was our nocturnal guest - fossicking about and hoovering up the remnants of the pheassie food!

A young 'un, I think - and as far as I can tell, reasonably healthy. I've only captured a brief shot here, but I think there could be more if I put out some 'tasty morsels'. I knew that the catfood that Pip refuses to eat would come in handy sometime!

The droppings left behind are rarely unpleasant, and an excellent aid to identifying various species. There's a useful guide here for UK readers - and as we move deeper into Autumn and Winter, I'll be hoping for more 'photo captures' of other creatures that have made this garden their visiting patch or more permanent home.

 

The Drama of Gardens in Winter

Hammamelis (Witch Hazel) - sweet scented and blazing with colour

A perfect start to the year - a few hours at Hilliers,  Gardens of my Heart; starting off as a clear blue-skied day, clouding over after lunch. I've never seen the place so crowded…there was a (free) Guided Walk at 2 pm and there must have been 200 people in the crocodile. Fortunately we had taken our walk by then - I'm not much of a 'group doer' of anything in the countryside (or anywhere else, for that matter!)

As usual, we had a delicious lunch in the first class café, which I have also never seen so crowded. In fact, I've not seen the whole gardens so full before, but one of the beauties of the place is that  there is always plenty of space there for one to never feel cramped and for children to run off  steam in a most satisfying manner!

The guided walk Crocodile!

We sat outside, wrapped up against a slight chill but in the sun, which always makes the dogwoods surrounding the veranda glow so beautifully. Today I had a vegan sweet potato chili with rice and nachos. (Oh, how eating in the outdoor air enhances the appetite!)  We are never  disappointed, the quality and value of the food there is exceptional, and we often make the 45 minute drive there just to have lunch.

The 'cafe dogwoods'

Here are a few images of our walk - as you can see, there is much to see even at what is often considered the most barren time of the year. Look closer - it is not barren at all. Snowdrops and daffodils are already appearing, and the beauty of the naked trees - their colourful and varied barks, their bark and branch patterns, their twists and turns are both visually entrancing and evocative of the places which were once the (not so far in the past) home for much of humankind.

Sun through Birch barkBetula utilis and a beautiful blue sky!
Snowdrops
Daffodils - a very early variety

A fabulously gnarled burr on - I think - a Maple
Cornus sanguinea (Dogwood) - 'Midwinter Fire'
The wintertime drama of the naked trees - hidden in the summer

I'm looking even closer now that I have begun the rather wonderful, year long 'Tongues in Trees' course with novelist, poet, eco-warrior and mentor Roselle Angwin - so much beauty and learning stored up for me to immerse myself for twelve lovely months…my Soul is already soothed and restored.

Gunnera leaves cut down, protecting their tender growing points through Winter.

Visitors and Residents

A quick dispatch from a very hot garden today; temperatures continue to hover in the very high 20's - though today we were at least blessed with a light breeze for a few hours, during which I was able to get out early onto the 'Mediterranean terrace' to water the pots and sit in between at the little mosaic table which is hidden deep amongst the shrubbery, bamboos and fig tree.

Plenty of shade there - and the breeze wafting the gloriously heady scent of the white lilies towards me, which are now fully open. They are the scent of high summer for me and I cannot drink in enough of them to sustain me through the dark days of winter. I am storing the memory of that scent as fast as I can - but somehow it never quite seems to last!

This afternoon, as the heat rose, there was little to do but retreat to the summerhouse; all the fledgelings have departed now, so no entertainments from them by the side of the pond. A visit from a beautiful Thrush, though  - dipping its beak into the water and then throwing its head back to swallow. Over and over again - dip. swallow, look...dip, swallow...look - checking to see if all was safe. i think it knew that I was watching - but as long as I did not threaten by movement, I was tolerated in the greater necessity to top up on water.

Up on the eaves, more visitors - we now have a flock of white doves visiting (from a dovecote further up the road) - these two are the 'scouts' - after which twenty or so others arrive to first sit on the wires, then dive down in the late afternoon, to glean what the pheasants have left from their breakfast.

As for residents - this large, green, gold, brown and yellow frog is often to be seen hopping about in the bog garden - isn't it just beautiful - and what a privilege to live alongside these creatures.

And of course, the most permanent resident of all - feeling the heat in his fur coat so snoozing all afternoon on the chair outside the summerhouse - while I followed suite - briefly - inside!

To the Bottom of the Garden - and Back Again

There's been a big Orange Cloud over England for the last couple of days and I was finding it oppressive - so I decided to get away from seeing it all over the Internet and the TV screen, and out into the garden for a stroll.

These are the items that I found beneath my feet in just a hundred yards or so - to the bottom of the garden...along the ditch behind the fence...and back again. They provide a little snapshot of what comes and goes - and stays at this time of the year. I think I'll do this kind of snapshot once a month.

Autumn Cottage garden artefacts - From the top...

