The Mouse and Her Child

After dark they are under cover

They know they can’t be seen

Apart from through the kitchen window

Meanwhile Dinah and her brood have three more days of family bliss (Bert is watching)

So where did April go then?

When March eases into April we know that some people start looking for signs of Spring. We however keep our eyes turned down knowing that mud, wind, frost and rain will be our just deserts. Now, as the month comes to an end, in our peripheral vision we glimpse greening tree buds and other signs that things may be afoot.

As May is the most perfect of months we enter it with trepidation because we need everything to slow down so each hour is as a day.

Through the rectangular window…

Seen while at the kitchen sink today:

A pair of Great Tits visit the feeder together – presumably she is not yet sitting, maybe laying somewhere?

We think we have five pairs of Blackbirds on our plot – their territories must be quite small.

As far as we can tell. the Nuthatch is still mate-less. He tries to keep his pecker up.

The Vole checks the coast is clear before visiting the feeder.

The Shrew likes to move fast

The Chaffinch tends to see off all comers

It is always a pleasure to see the Dunnock – a bird that keeps itself to itself

House Sparrows were once two a penny but are now a valued presence

The Wood Mouse, with its Disney eyes, is always compelling

Meanwhile, Bert dreams of… who knows what

April (snow) showers

We wake up to a sprinkling of snow on the hills

and some small offerings a bit closer

But despite the brisk northerly breeze, the sun is never far off

making the wallflowers glow

and highlighting meadow flowers

We are working to catch more of the sun down here

Simply a matter of moving a pile of surplus top soil

to build up a south facing bank behind The Lake

Keeping things flowing

As things hot up

We make some tweaks to the Green House irrigation.

We inherited some wooden benches and this year, as an experiment, added a low rim, lined with plastic, and then with capillary matting

Added leaky hose round the edges

controlled from a manifold

a short burst through the hose keeps the matting wet and then, as long as the potting medium starts off damp, capillary action means the pots and modules never dry out. If the bench accidentally gets a bit too watery then a bit of capillary matting hung over the side quickly drains the excess into a bucket

But… the slatted nature of the original benches

meant there was not guaranteed contact between pots and matting. So today we lay hardboard under the matting

to create a billiard table smoothness. (Obviously in the next version the hardboard will be under the plastic.

One advantage of this system is that every inch of bench space can be easily utilised

Pethan eraill yn y tyddyn heddiw:

Was a Sunny Day

Some of the things the sun shone on here today:

The Bees and the Birds

Sunny days

but when the sun goes down

chilly nights roll in

Dinah and family, after spending time looking at greener grass

make up a cosy bed

We make preparations to increase our livestock by about 50,000

There are queues at the bird feeders


with a lot of nesting activity underway
One wren has a home tucked into the side of the house

and the nuthatch gets excited as a mate might have been spotted

Work continues to build up a bank behind the lake

while life in the water continues to multiply

Indoor growing space slowly increases

and we get hints of luscious harvests ahead

Our experiment with growing some tomatoes from seed extracted from bought fruit has resulted in germination

and the greenhouse fills up with seedlings awaiting planting out

Beetroot already braves the outdoors

We are determined to keep track of tomato varieties this year so we know what we like

The compost toilet gets a springclean

Pethan eraill yn y tyddyn heddiw:

Seeing the world

We hear tell that in the olden days some people would “retire” and then spend their time “seeing the world” by travelling to many different places.

We have decided to spend out time seeing what happens on three and a half acres.

So some people may think we see the same things each day – no, we are looking at the same things each day but see something different.

The Vole who visits the feeder outside the kitchen window is becoming bolder, fleeting visits have developed into more relaxed feeding sessions

The Field Mouse emerges from the same gap in the heather – what labyrinth lies beneath?

Both of them are sometimes accompanied by one youngster – one! why?

The female Blackbird takes a break from her nest, slightly ruffled, to stock up

while the Hedge Sparrow bides her time

The Woodpecker visits most days but each time performs different acrobatics

We collect the eggs every day but we have dark ones, enormous ones and today – the Norah Batty:

We do a little clearing of Little Sheffield

and as a result Dinah introduces her litter to a new delicacy

Each day, the play of light on the opposite hillside is slightly different

We see the Pied Wagtails every day but, for some reason, seldom on a tree top

Our meadow is very much in its infancy but each time we look we can see something different

We have grown many tomatoes but for the first time we experiment with seed we have harvested from Tesco

Every time we look over the fence there are new lamb activities
The new born:

and the more confident:

It is a good job we are satisfied by small changes as excavating the internals of Zenith is an inch by inch process

but within the salad crops expand inch by inch daily

So, all in all, we are content to see what we can see right here.

Cutting and chopping and slicing

It has been a couple of sharp days. In a dark corner of the woodshed a pile of timber has lurked for a couple of years – product of some work to hold back the conifers that shelter us from the prevailing gusts. At last this has been converted to fire ready logs

but the chopping block has been left in need of redesign

When Doris blustered through a Eucalyptus was left prone. Today we started extricating it from the Laurel and Hazel on which it rested

winching out the branches

giving us a close up view of berries normally kept at a height

It’s neighbour was keeping an eye on us

We also get well peened

Scything the two-year meadow growth last Autumn (and Winter) is resulting in different growths this Spring


Now we experiment with scything patches for sowing seed to increase the diversity

Seeds are being planted every day

The lambs next door are up to number 200

Pethan eraill yn y tyddyn heddiw:

Bursting out

We are at the time of year when the first question each evening is “what has germinated today?”

Some seeds lurk under the compost for ten days or so before dramatically erupting

Last year we planted Chard – not sure why. It lurked and faltered and then burst into glory. We didn’t eat much of it – that would have been sacrilege. So this year it has a place of honour in Zenith, and today it raised its head above the soil

Zenith is being created inch by inch

as we hew out subsoil to create growing zones
So far it is keeping under the radar for slugs and other predatory beasties so that the leaves grow perfect and unsullied

A pot was stuffed with strawberry waste and, in Zenith, it does this

Down in the pig zone, the cock pheasant thinks he has found a bountiful territory

He wants to announce the fact

while his lady friend prefers to stay under cover

While seeds can burst from the soil, the horse-chestnut reaches upwards

and then expands

Pethan eraill yn y tyddyn heddiw:

and we can already taste this year’s aubergine crop