Going back a bit and catching up with the garden

I seem incapable of keeping up with my blog - in a way maybe it's a good thing that I have too many photos from too many outings to get around to sharing. Makes a nice change! Truth be told I haven't been in the mood for sitting at the big computer processing photos, and I've been out working in the garden recently and whilst I'm in the mood for that, that comes first.

A few photos of work in progress in the garden:

This has been a nightmare - weeding around my currant bushes, which hasn't been done for about two years and so the creeping buttercups had got everywhere, and there are other plants just inside the fence too which I wanted to keep, so it's taken me hours on my hands and knees hand weeding. But it's now done!

Corner shady bed having a partial revamp.

I've some older photos here I wasn't going to post but I liked the photo of the wren and didn't know how to fit that into another post. So here are a few taken way back in March when we made our annual visit to the Marais de Sougeal, which is a water meadow which is purposefully flooded in late winter and is an important stopping off point for migrating water fowl. As usual all the birds are a long way away, although this time we caught the Marais just as the water was draining and there was a nice selection of birds, and some not as far away as usual. We could also get to the newest hide which is actually inaccessible when the water level is really high - duh to the planning of that one!

There are always a lot of Pintails here.

What was that I said about never seeing Canada Geese here? This is a first I think for us in France. There are abundant in the UK as they have been introduced, but as we are not that far away I guess sometimes they fly over the channel!

I tried to get a bit closer as this is shot from the footpath, but they weren't having any of it and wandered off to safety further away.

Do you spy the distant Great White Egret? We saw a fair few of them this spring; even on the way to the supermarket twice we saw one standing in a field near a lake! And another time we saw a flock of them in a field near a lake, including some flying towards them which was great to see.

Yet this is supposed to be their distribution in Europe! It's the map at the bottom and blue is their overwintering distribution. Now my book is 20 years out of date, but I checked a recent book and it hasn't changed. I'd say they need to update both Little and Great White Egret distributions as they are becoming more and more common here in Brittany.

On the way back to the car we were rewarded with this Wren quite close up, however I only had time for two snaps before it was gone.

Some phone photos here from the day we went out shopping to get me some new 'fat' jeans and trousers - having an impromptu lunch afterwards. I enjoy applying different filters to people and flower photos to get fun effects. :-)

We don't see Herons by the pond as often as we used to - they would hang around often when there were baby Moorhens around as they make great Heron food. This was taken through the kitchen window and is at the far end of the lake.

A baby Blackbird having a preen and demanding food.

A Thrush (Mistle Thrush?) - yup I still can't tell the difference!

In the garden all is pretty now it's blossom time. This ornamental cherry by the pond has looked fabulous but its time is so, so brief.

Another photo given a bit of treatment.

Forget Me Nots - it's their season now and I love how they self seed and appear in amongst other plants with a lovely touch of bright blue.

It's been bluebell time here for a while too and although they are thugs which take over somewhat they are so pretty - here with Euphorbia characias.

Aquilegias are starting to bloom - here with bluebells in the background.

And eating cherries are now in full bloom; with the lovely weather we are having at the moment their blossom looks fantastic.

Here's a little video I took with my phone yesterday. I only discovered there was a video on it recently, when I was looking at a photo I took of my hens and I could swear I saw the hen's bum wriggle. Thought it was my eyesight then I realised I had taken a 1 second video by mistake! Duh, the words Smart, Phone, and Mandy do not go together. :-)

I don't know what happened to the quality of that video - I tried to show it larger but the quality is rubbish - yet it views larger on the computer much more clearly. I didn't bother with YouTube but just uploaded directly from my Mac. Oh well. :-( 

I still have moths to share, not to mention a four day MoHo trip....... will try to get it together but as we're off to England next week (and gazillions more photos will be taken) don't hold your breath! :-)

Who lives in a house like this? and Mandy has a new toy.....