A Pheasant feather and a Collared Dove feather. A bracket fungus.

Two snail shells. A Whitebeam leaf, curled up by the heatwave. A Magpie feather.

Two more Pheasant feathers. Three Woodpecker feathers.

A decomposing Blackbird skull. A lichened and mossed twig of wood.

Aren't these small treasures beautiful? Even the Blackbird skull, which is slowly revealing itself. I will tell you more about that another time.

We've Got Butterflies...

...we've got birds...
We've got bean-plants in flower...

...but, worryingly...where are the bees?

We've seen the odd Bumblebee - and Buff-tailed bee, a wasp or two and even two Hornets (we seem to get one or two Hornets every year, and not yet, thankfully, the Asian variety...) but we have seen NO Honeybees AT ALL - and I am very concerned.

Maybe a local bee-keeper has moved their hives? Maybe the dreaded Varoa has struck? Or maybe, because of this drought, they are just not getting the flowers that they need to sustain them?

Parched, dried up Catmint, normally laden and humming with bees

I don't know. If it is the latter - I wonder if this will help? Two tablespoonsful of brown sugar in a jug of water, poured over some stones in a dish, so that any hungry bees or anything else (especially pollinators, please!) can 'fill up their tanks' and keep going.

In other respects, the garden is surviving - just - in this heat...

The Vegetable garden is looking rather different to how it was just a couple of months ago - thanks, in large part, to the man on his knees attacking the weeds! I couldn't keep on top of this garden without his help. The oil tank fracture 18 months ago put areas of the garden back a huge chunk; we could not but neglect parts of it in order to get other areas under control. But it is - and we are - slowly getting there.

April 2018
July 2018

We now have Runner beans, Broccoli, Rhubarb, Pumpkins and Mange-tout Peas all coming along; next year it will all be much better! (The perennial thought in the minds of all gardeners).

But still, I worry about the bees. If any of you, dear readers, have any thoughts or ideas - I would be more than happy to hear them. And - as always in the garden - you can find a glimmer of hope where you thought none existed. This is one of a pair of 20 year old Calamondin orange trees, which I foolishly left without enough protection over the winter. I thought they were completely dead, but did not give up on them. I watered them, and fed them and now, look - they are bursting from the base!

Miracles can sometimes happen - in the garden, I find they often do!

 

Water for the Soul

Fledgeling BlueTit, Great Tit and Blackbird - all down for a sip.

After several weeks of on-off illness, (Lyme disease - again!), treatment and too much enthusiastic gardening in the far too hot temperatures of the current weather, today I have at last 'given in' and designated today a 'Summerhouse Day'. So that is where I am writing from at this very moment.

I've been taking respite here in this shady, seculded corner of the garden for an hour or two each day, when it has been simply too hot to do anything else (We're in the middle of an English summer 'heatwave' - temperatures up to 30C, which is warm for this neck of the woods). But today I am setting up camp and only moving for food and drink!

I often describe this corner of the garden as my particular piece of Paradise…and I still hold to that. If being in Paradise is to live alongside and in harmony with all other Beings, watching the Wheel of the Year slowly turn, having the great luxury of time and the space to think and wonder about many different things, then Paradise is truly here, in this tiny, watery, cool and peaceful corner of North Hampshire, interrupted only by birdsong and a deeply welcome breeze whispering through the trees.

These photographs are my evidence from just the last hour…what do you think of my assertion?

Mr.Pheassie on his way down for a drink

...a quick check around

Sweet water...

Meanwhile, St Francis welcomes all...

Sophia bids you ponder your Inner and Outer Cosmos...

Eve's Apple invites everyone to take a bite of knowledge and learning!

Lord Buddha encourages mindful contemplation...

...and the many worlds of Being go on being, all around us.

Are you able to take a few minutes in your own days to stop, rest and think, Friends? I'd love to hear about your own special places and how your draw your own sustenance from them...

When The Beast met Emma

  Frozen times down at the pond...Brrr!

After the combination visit of 'The Beast from the East'* and 'Storm Emma'** there is a thaw setting in - for which I am glad. I have disliked the bitter cold (-7C and a freezing wind-chill taking the 'felt' temperature down to -11 here), but I have also enjoyed the element of 'shut-down' - suspension of normal time & activity patterns for several days. I have spent much of them either with my camera, peering out of the window or walking in the garden, or getting much thinking and working done here on the computer - which is in my office, the warmest room in my house for most of the day. So I have been able to tell myself that I have been 'sensible' rather than self-indulgent;  I have been guilt free at not doing other,  'proper work', as circumstances have dictated events!

It's also felt very cosy and comforting to know that we (fortunate, privileged we...) had heating and lighting, and the basics of bread, milk and cheese in store. The cupboards were full of pasta, rice and root vegetables and there were more than enough tins of tomatoes & chick peas and whole racks of herbs to be able to conjure up curries and bakes, stir fries and risottos for a week or two if need be. I had also made three batches of soups in the previous week, so there was a stash of 20 of those in the freezer for lazy lunches - very convenient!.

