Rural Life

Traveller's tales and wildlife videos

Apologies for not posting last weekend, but I was away in the Broads, visiting the Broads Life Festival at Beccles Quay.  When I would normally write this blog, I was actually attending the final performance of the commissioned piece, Booming Voices, by Eastern Angles theatre company in a large marquee by the quayside.  What an excellent and friendly festival it was.  There was enough to do and to look at to keep me occupied on the Saturday and the weather was magnificent.  The Wherry Maud and her pop-up museum were there too - a lovely day.

The photos below are: the results of a dyke dipping day, nicely displayed in a three layered viewing tank and with lots of lovely water thingies; the Chet Boat - a reconstruction of a mediaeval boat discovered on the River Chet, and the original (now in York) dates from about 1350 or so, the reconstruction made by the International Boatbuilding Training College at Lowestoft; and a general view of the Festival site.

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Well that all went nicely wrong and it is too hot and sticky to fix it - so the Chet Boat photo is a totally different size, but is not that much more important than the other two!

From the Broads I went over to another favourite place - Shropshire, and more specifically the Marches Mosses.  There is a new bird hide at Sinkers Fields near Morris Bridge on the Llangollen canal - I'd been prepared for it to be well appointed, but hadn't expected it to be so beautiful.  The Mammoth Tower also has its tusks attached now, which it didn't have when I last visited in November 21.

Both structures are paid for by National Lottery Heritage Fund and LIFE.

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All that travelling meant that today was my first chance to see what had been going on by the trail camera - I will ,move it again soon, but it is doing jolly well where it is.  The 7 videos that I link to are just a flavour of the activity that has been going on.  The badgers seem to have drifted off at the moment, but the hare and/or rabbit is a new and regular visitor, while the piglets are just so darn cute!  There is water nearby which may be why there is so much activity at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parent boar really are rather scary and there are a couple of photos that are the stuff of nightmares!

This could be a hare or a rabbit - difficult to say without a good look at its tail and anything around to get a feel for its size.

These could be pheasant or partridge young - normally I would say pheasants on the basis we hear a lot of them around, but John and a cat put up a flock of a dozen or so partridge during the week, so I'm hedging my bets.

 

That's it until next week!

 

Flaming June!

Yes, June is here along with meteorological summer - the one that starts on 21st June is yet to come.  Of course as soon as we get to June, the weather starts to go funny on us.  Actually we have escaped the worst of it - the major thunderstorms around the area have produced 3 and 4cm hailstones, antediluvian rain, and odd squalls of wind.  We have amassed about 15mm rain, which has dampened things down a bit, though not as much as we might like.  The rumbles have been quite dramatic, and we now know that we have one cat who is scared of thunder!

The heat brought on the courgettes nicely - only 5th June and I can see male and female flowers developing!  It has brought out a magnificent flower head on one of the yukkas.  It also made this morning's labour possible - we did a bit of turning then pushed in 20 wiggle stakes and threaded them around with green metal grills and finally I sowed a borlotti bean for every upright wire in the fencing grill.  It looks a bit odd now, but we hope that in 8 to 12 weeks it will be covered with bean stalks and lots of pods of delicious, stripy borlotti beans.

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The trail camera has had an exciting week.  I choose not to share images or video of John doing the rounds with the big yellow beastie, keeping the paths open, but from the gallery of photos below, you can see that it has been quite busy for other things!

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And there's more!  As you might expect, there are videos to go with some of those images - baby boar really are adorable!

Mum is being quite protective.

 

And then there is badger action too.

 

All that cuteness!  Enjoy!  There won't be a blog next weekend, as I attend the Broads Festival at Beccles Quay and also go visiting the Marches Mosses on the Shropshire/Wales border, but there should be some different and interesting things to tell you about from both of those when I do my next update on the 19th June.

 

Variety is good

What a varied week!  Last Sunday was Trout Fishing Sunday in Vieil Baugé, organised by a fishing group and the Comité des Fêtes.  There were perhaps 80 rods, and most seemed to go away happy with a catch or three.  The fishing group also provided baguettes with pork belly or sausages or paté (strictly carnivore!), while the Comité des Fêtes, with whom we volunteer from time to time, ensured that no one got dehydrated through lack of access to beverages.  Some may have got dehydrated from the volume of red and rosé wine consumed, or beer, but that was their own look out!

