Rural Life

Time for flowers

While the wisteria (which we don't have any of) is now over and the roses are getting ready to explode, the range of flowers out there at the moment is quite stunning.  For lovers of a light, fragrant honey, now is the season of the (false) acacia flowers that provide the nectar for honey.  The trees themselves are a pain - they have many, very sharp thorns and they spread rapidly by suckering.  They are regarded by many environmental groups in France as an invasive, non-native species and you can get help to get rid of them, if you weren't responsible for planting them in the first place.  The flowering season doesn't last long, but while it does, there are huge bundles of these lovely white flowers to be see all over the place, and they smell nice too.

A more traditional flower, and one familiar to everyone is the elderflower - beloved of cordial makers and an essential ingredient for elderflower champagne.  I've made it a few times over here, but the pressure in the bottles needs to be released at least twice a day as it is warmer than the UK at brewing time, and then you wonder, what's the point?  With good Saumur fizz easily available and local, why bother to make a substitute? Of course if you are partial to a Gloucester gin (one part gin to 3 to 4 parts elderflower champagne), then you have to make your own.  We wait for the berries and make a rich and healthy berry cordial that keeps colds, 'flu and Covid symptoms under control.

The wildflower meadow is near its best at the moment and humming with insects - in fact insect noise is louder than birdsong at times!  The oxeye daisies are coming out, the pink clover is at its best, the yellow trefoil is vibrant and there are also pockets of knapweed.  In a week or two, the bee orchids should also make an appearance, and there may be a blush of blue linseed too.  It isn't easy to photograph but here is a best attempt.

At the top of the wildflower meadow and underneath a walnut tree, there is a patch of posh irises.  They are always the last of this type to flower, probably because of being under the walnut tree, and are dramatic with white tops and nearly black bottoms.  I keep meaning to transplant a few to somewhere a bit less hidden away, perhaps I will remember to this summer!

When we had to let Fergus the ginger cat go, we went looking for a ginger coloured flowering shrub to remember him by.  At the time we were looking, the only thing that was really available was a rather splendid rose called Orange King.  The first year it had a couple of magnificent flowers, but since then it hasn't done as well as I would have hoped.  Probably as I don't keep the weeds down around it as much as I should.  This year it looks like we are going to get a splendid display in about 5 days time!

Another promise of things to come, is my flowering turmeric.  For the last couple of years, Aldi (other discount stores are available) has sold pots of flowering turmeric as an ornamental flower in around June or July.  Last year I succumbed to a pot as it was discounted, and had it on the outside dining table under the awning as a talking point.  It did extremely well too, with lots of growth and flowers.  When we took the awning down and there were threats of frost, I brought it indoors and put it in the bathroom, giving it a bit of water now and then.  Everything died down in the winter, and by mid-April I was seriously considering doing a forensic search of the contents of the pot before ditching it.  I'm glad I didn't, as during the week, first one, then a second and now four shoots are coming up in total.  Once the awning is back on the pergola, it can go outside again, and we can talk about it and hope for as many flowers as last year!

The computer has vetoed the photo of the flower pot, so I leave you with a photo of bunting, as everything is better with bunting.  This is for the Olympic Flame which arrives in Baugé on the 28th May, and we are getting very excited about that!

As Sunday is Trout Fishing Day here in Vieil Baugé, I am having another go at delayed posting.  Let's see if it works!

 

There's lots around if you know where to look!

We might have had a log fire going last night, resorted to a local discount warehouse yesterday afternoon due to the rain, and be working on our tax returns today, again because of the weather, but actually nature is out there doing what she does and getting on with Spring.  Beating the bounds today before giving up due to the rain (have I mentioned it is a wet weekend?), we spotted a new orchid plant and location.  Because they have tuber-like roots, for many orchids, once you have seen them flower in a location, you know to look in the same place the following year, particularly if that location isn't subject to local authority or local authority contractor "maintenance".  So spotting this new flower on the opposite side of the meadow to its usual haunts was really pleasing.  I imagine the seed was moved around by badger paw.

