High summer

High summer, and the fields are already looking quite harvest-like - splashes of yellow among the darker green of the advancing year. I managed to get out for a walk this morning, first time in ages. Didn't get far, cause the exit from the field into wick lane had overgrown, so I had to walk right round the field (responsibly avoiding the growing barley crop) to get back to my entry point.
TS Eliot wrote:
'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know the place for the first time'
Well I don't think that's the end of my exploring, but I did get to know the field better, and met a few friends along the way.
I had to watch my step all the way, as the dry weather has created deep cracks in the ground. Not sure why they develop in a zig-zag pattern!

This little yellowhammer was quite cross with me. I think it may have had a nest nearby, as instead of flying away when I disturbed it, it sat in the hedge chirruping to warn me off - and posing for it's picture too, of course.

The picture below, although pretty unclear, is to illustrate a very exciting encounter. I heard a bird song that I didn't recognise, and looked up to see two birds on the branches of a dead shrub. One of them, this little man, was cleaning itself vigourously and singing all the while (bird version of the shower!), while the other, similar but without the red throat, looked on from an adjoining twig. I had no idea what they were but lightened the pictures when I got home and looked them up in my book - oo-er I think they are linnets - male and female. I checked with my local wildlife group and it was confirmed. Very exciting, as I haven't seen them before, and they are on the red list of threatened species.

There are lots of butterflies around this time of year, some looking rather tattered from their exploits. Today I saw a speckled wood, a meadow brown and a small white, all of whom posed for me - and a comma who refused to pose, but did me the great honour of alighting on my shoulder for a second or so - magic.

This little ladybird was all on it's own in the barley, climbing up the awls, flying off, then climbing up the next one - looked like a pretty fruitless exercise - but maybe it was just exercise - he looks quite porky! Well actually it looks like two ladybirds facing one another but it is just one, crawling up like a schoolchild up a gym rope.

By the time I had got back to where I started it was time for breakfast, so I postponed the rest of my walk till another day - hopefully this week if the printers is still quiet.

Heading home down Vernal Lane I managed to get a shot of a hoverfly on a spear thistle - not my holy grail of one in flight, but it's a start!

Blossoms and Bluebells

As the bird, beast and insect activity has hotted up this month, the weather has cooled down, and the summery weather of April has changed to chilly winds and risk of frost – May is the cruellest month this spring! The green beings don’t seem to mind too much though – the trees have most of their spring green gear on, and the garden and countryside is filling out again.

We keep adding more fruit trees to our little cottage garden, and now have cherries, crab apple, damson and greengage. The blossom has been gorgeous – nothing says spring to me so much as fruit blossom, and it is all the more precious as it is so fleeting. If we don’t take time out to enjoy the spring blossom we have another whole year to wait! Maybe we should copy the Japanese and have cherry blossom festivals – bit chilly for picnics in the park just yet though…

The bluebells too are ringing out their brief but glorious song. Another must in the spring is a trip to a bluebell wood. Our Cam Valley botany walks always include one such trip, and this year it was to Rush Hill Wood, a private wood on the edge of a golf course – by courtesy of the owner of course! Packed with bluebells, wood anemones and primroses, it is also home to the pretty rare Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia). The flower is very unusual, as the petals are quite inconspicuous and what stands out most are the reproductive parts. Maybe that is why it was used as an aphrodisiac! It has been used medicinally but is pretty poisonous, so it’s use nowadays is mostly confined to homoeopathy – Mrs Grieve says it used to be used in Russia to treat madness!

We have bluebells in our garden too, but they are the Spanish variety. You can tell them apart by the shorter, fatter flowers of the Spanish, and the fact that they grow around the stem, whereas our native bluebells grow from one side of the stem and have longer, more slender flowers. They can interbreed apparently, and so some people think we should eradicate the spanish variety – or maybe it’s like the red and grey squirrels, and the Spanish ones will take over. These immigration issues are not confined to humans! Should we become one big family melting pot, or isolate and keep our differences?...