Buggy things first as there are not too many of them at this time of year. My OH brought this in for me to have a look at. He found it on an old plastic chopping board which was out in the barn around his work bench. I don't know who might have made it, but I'm guessing a solitary wasp? Any ideas? It's about 2cm wide, and I was very pleased that my new toy made a good show of photographing it.....

Yup I've joined the 21st century and changed my ancient but very cute clamshell mobile phone, which was from before the days of even cameras on phones, for a smartphone! Talk about shock to the system. Now I don't use mobiles much at all, and my real reason for wanting one was so that I could take snaps of things whilst out and about (not that I go out and about very much) and upload instantly to social media. Or take photos of the cats looking cute and share on facebook without having to get up off the sofa. And I was feeling really left out that I could not join Instagram just because I didn't have a smartphone. I still don't think that's fair, even though it seems like all the world and his dog have smartphones already, so there's nobody else but me feeling left out.

What was great about the deal I got was that it only cost me about €17 because we had so many supermarket fidelity points saved, that cashed in came to €150! So I don't feel guilty now for spending on something which isn't totally necessary.

I hadn't been in the mood for taking photos lately but I had to try this phone camera out, didn't I? It's so hard to use though - it has a fair few semi manual settings which can be used (it stays on f2.2) but it's hard to do all that with your finger when you are not used to it. And to tap on the screen to take the photo whilst trying to hold it steady, and point at the thing you want to shoot, and keep it in focus - my god, how do you guys do it? The image stabilisation must be great in this camera as it did a good job I reckon, as I was waving it about all over the place! I have edited some of these photos a little bit but mostly crops, contrast etc. It's not bad for an 8MP camera.  Oh and I discovered quite by accident that it even has a zoom. Good grief, modern technology is amazing!

Here you can see where I've been attacking the ivy at the base of the trees, and a black cat wanting to be in the picture.   

I was really surprised to see the Mirabelle plums already blooming a couple of weeks ago!! They are normally in blossom mid to late February.

I'm still in hack, slash and burn mode in the garden. I'm not out of the woods yet (hoho) and I don't have much desire to do many of the garden jobs that need doing, but I am happily going out in the afternoons, in most weather, to attack brambles and ivy. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with that, but it all needs doing anyway and it's better than staying indoors doing nothing. I tried taking a photo of them both, plus whippy saplings, but they don't show up much. This is just the other side of the 'beach' area of the pond but you can't see it from here, because of the undergrowth.

I am enjoying liberating tree bark, however if it is not covered in ivy it is covered in lichen! :-)

Guess what's finally finished flowering? Yup those nasturtiums are going into the compost bins now - yet the calendula and borage are still alive, albeit the frost killed off their flowers. The plant that surprised me though is feverfew, as it doesn't seem to have been phased by the frosts at all and the flowers don't look any different.

Also wanting to flower in the jungle is a self seeded PSB! That'll be eaten soon.

I had to show you Keith's carrots. Because he is a bit heavy handed when sowing seeds (well he has big hands) and they didn't get thinned much, they have come out all sizes as they were growing so close together. It makes it more fun when digging them up though. There is a bit of root fly damage now but not too much.

Up against the house wall here is the new heuchera bed which was all I had the energy to deal with in the autumn. It's the bit with all the snowdrops in it. We pruned back the huge old yucca and I dug out tons of weeds and replanted loads of snowdrops and some early narcissus bulbs in betweeen the new heucheras. Two of the heucheras have even sent up flower stems which is just more of the odd weather craziness! Piles of snow dumped on parts of the USA whilst Rennes airport recorded almost 17C/62.6F the other day. Mad. But I'll take this over the snow.  

The other bed is a work in progress as it had been taken over by creeping things, both weeds and 'real' plants. I have a couple of new purple heucheras to go in there along with other things which will be replanted.

The hedge guy has been and I wonder if he noticed my asparagus bed..... luckily there are none shooting yet, because it certainly needs some tlc.

Harry wanted to help...

Just a pic to show how the ivy has spread even up the house end of the garden.

