Look what the snow brought!

The snow’s gone now, but it stayed around for about a week. Although we only had about one inch, it brought some interesting birds to our feeders. What is it about Bramblings and snow? I’ve never seen one here before (even when we did have snow), but this time our temperatures hovered around zero for about a week, so that might have something to do with it. First there was just one Brambling, then after a few days more arrived, and we saw two males and two females. They then disappeared as soon as the snow did! It was the same in Brittany, they would appear, usually with other finches, as soon as there was snow, then go off to who knows where when the snow melted.

It wasn’t just this one exciting garden tick, but two. Because after a couple of days of snow, a female Hawfinch came to our feeders and hung around for a few days. Now whilst we saw Bramblings when we had snow in Brittany, we haven’t seen a Hawfinch since we lived near Geneva over 18 years ago, where we would have flocks of them in the garden in the winter. Shame no male came, but we are not complaining!

It’s the first time we’ve seen snow actually fall on the plain here, normally we have snow up on our hill and nothing down below, 

Male Brambling

Female Hawfinch

All photos taken by Keith, and this post has been done on my iPad as my desk is still not accessible, though I have nearly finished the office!

P.S. I wrote all this a week ago but kept forgetting to post it! The office is finished now apart from a large cupboard which I’m painting, I’m very happy with the colour and will share some photos when it’s all completed. 😀

Our pathetic excuse for snow, garden jobs, flowers and getting out a bit

First of all Harry would like to say thank you for your healing vibes as he is feeling much better now. It certainly took a few days for the medication to really kick in but he's now bright eyed and bushy tailed and by tomorrow I expect he'll be back to racing around like a loony with the others. Phew! As for me I've been feeling fine this week and have been getting out and about. We had a teensy bit of snow on Tuesday morning, the most pathetic excuse I've ever seen. I could see photos all over facebook from people in Brittany and they all got far more than we did (not that I mind! I like a good snow cover once a winter but that's about it because we can't get anywhere when it snows here).

At least there is grass over the septic tank now!

Despite the cold I've managed a bit more garden clearing up and you can see from the following photos the sort of mess you get that needs tidying up before new growth starts to sprout. There's a fine line though between tidying and leaving shelter for the bugs, but I reckon most of the tall dead stalks can be cut off without that being a problem for the overwintering insects. And the reason I'm trying desperately to do as much as possible now? Because I saw my surgeon last week and he told me I wouldn't be allowed to do any gardening for THREE MONTHS!!!!! I nearly fell off my chair, I was horrified. :-(

Irises and Golden Rod.

Taken through double glazing but my front bed has been irritating me for ages cos it was such a mess!

I haven't finished but after a couple of hours out here the day before the snow
(yes that's snow) it looks a lot better.

One plant I won't chop back yet are the Sedums,
as they still look really decorative.

And I need to leave some of the Verbena bonariensis. I was amazed to see these Blue Tits still
eating seed as I'd imagined the seed would have long gone after months of rain and wind!
Not good pics as it was about an hour before dusk and I had to take these through double glazing.

Just another pic taken through the living room windows.
It's warmer indoors. ;-)

OK I did brave the cold and took a few photos of new flowers and Hydrangeas which always look great when the flowers have dried out.

Japonica or Flowering Quince.

Heartsease Viola, Primroses and a Hydrangea petal.

Dried out Lacecap Hydrangea which is another plant
I don't prune back until about April.

Snowdrops under my Wiggly Hazel.

And some bulbs coming up in pots.

Just for fun, this is what happens when you've got a macro lens on and a cat comes too close...

I said I'd been out and about. What I got up to on Thursday afternoon I'll tell you about in another post. Today though we went to Decathlon which is a large sports store because it occurred to me it would be a good idea to get some more trackie/dance pants for after my op, because I'll want something nice and loose and soft around my middle! The fact I came out with another fluffy fleece and a tee shirt has got nothing to do with it, and quite how my OH came out with a bag full of clothes and shoes when it was me who was supposed to be shopping I do not know..... and they say it's us women who are shopaholics!

And because in about 10 days I've got to go on a really boring low fibre diet for a week before my op, and who knows when I'll be able to get out again after, or even when I'll be able to eat spicy food again, I've persuaded my OH (it wasn't difficult, funnily enough) that we should eat out a couple of times beforehand. This Chinese resto is an all you can eat buffet place and we always come out absolutely stuffed. :-)

Left is my starter and right my main course. I forgot to take a pic of my dessert, but most of it
was that Chinese nougat which I always steal and bring home in a napkin to munch on at home
in the evening, as I don't need any dinner! As you can see, I've got my appetite back.