Thursday was a rare fine day, although not particularly warm.  I was able to take advantage and plant more of the well chitted seed potatoes, so now there is just a final row of 8 or 9 to go in during the week.  Each time I passed a particular tree where we had put up a nest box, I was aware of a lot of chattering noise, so I decided to pause, lean on my metaphorical spade and watch.  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes a Great Tit went to the nest box opening to be greeted by a lot of squeaking and then silence as goodies were shared out.  Once one parent had gone, there was a short pause, then the other parent turned up and the noises repeated themselves.  Today when I walked past the box, all was silent.  I hope the babies were tucked up warm and safe.

On Thursday, the Meadow was humming with insects: it was so loud, it was hard to distinguish the different birds that were also singing.  I'm sure it made finding food easier for the fraught parents from the birdbox!  At the entrance to the Meadow, I met a slow worm, basking in the sun and trying to warm itself up a bit.  We have quite a lot in the area, but it was nice to see one, although I then had to make sure my accompanying cats ignored it.

It must be nearly a year since I invested in a pond dipping kit, and early in the week, while the ground was still too wet to work, I decided to have a play.  You don't get instructions with a pond dipping kit - I guess they think it is obvious, or if you are getting a kit, you know what you are doing.  My first attempt was therefore marginally successful and with lots of learning points - take a chair and a kneeler and some spare white paper, and only source water from one pond at a time being top of the list.  I needed more time and more stable surfaces and a chair to let sediment settle properly, to focus properly and to have a chance of seeing whether the elongated fast thing had a hook on its tail or not.  A better field guide might be useful too.  I was cheered to see that there are a lot of water fleas around, as they are at the bottom of the food chain and if they are there, then other things can be too.  I don't have a clue as to what the elongated fast thing was, other than fast and about a centimetre long.

There is a parasitic plant that can be confused with a bird's nest orchid, but isn't one of those.  It grows off tree and shrub roots but at quite a distance and has no leaves.  We found a lot of them on the eastern side of the Meadow this weekend, just starting to come up, and about 2 to 3 metres away from the row of fruit trees.  I've not seen them there before, so am not sure if it is a weather related thing or a problem for the trees.  Anyway, here is a photo.

While not totally unusual, the past few Mays have been warm and sunny, so this year's wet and cold version is not going down well with humans or cats.  So far this month we have had over an inch of rain and a bit of thunder and hail, and more rain is forecast for the next couple of days before a 5 day window of warm and nice - or that is what we are promised.  I hope "they" are right, as while the rain is keeping the water level in the ponds at a useful level for wildlife, everything else is getting a bit miserable.

Have a good week!

 

This late April is weird

Each of the last 7 months in France have been the warmest ever recorded for that month.  It is highly likely that April will continue that dismal record, and yet it doesn't feel like it.  While the first half of April was warm, extremely warm at times, it continued the wet theme from March, but then it went cold.  There have been frosts, although we've not noticed much (up too late to catch the signs I guess), but very limited rain and temperatures rarely over 12 or 13ºC have halted or limited growth for some things, while others have carried on regardless.  In 3 day's time it will be May, yet the canopy at the One Acre Wood is quite sparse - chestnut is always a bit slow and one of the oaks in the picture is dead, but it doesn't feel right.

The lower growth is coming on nicely and we have a crazy oak lawn situation in places, so there is a nice green haze at ground level however.

We are into orchid season, and while it is too early for the lizard orchids, the lady orchid is looking better this year that it has for quite a few seasons.  There are also magnificent early purple orchids if you know where to look (mostly road side verges unless they have been mown).  One garden we know also has what are variously called spider orchids or fly orchids - not as pretty as bee orchids but similar to look at.  These seem to be out earlier than usual this year.

Over the next thee weeks I will no doubt drive myself mad trying to get the best possible photo of a bee orchid!

