Last week I was a few hours early posting, before heading off to tend bar at the village Trout Fishing Day. This week I am a day late after being one of a handful of stall holders at the village PTA car boot sale. In between there have been all sorts of excitements with a poorly cat, a septic tank issue and wild orchids - it's hard to know where to start and what to include! Perhaps at the beginning, with a picture of a lovely sunny day for trout fishing?
Yesterday was rather a contrast, dull skies, rain in the night, a third of the booked places not taken up due to the weather and few punters for all the goodies spread out for their delight. We did alright during the day in terms of large and/or heavy items sold, as well as a lot of smaller stuff, but the heavy rain at lunchtime scared off buyers, and while we hung in to the end, we did little business in the afternoon, despite lovely sunshine.
There is nothing exciting about septic tank inspections, so I will gloss over that, other than to praise highly the integrity and helpfulness of the local inspector, who tried her best to approve things, but where they couldn't be approved, is helping us to find cost effective solutions for my client.
Much more exciting is that the bee orchids are finally putting in an appearance, possibly stirred into action by a very small amount of rain at the start of the week. They have mostly cropped up in or very close to the recently mown path through the orchard. This kind of confirms my view that bee orchids need either grazing animals to keep the grass down or a simulation of that (mowing) in order to push up their flower spikes. They don't much like competition and it seems long grass and tall weeds are not their friends.
Another orchid related excitement was the discovery of a new (to us and to the location) type of orchid, this time relatively happy in the long grass. I've not had a chance to look it up yet, but it is some form of pink pyramidal orchid. I've not seen any like it in the area, so I'm not sure how it arrived, and John says it is nothing to do with his mowers!
Early in the week I met the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen in the rough grass in the country - large, and on some level rather disturbing. Way back in the 70s there was a Dr Who episode called something like the Green Death, which involved giant maggots, and I have been iffy about maggots and caterpillars every since, particularly that size! The Peugeot key fob gives an idea of scale. I hope it grows up into something nice!
As we head towards the end of no-mow May - something I rather disapprove of in general - I thought I would highlight how you can do it sensibly. Make nice wide paths that are kept mown through the area you are interested in. This has been particularly a thing with us this last week, as it is a bumper year for tics and we are picking off a good number each week from the Country Cats. One of the cats has developed anaemia and the vet thought it was entirely possible that this was due to the number of tics he has picked up. The blood tests to diagnose the problem were costly, although not as much as if we lived in the UK (expensive is relative I guess), and there is a prolonged course of medication and a long way to go until he is back to full Spooky Power.
And here is the anaemic patient in his cat carrier at the vet's - Spooky the indomitable.
So keep checking for tics - you and all your loved ones!
Well, that is it for this week, and it promises to be a quiet week so I should be back to the normal schedule next week. Have a good one!