Another plant we have in our garden now is Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus), courtesy of our friend Zoe. It’s a very striking plant and has beautifully-shaped leaves – be aware that it’s a strong coloniser though – if you have it in your garden you have to be vigilant with it’s offspring! It’s also fairly toxic, so maybe not one to have if there are children around. It has been used medicinally for centuries, and these days is mostly used by herbalists for liver complaints and externally for warts (the bright orange sap). One of it’s common names is Swallow Wort, presumably because of an old story about swallows using it. Medieval herbalist, Tabernaemontanus, wrote that swallows were seen to pluck off celandine leaves and rub them on unopened eyes of their young. This was then seen as an indication of it’s use as a medicine for eye complaints. I wonder if anyone these days has seen swallows do this!

Leaving on another birdy note, this pigeon wins the prize for best Obese Bird Impression!

Spring Walk

The last few days have been so lovely – perfect spring days that put a spring in your step and take the clothes off your back. Next doors bantam cockerel has taken to perching on anything he can find that will put him head and shoulders above his harem and display his supreme gorgeousness. Yes Foxy (for that is his name!), you are looking very handsome.

I took myself off into the valley to see what was about and what would pose for me – plants tend to be more obliging than creatures!

Walking past the mill alongside the stream I found a huge patch of Butterbur in bloom. The flowers look prehistoric and the leaves, which come out later, are enormous. They were used in the past to wrap up butter to keep it cool, hence the name. It has been used medicinally by herbalists both past and present, for such things as coughs, asthma, digestive troubles and migraine – but it contains a toxin so needs professional prescribing.

The other quite unusual plant I found just starting to bloom was Moschatel (Adoxa moschatellina). I hadn’t seen this plant before I came to live here, and it sent me scurrying to my wild flower book. It has the most amazing flowers that grow in a kind of cube shape, with four flowers facing outwards around the side of the cube, and one on the top facing upwards. This shape has given it the common name of ‘Town Hall Clock’ – a name that will puzzle modern youngsters in our town hall-less society. Even a tiny plant like this carries a wealth of history!

Apparently it has a musk-like scent, but I couldn’t get low enough to smell it.

The celandines and dandelions are really getting going now, and I saw my first dandelion clock – another clock-based name, were we obsessed with time in the past? We certainly are now so maybe some things never change, I daresay it is because our lives are finite. That reminds me of that childhood game ‘What’s the time Mr. Wolf?’ – I wonder if it’s still played?

As I was walking down the lane lined with celandines, I spotted something quite strange out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was a bee at first, because it had a fuzzy body, but its movements weren’t like a bee, more like a hoverfly as it darted about collecting nectar. Something rang a bell from a friend who had posted pictures of a Bee Fly on our local wildlife e-group. I looked it up when I got home and sure enough, it was a Bee fly – a first for me! It was difficult to photograph as it wouldn’t keep still and was very wary of me.

There are lots more butterflies around now that the days are getting warmer. The acid-yellow Brimstone is still about, and I spotted a Peacock and a Comma sunning themselves.

Another Comma came along and whisked the first one up into that amazing fluttering, spiralling upward dance they do.

Then something fantastic flashed by, bright white and orange – wow! Back to my book when I got home to find it was an Orange Tip butterfly – another first! Couldn’t get a picture alas so you will have to Google it (as I can't get the link to work now!)

Speedwell is one of my favourite flowers – I love all things tiny, and it has the most delicate heavenly shades of blue petals. There are a lot of different species and I have found two so far this spring – the Germander Speedwell and the Ivy-leaved Speedwell (this one has the paler flowers).
When I have figured out how to label the photos it will be easier!

Vegetable Plotting

This post is my contribution to the herbal blog party hosted at aquarianbath.blogspot.com - let's party!

Spring is coming on fast, the farming year is well under way, and our veg patch up at Laurel Farm is in need of attention.
E.B. White wrote, "Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace."

A lovely ideal, but unfortunately we do have to engage in the idle pursuit of earning a living – and so the veg patch is in need of attention!
So up to Laurel Farm to do some digging, and to visit the new lamb, surrounded by her Jacob family.

The lamb is a cutey, fiercely protected by her mum, the white cockerel is consumed with lust, running the hens ragged, and the pond is filled with frogspawn – mother nature has reproduction on her mind!

There are many different weeds on our veg patch, plants that particularly like cultivated soil, and as a herbalist I am torn by having to get rid of them, as they are so useful in themselves. So I harvest as many as I can to turn into medicines and mineral-rich wild foods. It’s a delicate balance!
Today we uprooted some dandelions and docks, and I took the roots home to make Dandelion coffee and Dock syrup.