John likes the unexpected, so he was quite happy when I looked out of the bathroom window on Thursday morning and went downstairs to tell him that there was a ****ing great duck wandering around outside.  Too large and too stupid to be allowed on the public highway on its own, Quackers the Doose (too large for a duck, too small for a goose) was herded into next door's garden and a suitable notice put on the community Facebook page for the owner to come and remove their livestock.  Someone clearly took notice as by Friday morning, Quackers was gone, leaving just a few photos and an intriguing memory behind.

In unrelated poultry news, the Economic Migrant shuffled off her mortal coil this week - we think she was about 4 years old and hadn't laid an egg in about 12 months.  I feel guilty we don't have a photo of her!

So I have been through the videos from the trail camera that came in last weekend prior to being re-sited.  I messed up in that when checking things were working in mid-March, I managed to turn off the video function, so there weren't as many files as I would have expected, and about half of them were of me walking past in one direction or another.  There were a small number where something had clearly run past quickly so that while there was a photo, there was no accompanying interesting video to enjoy.  Then there is a rather dull video of a badger walking away - once you have seen one badger's bottom wiggling as it wanders off, you have seen all you need!  The main antics of interest were the deer, so here are two daytime videos of a couple of does and a nightime video of a stag being a bit boy-like.

 

 

 

During the coming week I hope to do a pond dip in the upper pond to see what might be living in there, so next week there are bound to be fuzzy photos of disgusting small water things.  I will also have finished and analysed the April bird recordings, and hopefully I will have planted more potatoes!

Have a good week!

 

Spring flowers

With the move into March, meteorological spring has now started and we can talk about flowers and buds with joy.  One of the least showy, but most successful spring bulbs round our way are grape hyacinths - you can't stop them it seems and they spread.  These window boxes must have been planted up with bulbs at least 7 years ago, and not by us.  We do nothing to them, and we certainly don't water them through the summer, yet each spring they produce a magnificent display to cheer us up on even the wettest and coldest of March days.

Daffodils can be a bit tetchy, coming up blind if they aren't treated with a bit of respect or if they are too crowded or if the weather isn't to their liking.  This year they are looking rather splendid.

One flower we never seem to have problems with are cowslips, with rosettes turning up everywhere and spreading across any green area they come across.  Later in the season, the mutants will start to flower, with orange and red flowers.  I believe that there are specific names for those, although I do wonder if they are the result of cross-pollination with the polyanthus that are in every garden.  For the moment we are just seeing the early yellow flowers of cowslips however, which are very lovely and a welcome sight.

The hedgerows are white with blackthorn and wild plum blossom, which is gorgeous but makes me worry for the cultivated plum blossom that will arrive soon.  So far only the peach is starting to flower, but that is quite well protected and always early.  Fortunately the Victoria Plum is not showing any sign of thinking that blossom is imminent, but the mirabelle style plum in the Meadow is a bit more optimistic.

Periwinkle can be a real thug, particularly in the wrong place, but in the Orchard it has to fight for its place.  I do love the blue flowers, and prefer the green leaves to the variegated versions.

There is another type of flower that needs my attention at the moment - the sort that is used to decorate the village float for the Comice.  It has taken a while to get a Comité des Fêtes reinvigorated, and a theme agreed for the float, but now that is all sorted, it is all hands on deck to make flowers, ready to be stuck on during May and June.  With 14 willing participants, the first session on Thursday afternoon went really well and was a very convivial event.  We have a way to go though.

There are two trail cameras placed around the ponds to see what wildlife is passing through and next week I will bring one home to check through.  While I have been without a camera, I have used a different technology to see what is going on, this time focussing on bird song.  The Merlin App by Cornell Labs (others are available) sits on my phone and when there isn't too much wind or noise of motors, I can get a view of who is making a racket around me. 

You do have to be a bit circumspect as I am pretty sure the bittern it thought it detected was actually a motorbike misfiring across the valley, but with so many small birds being hard to spot with all the vegetation, it is an eye opener.  The list of 47 species below are all those that have been picked up at least once by the app since the 1st January this year.  I have doubts about just two on this list - the green winged Teal and the European Turtle-dove, but the rest have made enough appearances for me to be confident they are, or have been, in the zone.