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We have picked all, and eaten most, of the broad beans so today it was all change in the vegetable garden.  The Aldi aubergines are doing OK, so two had their plastic cloches removed as they had grown too big.  The Year 2 potato bed now has aubergines, butternut squash, cabbages, parsnips, sweetcorn, haricot beans and radishes sown or growing in it.  Elsewhere we have mangetout peas, more butternuts, courgettes, garlic, shallots, onions and parsley.  The last crop to go in will be next weekend, when we sow the borlotti beans, which need nice warm soil to germinate.  Our learning so far this year is that sunshine doesn't always mean warm soil, and gardening on a slope is "interesting".

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The trail camera is doing sterling work as a log camera, and things are taking less notice of it, and carrying on in their daily life.  There are videos this week, but one thing that was captured as a photo only was a passing hare.  This animal terrifies the largest of the garden cats, and a full grown hare is indeed a large animal.  This is the best the camera could do.

So, on to the videos.  There are four for you this week.  One is an atmospheric - well, let's face it, blurred - view of a deer passing through in the morning, when the dew settles nicely on the lens.  There is night time feeding by deer and by badgers, and the boar are back, this time with a darling little piglet, which moves very quickly.

 

 

 

 

My homage to the Cannes film festival!!  Have a good week!

 

Heatwave and drought

It's broadly official now, with 40 days at over the seasonal average temperature, and pretty well no rainfall since early April - it's a heatwave and it's a drought.  There are water restrictions and even the farmers are mostly complying with them.  Lawns look parched unless overhung by willow trees, in which case they are lush and green and long.  Anywhere else and they are turning yellow or brown, apart from the weed flowers which happily rise above it all.  I think the drought conditions have really done for the bee orchids this year - there were so many rosettes in the winter and early spring, but not enough moisture to let them push up flower spikes.  Those that there are, seem a bit stunted to me too.

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Temperatures have gone over 30ºC a fair number of times in the last two weeks, and while we can strip down to shorts and skimpy t-shirts, the cats can't.  They are doing a good effort of shedding fur whenever we touch them, and actually as desert animals probably cope a bit better than us in the heat, but they are seeking comfy places to sleep this out.

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The plants are doing their best, with late evening watering for things in pots.  The butternut seedlings are ready to go out I think/hope.  They seem big enough to cope with being nibbled by any snails mad enough to break hibernation seals and come out and about.  The chilli seeds are coming up - given the weather, they might seem a bit late, but we are only 3 weeks into May and are actually on the early side.  The cheap rose I bought at Aldi shrugged off the greenfly, after judicious application of soapy water, and is now in flower, while the single red hot poker that I have nurtured in a pot, ready to plant elsewhere, is now out.  Another bit of colour, this time by the front door, comes from the pinks we got at Jacques Briant, and I finally potted on into something sensible a couple of weeks ago.

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The trail camera has moved - after getting 500 photos and 500 short videos of moving grass seed heads, it was clearly time for a change.  Currently I am trying it at a sort of crossroads between the Orchard and the Meadow, and as there are no handy trees or fencing poles there, I have it on a piece of willow log, rescued from a work site.  I only managed to check it once before today, and have evidence that it has been investigated by the badger family!

This week's blog is early.  The weather today is hot, so we aren't going to feed the cats and put water around until a bit later.  Tomorrow (Sunday) we are spending from midday or so, helping out on the beer and sandwich stand at the village trout fishing day.  Next week I hope there will be lots of jolly photos from the event, but I know I won't be in a fit condition to sit in front of a computer and write about it tomorrow evening.  I expect my ankles to be the size of footballs!

 

Garden critters and lovely blooms

It is so very hot and dry at the moment - lawns now look as one would expect in late July, and I am watering stuff every evening in the hope that I can encourage vegetable seedlings and get a few strawberries too.  The roses are loving it however.  The ones by the house but on the road, with full southern exposure had to be cut back pretty seriously before the chimney was worked on, but seem to have loved the brutality, and have come back strongly.  We bought the bicolour rose, but can't remember the name, it is strongly perfumed, while the yellow blush rose was here before us, so again not a clue!

