Another cold, miserable, dank, late autumn/early winter day, and again so hard to get motivated to do anything!! However after lunch, duty called. John went off in one direction to see a client, but failed to extract money. I went off in another to feed the Boys in the Country. All four turned up quickly and the tin of beef and carrot chunks in gravy disappeared with a lot of slurping noises. I've tried recording it, but it is the stuff of nightmares. I'll spare you for the moment (or until I work out how to transfer the sound file in). Once all the bowls were broadly clean, I put on my wellies and went out to beat the bounds - it was not a day to sit down for a love in. I found a few raspberries clinging on and the couple I ate were very tasty!
Further down on my wandering, I found I had missed a last courgette. The local slugs and snails hadn't, so I decided to leave it, as slugs and snails are food for my trusty toads that also live down that way. Just one small one wouldn't make a meal for us anyway!
I then went round the other two plots, escorted as ever by at least one cat, to make sure all was safe and secure. The badgers hadn't been out since the last rain (which would have been this morning), so there were no traces of them.
While we have perhaps between two thirds and three quarters of the wild flower meadow under control, there is still a chunk that needs to be got back from bad scrub. If you leave rewilding to itself, essentially you end up with invasive scrub, which is great for brambles, mice, rats and other stuff, but doesn't favour wild orchids, the plants for butterflies and doesn't seem to be popular with the badgers either. Next year we will try to claim back another 10 to 20 meter deep stretch of the meadow.
Finally, with a nod to the Festive Season, I share the progress on growing the brussels sprouts for John's Christmas dinner - they are small, but they are there!
Like that they even look faintly appealing to me!!
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