Brambling

Carrion crow

Cetti's Warbler

Common buzzard

Common chaffinch

Common chiffchaff

Common firecrest

Common Wood Pigeon

Crested tit

Dunnock

Eurasian Blackbird

Eurasian Blackcap

Eurasian Bluetit

Eurasian Green Woodpecker

Eurasian Jackdaw

Eurasian Jay

Eurasian Linnet

Eurasian Magpie

Eurasian Nuthatch

Eurasian Siskin

Eurasian Skylark

Eurasian Wren

European Goldfinch

European Greenfinch

European Robin

European Serin

European Starling

European Turtle-dove

Gray Wagtail

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Great tit

Green Sandpiper

Green winged Teal

Hawfinch

House Sparrow

Long-tailed tit

Mallard

Marsh tit

Mistle Thrush

Redwing

Reed Bunting

Ring-necked pheasant

Rock Pigeon

Short toed Treecreeper

Song Thrush

White Wagtail

Wood Lark

Anyway, that is more than enough for you to think about for the moment, so I leave you with an image of a small mud slide on the road near the Orchard, because, yes, it has been raining this week!

 

Just an average February

February can be a rough month - if you are older than about 18, there is no real excitement, and certainly by my age, Valentine's Day holds no thrills any more.  The weather can be lovely, sometimes for longer than a couple of hours, and it can be vile.  We had some sunny intervals today, but it was blowing a hoollie and while it went some way to drying the laundry, things are now hanging all over the bathroom as there was a heavy shower.  We must have had an inch of rain in the week, and while that has done good things to the water levels in the ponds, we didn't actually need it.

During one of the nicer hours of weather, I managed to scramble round onto the deer path at the back of the second pond, to get a whole different view.  The pond is clearly leaking water somewhere, so while I had those lovely big fish in there last year, I can't see the pond ever being able to support 10 to 12 inch long fish again.  I'm not sure what has made the pond leak, but I'm sure the environmentalists will tell me when they visit in the spring.

With the longer days, the chickens have more time to consider their raison d'être, and one (I'm fairly sure it is Jacque the Ripper) has started to lay eggs again.  She is pushing out 6 per week, which is nice and enough for a meal and an addition to a pudding but I really need Mack (the Knife) to get back into the swing of things too before I can put away the egg box I take to the market on a Saturday.

I've decided we need to work our way through the leeks we have been growing, not least so the land can be prepared for other crops in the spring.  I lifted 4 rather nice ones and a runt - I could have done without the feline assistance, but Donald made it clear I had no choice.

I have a regular walk to check out all edges of the land and see what is going on.  There are little cul-de-sacs that I go down to check on the various ponds, that are like little spurs off the circuit.  One bit we always go past is a large walnut just uphill from the ponds that seemed to die last year.  It has a number of broken branches held up in the canopy - what the arborists tend to call widow-makers - one of which came down during the week.  While John tidied it up, I looked at another branch that appears to be long dead and needs to come off.  It was well festooned with rather unpleasant fungus.

Last night we pretty well finished this year's truffle fest - there is just the truffle infused camembert to eat up.  They were very aromatic, but the quality was a little patchy.  It was the first time storing them in rice and then using the rice in a risotto has really worked for me, so that was a real plus.  However the stuff going on in life in general has perhaps made me a little less inventive than normal.  It's been very enjoyable, but I hope to do much better next year.  Truffle and prawn risotto is always a winner though!

Anyway, that's all for this week - have a good one!

 

Merry Christmas and all that jazz

Finally it is Christmas Eve.  The winter solstice passed in murky conditions on Friday, but the day before I found a lovely big clump of mistletoe in one of the apple trees - something just right for the Solstice and for Christmas as a pagan symbol of renewal and mystery, and a thing to be avoided in UK pubs over Christmas due to all the kissing.