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The red hot pokers are at about their best now - these are some that we brought with us from Worcester, and originally had in front of the house by the yellow rose, but had to remove about 16 years ago, when we had works done on the walls, so we put them round the back.  I love them, but opinion can be divided!

In the evening, after watering things, I walk up the path opposite the house to look across the valley of the Couasnon.  There is maize planted at the top, so in about 3 weeks or so, I won't have a view, but while it is still short, it is good to see big skies.

In terms of garden critters, I rarely see the useful ones - apart from this spider, defending a water butt - as the slow worms, toads, grass snakes, thrushes and hedgehogs are very shy.  The less helpful ones are frequently seen.  We speculate as to why the haricot beans haven't germinated, but I do wonder how much of that is down to them being rolled on by large cats!  The butterfly is neither helpful nor unhelpful, it is merely beautiful.  You will probably need to click on the photo to spot it though!

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The trail camera came home for TLC, in part as the grass and foliage has grown up around it, and yesterday was windy so there were 500 photos and films of waving grass and other plants.  In among all that dross were a photo of a deer in a place I didn't expect to see one, and a couple of daylight photos of badgers, along with an early morning film of a badger heading for bed - they have a turn of speed when they want!

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Have a good week!

 

Blooming May

This week it's all about flowers - we've had no rain since the 24th April and while there is still a fair amount of moisture around, the forecast is for a hot 10 days, which will fry things out rather.  There are water restrictions here already, which should stop any watering between 10am and 8pm, but you still see the vast water jets on farms, which doesn't sit well when gardeners are being told that only vegetable plots can be watered and then only "reasonably".  I think if you have planted new trees during the winter, there is also generally a derogation for that, but no watering established shrubs or borders, no watering lawns, and no filling swimming pools (yeah, right, like people are going to obey that one!).

On the cultivated flower front, we are in my favourite season - irises!  The selection below are red from our garden, mauve from the Chinon garden, black and white (well, very dark purple and white) from the edge of the wildflower meadow, and Dutch irises from by The Shack.

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Then there are the things that are cultivated, or sort of cultivated, such as the campanula, the semper vivum baskets that are starting to overflow (although not strictly flowers, they are quite magnificent I think), the mix of self-seeded forget-me-knots and purple flowers which might be phacelia, and the deep red poppies that also spread themselves around from last year's display of bee-friendly flowers.

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The wildflower meadow is really getting into its stride and you can see the masses of white oxeye daisies, while around the area there are great fountains of false acacia flowers, humming with bees.  If you sit near a group of these, you can even smell the honey - acacia honey is very popular, very pale and not strongly flavoured, assuming you can find single variety honeys.  L'Or de la Ruche in St Martin d'Arcé makes a particular feature of the different types of honey based on what was flowering near the hives, be it colza, sunflowers, chestnut, acacia, meadow flowers or summer flowers.

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The first couple of bee orchids are out, and I am particularly pleased with this photo of one.

Sunny weather, flowering meadows, a feeling that summer is really on its way all add up to one thing - a need for ice cream.  This year one of the local farms has opened a creamery to sell milk, cream, cheeses, yoghurts as well as its headline product - ice cream.  It isn't cheap, but it is very good!  We are working our way through the flavours.  The vanilla is long gone, but we are currently on Rum Raisin, Pistachio, and eeking out the most amazing chocolate one.  What will I buy this week???

Have a good one!

 

Sunshine and badgers

Happy May Day - and apologies to those in the UK as I gather the weather isn't too great - here it is lovely and has been for a while.  Sunshine, gentle cooling breezes and blue skies, which of course also means hosepipe bans and water restrictions.  It is the earliest I remember there being a ban on watering non-essentials using well or tap water.  Fortunately we have stocks of rainwater, and vainly hope that it will rain sometime soon - the earliest forecast is for around the 13th May!!

The sunshine does mean that there are some lovely things to photograph at the moment - distant chateau before they disappear behind foliage, but are nicely framed by green, orchids (although the bee orchid season will start soon and I'm sure that will get boring), lizards, butterflies, tadpoles and a vide grenier (literally empty your attic - the French version of a car boot, and all day affairs).