Root Veg soup making in process

I've also been getting great pleasure from the many animal visitors that have chosen to come into the garden during the cold spell. Lots of them always live on the margins, I know, but their hunger has drawn a lot more of them close to the house and less nervous of me when I go out to feed them.

Happy to see *two* Moorhens back in the garden

I could endlessly watch the comings and goings of all the birds. As always, the 'regulars' - Pheasants, several species of Tit, Blackbird, Thrush, Robin & Wood Pigeon - but also the more reticent Moorhens, and, during this freezing 'snap', both a solitary Redwing and another solo Fieldfare - both members of the Thrush family, but quite distinctly different.

Speckle fronted, grey headed Fieldfare alongside a Blackbird

Solo Fieldfare, the last at the table when almost dark

They are both birds which I normally only see as a passing flock in the Autumn - Redwings in particular seem to have Autumn Cottage Holly Tree marked down on their passage as a place well worth of a 'stop and strip'. But I note, when looking in the 'Bird Bible' - our old copy of Readers Digest Birds of Britain - that  during a hard winter, singletons or small groups can indeed be seen feeding with other thrushes in gardens.

The other visitor which popped in yesterday was the creature with which I have my biggest love/hate relationship - the Muntjac deer which plagues the garden, nibbling down the shoots of many emerging herbaceous flowers. Over this winter it has stripped a Fatsia japonica to a stump and chomped a Viburnum davidii (one with ribbed evergreen leaves, to be attractive in the winter) - also down to nibbled nubs. BAD Muntjac!

Our little Muntjac visitor, scavenging birdseed

The damning evidence! Chewed leaves on left...elegant whole ones on the right

But in freezing temperatures, when it is emboldened to creep up to the seed trays to nibble whatever it can find, how can I begrudge its efforts to merely stay alive? I captured just a couple of photographs of her yesterday (I think it’s a 'her' - difficult to tell as no horns at this time of the year and both genders have horns when they grow…), so as far as I am concerned, it has more than 'paid its dues' for food by posing so nicely!

The other visitor with which I have a fraught relationship - more for its cheek than anything else - is the resident Grey Squirrel, which carries out daily raids on the peanut bird feeders with impunity and costs me a pretty penny. I haven't even seen the squirrel in this cold weather, but I know it has visited - I found the evidence on the ground, next to the seed trays! Not unpleasant to touch and full of seedy remains that it had been guzzling. (Pretty sure it was that squirrel - though if anyone else has another ID - please say).

Squirrel (?) droppings - very dry, odourless and yes, I DID wash my hands afterwards!

Now that temperatures are rising we can all get out and about again. Supplies can be replenished, worries about broken water pipes, overflowing overflows and fears of floods in dark and hidden places are fading into the background. I'll be happy to see the springtime recommence its emergence - but I'm also grateful for what the harsh conditions (tolerable for a few days) gifted us, not least of all that reminder that we sometimes need that it is Mother Nature which is truly in control, how ever big we get for our boots in thinking it is ourselves.

I'll leave you with just a few minutes peek through the window into the wintery world of the last few days at Autumn Cottage. I'm happily looking forward to the sun and flowers of springtime returning again very soon - they ARE on their way and will be all the more precious now - watch this space!!

* 'The Beast from the East'- a climatic surge originating in a freak heating of the arctic, causing a deluge of freezing air onto Siberia - and from there to here!

** Storm Emma - an extra 'bendy' gulf stream flow, causing low pressure and a cold front to surge up from Portugal in the south.

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The sky pewter, still full of snow, which, after a few hours respite, is falling heavily again. Swirling in the bitter wind, it's laying down another pristine blanket on top of the already soiled and compacted slush out on the road, crusting up the verges, becoming a fine base layer for freezing the rain that is expected to fall tomorrow.

The garden birds were frisky yesterday - hopping and squawking, tiffing and snow-bathing. But today - and after several bitter nights, they just hang about, looking depressed and exhausted. The now-solitary Moorhen no longer bothers to scurry away when he sees me. He sits down, instead, alongside the tray covered in bird-seed and pecks in a half hearted way at only what he can reach. (Has his mate, who always visited with him, succumbed to the cold?).

The cock Pheasant is still strutting magisterially up from the bottom garden bed; the hens huddle separately, down by the summerhouse and only come to the feeder trays at mid-day to fill up before retiring again to the relative warmth of  piles of leaf mould and the convergence of fence and  shed wall which may give a modicum of shelter.

The cloud of snow is growing ever thicker. The afternoon feed - bread, cheese, sunflower seed, muesli - scattered on the ground and up on the bird table needs to go down and essential pans of water need to be topped up, now, before the already darkening day gets darker and the falling snow covers all.

As we eye each other

Fear and gratitude pass between us…

…we exchange our gifts.

Redwing