Some Wildlife

Today, much to our relief, we spotted some toad spawn in the pool. February is the usual time for us to see them here and last year we had toad spawn in early Febuary and saw lots of toads around. This year, however we had begun to worry as we had not seen the usual writhing mass of mating toads on the gravel nor any toad spawn!!



So we are pleased to welcome them back again!

Also the other day I saw a Green Woodpecker eating on the lawn...we get all three sorts of Woodpecker here but Green Woodpeckers are usually heard rather than seen ( they are the ones who make the "Yaffle" sound in the trees!)

This is a photo I took of one in the same place in the garden last year, as I didn't have my camera handy today!

Earth Hour

"Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

About Earth Hour
On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities participated in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby."


Did you join in??

Did you switch off lights and any unnecessary appliances from 8 pm till 9 pm on Saturday night??

WE did !!!

Here is the woodburner at 7:59 pm...


and here is the same view at 8:01 pm


We were all off here except for fridges and freezers....I liked using my home made candles and the aromas I added gave it a nice atmosphere...and the wood burner was lit, with nice clean glass...so we watched the flames.... had a bottle of wine, ate a nice dinner, watched the flames from the wood burner, listened to the cat snoring !

ah watching the flames......













compostmiss gave up her usual electric nightlight in her bedroom tonight so as to be part of it...

The view from my bedroom window.

This is the sight I am lucky enough to see when I look out of the bedroom window in the morning!



It is so beautiful here, birdsong, fresh air and nature all around. I feel SO blessed to live here!!

A nice cup of tea and a sit on the wall

I have not been feeling too well the last few days, I have some kind of " wobbly legged, feeling achey all over and headachy" sort of thing and have not been able to do much in the garden .

So I pottered around in the polytunnel in the warmth, watering the seeds, the early veg and both the overwintered and newly acquired garden plants.







I have been Freecycling for plant bits and bobs, also have attended a few charity plant sales recently and have been given various stuff by friends, so I have LOTS more new plants to put in the garden. I think I am viewed as a sort of Rescue Home for old plants!!


I spent some time thinking about where I am going to plant the latest shrubs and herbaceous perennials and summer flowing bulbs I have accumulated over the last month or so.








I also sowed a few more trays of salads, some more leeks and tomato seeds and flower seed for my cutting garden.

I then was given a nice mug of tea by compostman, and sat on the west facing wall outside the back door to drink it.

The late afternoon sun shone on my face and a skylark was high above me in the sky singing for all its worth. Bliss!

And this was what I was looking at as I drank my tea.






It was very peaceful and I felt real contentment with life.

A hard day in the garden!!

Have been very busy today planting spuds...

Well, planting more spuds I should really say!! I have already got the 1st Earlies and 2nd Earlies in the ground and yesterday and today I got 3 rows of Maincrop in...A really nice waxy salad potato called "Nicola" and a row of "King Edward"






Compostman dug over the ground for me and then I made some trenches and dropped each spud in a hole in the bottom of the trench, with some organic chicken poo pellets and some grass clippings ( they help prevent scab)



I then tucked the spuds up nice and warm with a good covering of soil....



Unfortunately Henny and Ginger thought all this was purely for THEIR benefit and came along


and rather destroyed my nice earthing up ridges of soil in between the trenches, but hey ho...never mind...I can rebuild them. I think perhaps it is time, though, to fence the hens out of the area of the veg plot I have planted up....





Every year we grow enough spuds to last us From late June/early July until the following May... so we only buy potatos for about a month or so every year.

But last year we lost virtually all our Maincrop harvest to blight ( oh what a suprise, after all the wet weather !)

We had to start buying potatos in October!!

So I am really hoping that , this year
a) The weather is better
b) Getting them in a bit earlier will help if we DO get blight again
c) I have spaced the rows out even further AND lets a larger gap between each spud within the trench, so hopefully more air can get in between the potato plants.

Fingers crossed!! That all this will help and once again we will have a decent harvest.