I washed and scraped them, then chopped up the dandelion to roast in the oven, and boiled the dock roots, adding sugar and vinegar, to make an oxymel’.

D took a sip of it and made a most remarkable face, but I love it – bitter and sharp, great for the digestion.

There are bee hives too, at Laurel Farm, and I visited them to tell the bees about Cora, who passed away on Mothers Day. Cora was one of our villages oldest residents – born and spent all her life here, and was much-loved.

Telling the bees is a tradition dating back to Medieval times, where a designated "beespeaker" visited the apiaries to tell the bees about significant events in the lives of the community. It is still thought by some apiarists that when a beekeeper dies someone must inform the hives of her death and introduce them to their new keeper.

"Marriage, birth, or burying,
News across the seas,
All your sad or marrying,
You must tell the bees."

- Celtic Wisdom

Equinox!

At precisely 5.31pm yesterday springtime officially began - and the days are now longer than the nights - well thank goodness. The word on the street is that it has been a long long winter, and it certainly seems to have been a colder one than we've had in a while. I haven't been out walking much since our trip to Folly Farm, partly because my knee's been playing up, and partly because I haven't had so much spare time. February came and went!
We have had some beautiful sunny days this month, and on Mothers Day I set off with my camera to check the progress of spring. Though the snowdrops and crocuses have been with us for a while, I think of them as winter flowers, and my criteria for spring are things like daffodils, celandines, cleavers and nettles.
Down Wick Lane, past the Mill, through the meadow, over Stoneage Lane, through the New Wood and Little Scotland, and back home via Splott Hill.
I did find spring, but a later one than in recent years – is this because of the colder weather? The daffodils are very delayed, I found hardly any flowering celandines, and only a few dandelion
leaves starting to grow. Nettles and cleavers are starting to sprout, and mercury and wild arum are romping away.
The early butterflys are about, I love the acid-yellow Brimstone that matches the yellow of spring flowers – yellow must be the colour for spring. The bees are busy again after their winter snoozing – those that have survived anyway. They have been going mad about the crocuses, dusting themselves with pollen and packing their legs with big lumps of it. The other day a big fat bumblebee visited the print factory and bumbled around, presumably attracted by the lights, although one woman said it was her hairspray – is she or isn’t she? (you have to be quite old to remember this ad!)
The frogs are on the march too – but I only know this from the ones that didn’t make it across the lane. The traffic is so light into the village that either they are very unlucky, or there are a lot of them on the move at night…

A trip to Folly Farm, but first...

Oops, I seem to have repeated myself in the last post, let's hope noone noticed...must remember to review last blog before starting another.

The thaw happened very quickly, which was quite disconcerting! One minute a blanket of snow, the next a soggy mass of sprouting wheat grains - why do they put them in if the birds don't like them? Oh yes of course, they're cheap (no pun intended!). That's probably why our human diets abound with the stuff as well!

The car was stiff and creaky after it's enforced rest, so we took it on a run to Folly Farm, a wonderful nature reserve near Chew Valley. It's owned by the Avon Wildlife Trust and they have a centre there with all sorts of interesting and educational things going on.

We took a new path this time, up the hill past lots of newly-planted trees, till we came to a kind of escarpment. Over the top and wow! an almost 360 degree view, with Chew Valley Lake taking pride of place. There's a small enclosed area with a bench, and the two wind-blasted trees you can see in the picture. Near the bench is a stake with a chaps name on a plaque - can't remember the name, and not sure if it's just his name or his remains that are here - but what a wonderful place to come and remember one you have loved. And for him to have this view for all eternity!

More snow

Another three inches of the white stuff sent us scurrying down the hill to order some wood from the farmer - our coalman can't get through and fuel is running low...

On our way we met a bird and a tractor - or at least the tracks! I would love to do a time-lapse film on one stretch of road, to see all the different travellers - the snow reveals more than we normally see!

The garden is still teeming with birds - it's a birdie soup kitchen! We've been putting apples out for the blackbirds and have acquired a resident fieldfare who patrols the food and chases all the other birds off - especially the blackbirds, I think they are old rivals. He flicks his tail and dashes at them, when he is not neatly excavating all the apple flesh from the skin.