Catching Up...

I love the appearance of woodland flowers in spring - and one of my favourite flowers is the wood anemone.  I think it's so precious because it doesn't flower for long, and even when it is in bloom it will only open out in the sun, and it will close up again at dusk.  I used to think this little flower was a sort of bridesmaid flower, a prelude to the main event of bluebells that will soon push through the wood anemones and transform the ground into a shimmering blue. But now I look forward to the wood anemone in its own right; its presence indicates that a wood is ancient (in England a wood is ancient if it existed before 1600) and, crucially for me, the bees love it.  Fortunately, my hives are right next to a wood full of these flowers.

Elsewhere on the smallholding spring has arrived at last.  I've been ill recently; first of all with a lung infection and then on top of this I managed to get flu, so I've been in bed with a high temperature feeling sorry for myself. When I did come back into the world (!) I found that everything is growing and flowering, and the "summer" birds, such as Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and this Blackcap (below) are back in the hedges around the pond...



I didn't see my first butterfly of the year until last week, and now they're all over the smallholding...

The bees are everywhere, too, including this bumblebee I watched flying around the hellebores until it stopped and sheltered under some leaves for a while.  I like to think it was sunbathing...

I had my first real look in my own hives this weekend, and I found that I've lost a colony, the only one I've ever lost.  These honeybees were fine in early March, but the last few weeks of cold weather proved too much for them and they hadn't taken the extra food I'd given them. I imagine beekeepers who have kept bees for many years become used to losing colonies, and I suppose I will, too, but I'm sure it will always be upsetting to see the bees clustered and still around the queen.  I'm even more grateful, now, for my surviving "strong" colonies. 

The ducks are just starting to nest at last, although they seem to be laying eggs in barmy places.  Today, we found an exposed egg on top of a pile of mulch, and the female mallard dozing unconcerned right next to it.  Here she is later on drinking from an old bath we collect rainwater in to water the veg...

The swallows have just arrived back and are flying above, so I'm hoping they've noticed the barn as a potential site for their nest.

The primroses have been blooming for a while - and my bank of primroses (where most are growing in small clumps) is looking wonderful...

And other spring flowers are looking beautiful, too...

Meanwhile we've been involved in "maintenance work" on the smallholding; replacing glass in the greenhouse and putting glass in the cold frame.  I'm also really behind with my veg and flower seeds this year, so I've been sowing and planting like mad over the past few days.  This weekend I planted potatoes, spinach, and various flower seeds and I did lots of weeding.  It's typical; the year I decide to rely on seeds for almost everything - is the year I make a late start...

Will I ever catch up?

  

 

 

 

Red Deer, Spring Colour...and Sheep as Eco-Friendly Lawn Mowers



Imagine: It was a beautiful day yesterday, after weeks of cold, grey, snowy weather - and so I decided to take Harry, my border terrier, out for a long walk across the fields.  I had just crossed a newly ploughed field, when I turned a corner - and stopped - because there, standing silently beside a hedge, was this small herd of red deer.  We all stared at each other in shock, before I quickly looped Harry's lead around a post and took out my camera.  Fortunately, this was at the end of the walk, so Harry felt too tired, as well as a bit too small and outnumbered, to think about taking on a herd of deer just a few feet away....

I think I was helped, moments later, by the appearance of a tractor in the next field which distracted the deer.  That's why they're all looking away from me.  I was the lesser of the two evils.

In the end, the approaching tractor became too much for them, and they ran off and away from me across the field.

So, I decided, then, what I was going to do for the rest of the morning - and I took my camera out to look for wildlife, and spring colour.  I found this rhododendron bush...

And singing right above me was this lovely song thrush...



The bees are flying again (at last) and were out on the last of the crocuses and the hellebores.

Sheep as Eco-Friendly Lawn Mowers

This is about bees and other insects, too - because last week I read that a suburb in Paris is using sheep as eco-friendly lawn mowers on green spaces.  It's not the first time this has been used in Europe, but it is a first for such an urban area.  The idea behind this is that the sheep will replace insect-harming chemicals and polluting, petrol lawn mowers, and that they will promote biodiversity. It's often reported how sheep have overgrazed grass, but this initiative is about creating sustainable green areas.  Sheep will replace machines, and will once again be grazing amongst people as they always used to do. 

In addition to moving sheep on to green spaces, it would be fantastic if wildflower areas could be created, too - because then insects and birds, would really start to thrive again in cities, towns and villages.

After I read about the Paris sheep, I looked at my own three ancient sheep and wondered.  We've used them as eco-friendly lawn mowers for years to keep the grass low at the smallholding - and so it occurred to me, then, that I could hire them out.  They're too old and a bit lazy to wander off now.  They eat anything and are easily bribed with apples...

It's worth thinking about.