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The wildflower meadow is really coming into its own, with oxeye daisies, linseed, and bright pink clover - the bee orchids will join in shortly as they seem to go well alongside the clovers.  We mowed a trail round, so that you can walk round without worrying about treading on something precious or getting too many ticks on your clothes, as the hares and deer also like the meadow.  You can't take a decent photo of a wildflower meadow really, as the camera can't work as well as the eye for taking it all in.  By contrast, I show an area by the fruit trees where we haven't mown, and nature is springing back with all the "best" things in life - nettles, mares tail and bramble.

We now have aubergines planted out under individual mini-cloches and some lettuce under protection from cat bums - I am hoping the resident thrushes will do the needful with slugs and snails as I found this year's well used anvil.

Anyway, I also said something about badgers.  We moved the trail camera to near the set in the hope of getting a sight of cubs at dawn or dusk.  For the first few days there was no action at all.  Then a couple of days ago I checked and there were lots of files, although on my phone they didn't look like much - but I downloaded a few photographs and a couple of videos anyway.  Away from sunlight and with a pair of glasses, I could see there was actually quite a bit of action, so today I downloaded a further random selection and there is quite a lot of activity.  The following five short films show the hunt for food as young cubs need sustenance, all done at night.

 

 

 

And finally...

Have a good week!

 

 

Getting serious about food production

I had intended a week of intense sowing and planting and weeding activity - well best laid plans and all that, something else came up, but having said that, we aren't doing too badly.  The first 27 potatoes I planted at the end of March are now all showing above the weed suppressant mat, while some of the second batch of 18 are also showing signs.  The final dollop planted last week won't show for a while yet - or so I assume.  The rows of garlic, shallots and onions are doing OK despite being rolled on from time to time by itchy cats - the shallots look very vigorous while the onions are slowly starting to show growing shoots.  They went in rather later than the shallots and have suffered more from cat attentions and being picked out by birds. 

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The broad beans all now have pods set, and as they have stopped flowering and are starting to show signs of blackfly, I have taken out the tops and they can concentrate on filling out those pods.  The speedy cabbages aren't really proving to be that speedy, despite a month with a cover on them, but are starting to look more convincing now, while the radishes sown among them will be ready this week, particularly if we have a bit more rain.

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Today was really devoted to sowing.  I carried on cleaning up the rotavated potato bed, although we aren't planting any more spuds.  Instead, while investigating my seed stash, I found an old packet of purple mangetout seeds, so I bashed in three poles, surrounded them with three former tree guards, and sowed a circle of peas around each.  I finished off that bit with a dense row of very cheap parsley seed - either they will grow, or they won't, we wait and see. 

John rotavated a bit of the potato bed from two years ago, cleaned it up a bit and spent a happy while sowing half of a cheap packet of dwarf french beans and half a packet of radish (18 jour variety) seeds.  If even half the seeds we sowed today come up, we will eat well in between 3 and 10 weeks time!

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The wildflower meadow is getting ready to burst into flower, so John took the opportunity to mow a path around the edge and along the line of fruit trees.  At the edge, under a cherry tree there are two early orchids flowering beautifully, but the main show of bee orchids won't start for two to three weeks yet.  The lizard orchids are starting to send up spikes, but they will be in full splendour in three to four weeks.  In the meantime, the ox eye daisies and clovers will put on a magnificent show, while the field scabious prepares to take over from them.  The better soil of the garden has a wonderful undercurrent of deep blue speedwell in it, while the bathroom orchid has finally bloomed again.

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Not much activity on the trail camera front this week - well lots of activity but too speedy for anything interesting.  The badger passing through was the best shot.  The camera has moved on - we are hoping for film of young badgers putting their noses out of the set, but realise it is a long shot (in every sense).  There was an Easter Sunday Excalirock festival at our local pub, so we went along - great to see people out and about again, and to enjoy the punkabilly of D-Track - a local group of people old enough to know better, but who are really energetic and fun.  My camera just about managed a photo of that, but wilted at trying to get a video!

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Have a good week!