On Friday night we had our quiet drink in the pub for the end of the week - actually it was heaving, which is a good sign.  We recognised a couple of people, but not many - also a good thing, as the new landlord will need to bring in customers to make it work, and many of those we know in the area are old or work very hard during the week and don't have much money to splash.  Long may it continue (fingers crossed).

Much of the week has been dull and murky, but Wednesday was nice, as is today.  I took advantage on Wednesday and had a wander around the lanes of Baugé, admiring old cottages, weird walls, a plaque showing where the Huguenot temple had been in the period between 1625 or so and 1685, when being protestant became illegal again.  That was the moment many refugees headed for east London, to set up their silk weaving businesses in the Spitalfields area.  Anyway, the plaque is pretty well illegible, but the Tribunal is clear of scaffolding this Christmas, so there is a photo of that instead.

On Thursday we dug up the first of the frosted parsnips, to give away for Christmas dinner - we will dig ours up tomorrow, so they are as fresh as possible.  The tops have looked very good all year, so we were excited as to what we would find.  The first one was big, but there was a small top near it, which I dug up as well and was pleased that it was also a good looking specimen.  I had to cut the bottoms of the roots off, but they were pleasingly long, given our clay base for the soil.

Before today I have marzipaned the cake, the pudding is made, the foie gras is cooked, the shopping is done, and all that remains for tomorrow is a ritual offering to the Oak Tree, digging up carrots and parsnips for us and cooking the festive bird (a locally raised duck).  That meant that this morning we were entitled to play, particularly as there was a bit of wind.  We dug out the cheap kite we bought four years ago, clipped the crossbar back in and spent a happy half hour flying it in the Meadow, while not falling down the badger's set entrance.  Mr Banks got it right, we reckon!

So, may your kite fly high and not get caught in trees, may your gravy be without lumps and your Christmas pudding ignite with the first match.  Have a wonderful Christmas!

 

Summer has arrived.

There is a massive and stable high over the British Isles and a depression in the Mediterranean, and in between, here in northern France, we are enjoying summer conditions, and have been doing so for two weeks now.  It's good for the hay crop but not so good for germinating fodder beet I gather.  It is actually marvellous at the moment for getting seeds to come up.  Last weekend the big excitement was the hourly popping up of new butternut squashes and courgettes, while this weekend the excitement is over jalapeño chillies.  Over at the Plot, heritage carrots came up in a week and parsnips are showing their first seeds leaves after two weeks, while nearly half of the sweetcorn sown last week is now up.  All this makes me feel very good.  In addition, the roses are fabulous - here is a magnificent one called Orange King, bought as a memorial to a much loved ginger cat.  Last year it had perhaps 3 rather dingy flowers, this year it is amazing!

The wildflower meadow is now definitely past its best, with the oxeye daisies nearly over, the linseed gone to seed, the pink clovers done, the pretty orchids mostly faded and the lizard orchids taking over in their rather dull fashion.  In a couple of weeks, we will need to think about mowing the meadow to keep undesirables at bay (old man's beard, bramble, small cherry trees), spread the seed from this lot of flowers and allow a better growing environment for the late summer and autumn flowers including field scabious.  At the moment, the knapweed is still pretty spectacular where it is to be found, and some late bee orchids provide a bit of interest in the shade.

The trail camera has had its batteries boosted and I have spent some time starting to go through the downloaded files - but it takes an age to work through the video files to decide what is worth keeping or not, and I have to be in the right mood.  There was no doubting that this rather nice clip of Woody doing his thing in the spring was worth keeping!

There was a pretty definitive viewing of the coypu too - he has a look to my mind of a stuffy colonial colonel wandering around chuntering to himself, but perhaps I am influenced by the old Animal Magic series and thinking what sort of voice Johnny Morris would have put to this fellow.  

It is always a joy to see the hare, and with the long evenings and the current placement of the camera, you do get some rather sweet close up videos such as this one.  That nose!  Those ears!

