Although it's March, it's not quite spring yet, but something is definitely stirring out there. Of course some say that spring starts at the beginning of March and I can quite see that, but I'm going to wait for the equinox this year before I call it. It's not that we have had snow this last week - far from it, in fact. Today we had the hammock out for the first time this year, and pronounced it to be good. I had a lovely quarter of an hour, relaxing, covered in large cats, and for part of the time at least, watching a magnificent woodpecker in one of the walnut trees.
I did do some spring-like work in the potager, in that I got around to planting the yellow onion sets I bought a few weeks ago. Someone on one of the forums who is a bit further north than us talked about having their onion sets planted between the autumn sown broad beans, so that when the beans are done in June or so, the onions can let rip and use the nitrogen fixed by the bean roots. Someone else poo-pooed that, but on the forums you can normally find someone who will swear blind that black is white. Anyway, why not give it a whirl? The onions can't really do any worse than they did last year!!
The plants are certainly starting to get into the swing of things. The daffodils are coming out, although the more fancy narcissi are a long way behind, and the anemones I planted back at the end of 2021 are putting on another good display this year.
No trail camera images this week I'm afraid, but a distant view of a small flock of cattle egrets along with next door farmer's cattle, doing whatever cattle egrets do. I first became aware of them six years ago, when we went to Guadeloupe. There, people park a cow anywhere where there is a bit of grass, and then each cow seems to have up to a dozen attendant egrets. But now we have huge flocks of them in mainland France, some with more than a hundred birds, like a snow drift across a field. I gather it is a sign of climate change as they have moved north from Africa. They are lovely to look at but not right in the scheme of things.
I spotted something else that doesn't seem right yesterday too. I was looking at the ponds at the bottom of The Orchard - I am now the proud owner of a pond dipping kit and was checking them out, to plan my first play. I was hoping to spot a bit of spawn perhaps. I didn't see any spawn, but was pleased that the level of the ponds has risen a bit with the recent rain, although we need so much more as they are a good 6 to 8 inches below where they should be at this time of year. Then I heard a swish and a plop and looking across, saw the back and dorsal fin and tail of a rather large fish - when I say large, probably about 8 to 10 inches long. Naturally it took a while for me to remember to get my phone out to take a picture and it was too far away, but I got something anyway, as you can see. No, really! My bumper book of Freshwater Fish says it could be Roach or Rudd, but to me the bigger questions are how did it get there, why haven't I seen it before, what does it live on and will it survive?
Today from The Shack we needed to visit another property, to check on something, and the easiest route, or at least the route we took, went through the area devastated by the forest fire last summer. I got out of the car to take a couple of pictures and also a video. It was most odd. It was very quiet - no trees for the wind to rustle through, few birds, certainly many fewer than at The Shack, where they are raucous at the moment, and an overwhelming scent of pine, like someone had been spraying toilet duck around. I hope that in a few weeks plants will start to reappear, as the black ground is chilling to look at.
So that's it for this week - I'm not sure what will be on the menu next week, but am sure that nature and life will surprise me!
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