Oh and Bertie wanted to have his pic taken (he didn't really, he was busy grooming himself, but I got lucky and snapped at just the right moment when he looked up as I called him).

There is no hope for me now! :-)

If any of you are on Instagram you can find me there, follow me and I'll follow you back, although I've only posted two photos so far, so my home page or whatever you call it doesn't look very interesting. Yet.....

https://www.instagram.com/chateaumoorhen/

Belated blossoms, bugs and bees from April

I've had a really rough week healthwise which I'll explain in a separate post; for now though I want to post these photos that I managed to sort out during one relatively good morning when I was actually able to sit for a bit!

Of course everything has moved on since I took these pictures during the latter half of April and I don't have many more yet, as the weather has been naff - I didn't mind three straight days of rain as it's good for the garden, and it's certainly really lush and green out there. It also keeps the stream flowing into the lake which I always want to stay full for as long as possible. Hopefully with some warm sunny days coming soon (and the end of the awful wind which makes photography really hard), I'll be able to capture what the garden is looking like now. It changes so much this time of year!

But for now, those photos. There are lots of them, but as I haven't posted any for about a month I think I'm entitled to!

Apple blossom in the orchard. Not so sure about a good apple harvest
now as the weather turned wet whilst a lot of the trees were in flower.

Eating cherry blossom on the left and ornamental cherry double blooms on right.

Think this is one of my three eating cherry trees! They were loaded with flowers.

Hard to get a photo of my neighbour's wonderful ornamental
cherries without either swings or perimeter fence in the way.
That's my Smokebush Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' in the foreground.

The big old cherry in full bloom whilst the green tree in the foreground
is my greengage which had finished flowering.

Cherry again with Euphorbia characias in the foreground.

There was a reasonable showing of buds and some flowers on my Forest Pansy this year.
This is Cercis canadensis, the Eastern Redbud.

They don't all open up into flower though, but it's better than a
few years ago when the buds just kept dropping off!

There's not much left of this lilac by the pond as much of it has died off.

Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) is everywhere in my woodland at the moment -
look carefully at the pic on the left and you'll see a male Orange Tip butterfly!
I love these flowers as they last for ages.

My second biggest oak tree looking pretty with fresh young leaves.

Some of the front bed, weeds and all (can you see the dandelions?!).
Thankfully most weeds are smothered now by Forget Me Nots!

Same area which has been taken over by bluebells in the thyme bank,
which is looking better now that the brown dead bits that
I couldn't prune are disappearing under new growth.

Some spring photos look positively autumnal!
These are some of my purple or dark leaved shrubs, and golden ones too.

In the veg patch before the purple curly kale started flowering,
but the PSB was providing nectar for the bees. And that cherry tree again.

A snapshot of my Pollinator Meadow Year 4.
This is now completely natural with weeds wildflowers which have
colonised it like dandelions and goosegrass, even some grass.
I'm leaving it like that because the whole point of this is that it is/was
an experiment to see which insects and pollinators were attracted to it.
It's hugely colourful no matter what kind of plant is flowering.

Top is the bug that loves brassicas, Eurydema ornata,
bottom left is the first Dock Bug (Coreus marginatus) I've seen,
and bottom right a Striped Shield Bug (Graphosoma lineatum), a bug
I normally see later in the year on dill and fennel flowers, so it was
a surprise to see it in my woodland area just sitting on a leaf.

Teensy solitary bee collecting tons of pollen at the top,
and a Carder Bee on the bottom.

Hairy-Footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes) and a little Weevil on the left.

Hairy-Footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes) on my Kale flowers.

Those of you who sent me emails - I've read them and thank you. Thing is, I'm not set up on my Kindle to send or receive emails - so to my friend who has a FB page I'll reply to you via messages there; to my cousin, we can keep in touch via your daughter on FB, and to my friend who sent healing advice - thanks, I'll print it out! Hopefully soon I'll be able to spend more time at the proper desktop computer and reply to your emails properly - things are easing up in the sitting department! xx