I think this is also a hare, but the eyes are a bit different.

Other old friends (fiends?) are back in the zone too - our chums the boar are back and making a mess in one of the ponds.  The pond with the fish, so I would prefer it if they didn't make too much of a mess, those poor fish have enough problems to cope with at the moment!

Again, rather nice photos as the light was good when they were passing through at 8:45pm one evening.  I'm glad I wasn't there to see them, but then I guess they wouldn't have come through if they thought I was there!

Anyway, it is time to enjoy a summer afternoon in the garden under the abri, as we spent time getting the cover out, mended and installed for the summer yesterday.  Sing along to the Kinks - Lazing on a sunny afternoon, in the summertime!

Until next week....

 

Something weird happened during the week

The first I knew about it was when I was walking down through the Orchard, admiring some newly appeared bee orchids.

I thought the long grass looked a bit odd and assumed that either young badgers had come out of the set and had been dancing around, or that the local boar had been through on their way to dig up a neighbouring field.  But then I found other evidence that had nothing to do with pigs or boar or badgers.

So I carried on down to the ponds, and there found a lot of the shrubbery had been pushed around and broken and someone had been wading in my pond!

I doubt the fish were happy when it happened, and they aren't happy now, as there is so little water available for them.  I am hoping to get someone in, to get them out, and transfer them to a deeper pond.  I will be sorry to see them go of course, but I don't think they will survive the summer in our pond.

Yes, some neighbouring heifers got bored, broke through the single strand of electric fence, followed the path the hunters take, and gambolled in the Orchard before being taken away again (the wire has been reconnected it appears).  As far as I can tell, there is no film or photo of this episode on the trail camera, as it was pointing in slightly the wrong direction, but I will be checking when I download all the files, as it is home to have its batteries recharged.

In the meantime, here are two different hares passing through.

Have a good week!

 

Lovely flowers - both wild and cultivated

Last week i said that if I remembered I would focus on flowers, including the wild orchids that are doing the rounds at the moment.  The early ones are starting to fade, the late ones are yet to get into their stride and the middle ones are coming out nicely, so let's start with a few of the wild things.

My favourite of the lot is the bee orchid - nearly impossible to spot until it comes out, once the rosettes of leaves are hidden by other things, and it doesn't like the competition of the full on wildflower meadow, but on the edges of mown bits (and if we had rabbits and sheep to nibble things, on the edge of nibbled patches) there can be quite large clumps.

A garden that has been not exactly neglected, but which has seen fewer people visiting it than normal has a veritable lawn of orchids that in previous years we have identified as fly orchids - not as pretty as the bee orchid, in fact a little bit sinister, they are also a lot rarer.

The lady orchid is a fairly classic pyramid style orchid, with quite dramatic variation in colour on the plant itself - empirical evidence from the meadow says that they are spread by badgers running past them, although I'm sure that can't be right.  The three we have are all on a badger path however, so that's how I see it.  This one also has a bee orchid beside it.

The lizard orchids are not yet doing their thing - dramatic but not as pretty or delicate as these.  The wildflower meadow is probably at its peak at the moment, full of ox eye daisies, knapweed, pink clover, the last fading flowers of linseed, and bits and bobs of other things, including orchids where a path has been mown, and comfrey dotted around.  At the moment it is humming with insects too, but the main reason for leaving it a while yet before we mow to allow new things to come up (scabious, more pink clover, etc) is that hares and deer will leave leverets and fauns in little nests in the long, lush greenery while they go out foraging.  The leverets won't move when they hear a mower and are often too small to be seen, while the fauns become disorientated.  It's best to wait a month or two!

Today we went out to the garden centre Jacques Briant - normally I am not allowed there with a bank card, as the plants are so lush and lovely and I buy way too many.  Today we were on a mission for one of John's clients and found their requirements pretty easily and reasonably priced too (this is not a cheap place).  As we had done well with those, I was allowed to splash out on some obscenely bright petunias which were actually quite reasonably priced.  But as we headed to the check out, we went past a place with single pots of petunias, but special ones and I could not resist this one, which actually looked like it was covered with glitter!  Now to find a pot to do it justice and keep it away from the evil vampire slugs that are out and about at the moment at night!