 

Time for a little sunshine

Storm Diego is now mostly a distant memory although he left odd pressies for us to find, like this willow that snapped off about 8 feet above ground.  What is on the ground has now been chopped into useful (40cm) lengths ready to move when a bit of sap has gone from the wood, while the top (not shown) is still in the lake, waiting for a more powerful tractor than my mower to pull it out.

The top bit also provides a bit of shelter and sustenance for the tadpoles, which are now around in profusion.  It may also stop them getting headaches from the sun, you never know!

There is a lot of colour at the moment, although the tulips are starting to go over.  The tree peony is out again - at this stage last year, it then got shredded by hail stones, so I hope to enjoy it a bit longer this year.  The cowslips are nearly over but the various orchids are starting to send up flower spikes, or in the case of the lady orchid, just flowering where it slumps - very lazy.

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Remember, you can get a better close up view of the photos if you click on them - assuming you want to, of course!

As well as riots of colour, there is also the small question of procreation.  Shrubs are full of rutting sparrows, while those who got it together rather earlier are building nests and collecting food.  The cuckoos are out and about - we hear them call but don't ever see them, and, whisper it softly, I've seen a swallow or two!  And it's not just birds, frogs and toads that are getting it on, the masonry bees are at it too.  These are large, dark electric blue, solitary bees; well apart from a short period when it takes two to tango.  And they can do it in flight or while sitting on pear blossom - that one can fly on its own is sort of against the laws of physics, but that two can fly together is pretty amazing!

Yup - the photo metadata is wrong.

So what has been happening with the trail camera this week?  Well, lots of short films of the same bit of scrub at night, sometimes with heavy mist, sometimes nicely crisp, and no real clue as to what set off the camera.  Perhaps there is a ghost that haunts the green lane nearby.  But today's video, because yes, there is a video link, is a rather lovely short bit of film of a passing deer.

I do think it should have eaten rather more bramble than it did, but there you go.

Happy Easter - shame the camera didn't spot the Easter Bunny!

 

Four seasons in a week!

Last week I complained of frost and we had more of it too.  Now people get very upset by sharp frosts and imagine the worst and want to remove anything that might have been affected as soon as possible.  I find it is worth waiting a bit.  While we know that there will be no early season figs - the hint is that the tiny fruits and the leaf buds are black, brittle and horrid - I'm not giving up yet on plums, peaches, pears or apples.  Some still have blossom and the flowers are more hardy than the tiny fruits, while until the tiny fruits fall off, well, you never know!  Apple and quince are just coming into their own - quince has to be the prettiest blossom!

Last week I was upset as the honesty seemed to have been affected by the frost and I expected it to collapse and go black.  Not a bit of it!  Today I was admiring it and I can not remember ever seeing better!

So we have had winter frosts, spring showers, summer sunshine and autumn gales this week.  Storm Diego rattled through on Friday, bringing heavy rain, strong winds even inland and bringing down power cables.  He blattered our broad beans which are looking a bit sorry for themselves, but I hope will pick up tomorrow in the sun.  This afternoon we had a picnic tea in the Garden in lovely sunshine.  In Canada, April is considered the cruellest month due to extremes of weather (and the Canadians really do extremes of weather), but that may become the new normal for us here in Western Europe too I guess.  Last night we had a dramatic sunset to add to the mix.

It's been a quiet week on the trail camera front - just one fuzzy bottom of what I think is a boar passing through.  I will move the camera somewhere more interesting soon.

The orchids in the Orchard and Meadow are starting to rev up to flowering, well one has a well developed flower head, while the lizard orchids are looking more and more like they are preparing for world domination.  It is actually the time when the bee orchids go discrete prior to putting on their delightful show in May.

However one of the domestic orchids is putting on a fine show of three flowers.  For some reason I find it very difficult to take a good photo of them all, but here is one bloom.

Today the French are voting in the first round of the presidential elections, and we can only watch in envy, not being citizens and not having a UK vote either.  The news services keep giving an update on the turnout so far - last time I looked it was close to 70%, some 4% down on the same time five years ago.  It is a worry as there are some real nutty candidates, some with truly offensive policies.  In many ways the real campaign will start tonight at about 10pm when they are 95% confident they know who the top two candidates will be, having seen off (possibly) the nutters.  Fingers crossed!