Two of our regular and reliable perennials are out and putting on a fine show at the moment - the wall based campanula that seems to be rooted in a bit of dust in the wall, and the red hot pokers we brought over with us 19 years ago from Worcester.  Actually they are from the allotment next door to ours, and I've always adored them.

So that's it for this week, but next week there will be more tails of the hares to share with you, plus news of anything else exciting that is going on.

 

 

Not staying on top of things

I set off on my glorious adventure to the UK something like two and a half weeks ago, and I have been home for a week and I am still chasing my tail trying to catch up on all fronts.  I've not downloaded the lovely photos of the Broads and my visit to the UK, I've not written up my notes from my visit, I've not caught up with all my clients in France, I've not planted all the potatoes yet, I've not got to grips with the garden or the window boxes or the fridge or planning meals or anything.  I feel totally inadequate! 

Yesterday we did do the village "vide grenier" or car boot sale, so actually getting anything sorted out for that was a last minute effort, and we didn't have as much stuff on display as perhaps we would have liked.  But we were there!

Actually it was probably rather a good thing that we didn't have too much stuff out on display, and certainly no books or clothes.  That was a deliberate choice as the weather the day before wasn't brilliant.  Even so we got rid of some big items, although we did feel a bit mugged by two wee munchkins who cut down our ticket price on a cauldron by 50%!  Still, when the rain came, it was heavy and quite long duration, so it was good we didn't have fabrics other than the table covering.

We hung on for another hour, but there were no paying punters, so we legged it early and were able to spend time drying everything we hadn't sold and putting it away carefully for next year.  

The trail camera has moved and been installed on a track used a lot by the local fauna.  The grass around it was very long, so there has been limited action, although a nice bunny did pop up one day.

Rather less appealing and also rather less welcome was a suspected sighting of a coypu.  As we are desperate to keep the water in the ponds to support the 5 rather large fish (plus the army of noisy frogs and the ducks), we don't really want coypu digging into the banks and potentially draining the pools into the ditches below.  They are also a non-native, invasive species that really has no place in France, and certainly not somewhere where there is very little water held in the wetland anyway.

A much more welcome visitor was this Red Admiral butterfly I found yesterday sunning himself after a shower.  My Dad used to make up stories for me about a Red Admiral and a Painted Lady, which I am sure had a subversive subtext.  It is a shame I can't remember any of them, and that he didn't write any down as far as I know.

We had a visitor of a different sort today at the Garden - easy enough for me to hear, as I was having mud smeared over me by a cat, but it wasn't until it was nearly overhead that John heard it over the noise of the rotavator and through his ear protectors.  The Air Force still use the local airport, even though little else does nowadays, and this looks like a pretty heavy cargo plane - possibly one used for refuelling others in flight?  I'm sure someone will tell me!

We also went for a walk around the One Acre Wood to admire the lily of the valley, see some wild medlar flowers, and be enchanted by the veil of green that has crept up on us.  It was rather sadder to see that a number of the large chestnuts have not survived some very difficult growing conditions.  First it was the new invasive wasp that targeted sweet chestnuts, and weakened them by growing its young in the leaf buds.  Then the plot next door was clear felled about three years ago, changing the light and drainage patterns.  Then last year's drought and fierce heat, and finally a dry February all seem to have contributed to a number of trees having no leaves at all this year.  While good for our heating needs, we have to hope that cutting down the dead trees will encourage new growth from the boles, as many are several hundred years old.

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I don't know if the last photo will come out when you read this - but I really can't bear trying to reload them all again!

Finally here is a purple orchid we spotted in a ditch near the wood - they seem a bit late this year, and I am observing the progress of the bee orchids as I think we have a problem!

Until next week!