And this is just a church taken through the windscreen
in the small town of Melesse on the way home.

I still have most of last year's fruit in my freezers, most of which can go hang as I really can't be bothered with making any jams and jellies. But we do both love blackcurrant cordial which is easy to make, so I'm currently simmering 2.5kg of currants with some water which will be hung in a jelly bag overnight, then the juice reheated with sugar tomorrow. I follow the River Cottage recipe, although if you use the amount of sugar they suggest it is overly sweet and sickly, so I only add about half the amount in the recipe. As I'm freezing the cordial I don't need the sugar as a preservative - but even if I was bottling and needed extra sugar I still wouldn't add as much as they suggest!


BLACKCURRANT CORDIAL
(from River Cottage cookbook)

2kg Fruit

Place your fruit in a large saucepan. For each 1kg blackcurrants add 600ml water. Bring to the boil crushing the fruit with a masher or wooden spoon.

Cook gently until fruit is soft and juices flowing - will take anything up to 45 mins depending on fruit. Remove from the heat.

Scald a jelly bag or fine tea towel and suspend over a large bowl. Tip the fruit in and leave to drip overnight.

Measure the resulting juice and pour into a clean pan. For every litre juice add 700g sugar (or to taste). Heat the mixture gently to dissolve the sugar, then remove from the heat. 

Pour immediately into warm sterilised bottles leaving a 1cm gap at the top. Seal with screw-top or cork.

Will keep for several months (if want to keep for longer you will need to sterilise the bottles in a water bath immediately after bottling).

Blackcurrants before simmering.

 

Saturday snaps

Thursday.....

It wasn't warm but it looked and felt wonderful!

Saturday....

Aaaarrggh that wasn't forecast!

Happy Easter, everyone!!! 

Wordless Wednesday

Snow and more garden birds

For once the weather forecast was correct and snow arrived on Friday. It wasn't very much, about an inch in total, but I felt cheated! I had this romantic notion of waking up to a couple of inches of lovely fresh snow and then the sun would be shining, the sky would be lovely and blue and I'd go out there and take all sorts of pretty photos including having a go at macro photos of ice crystals and the like.

Not so, it snowed all morning interspersed with freezing rain, it was cloudy (for that read really dull and dismal) and it was freezing! Really after I'd seen to my chickens (who steadfastly refuse to set one foot outside when they see that white stuff) and mucked out my mucky duck shed (pond wasn't frozen so the ducks were quite happy) I had to come inside and warm up. I then went out to see that all the garden birds had plenty of food and fresh water. Ditto the coming inside to warm up again! 

And so it went on with me managing to nip outside, take a few photos here and there in between having to warm my hands up on hot coffee in between. My fingers were so cold the best I could do was set the camera on Idiot Mode, point and shoot and hope for the best. Forget any fancy macro shots as even wearing gloves (not easy to use a camera with) my hands were like blocks of ice.

Now most of the snow has gone but it's raining, and it's even more muddy around the chicken and duck sheds where somehow when you stomp on snowy grass it turns it into even more of a quagmire than it was before. So rather a disappointing kind of snow!

Anyway, here are a few photos that I did manage to take.

Rose bud not looking very happy - I think I can safely say that's the end of the roses!

A view from my bedroom window taken through the double glazing hence a few blobs
which are actually the snow (or dirt!) on the panes

My lake - apart from that bit of green in the field beyond
everything was looking so monochrome

The 'moorhen tree' (the willow growing out over the water)
and the weeping willow on the left giving a faint hint of colour

And so to the wild birds. We have more blue tits here than great tits or sparrows, which I find quite surprising as in previous gardens the great tits have always outnumbered the blue tits, and we'd be feeding hundreds of sparrows! However we don't seem to have very many interesting or different birds coming to our feeders - we saw more variety of birds in the first couple of years that we lived here and since then most have never been seen again. I wonder if it is anything like the other wildlife such as partridges, pheasants, hares and deer that we see so little of any more?

Here's one of my feeding stations with bird bath.
There are a number of birds waiting in the wiggly hazel on the left.

Blue Tit on left and Great Tit on right

Not very clear shot but I wanted to show this Greenfinch on the seed feeder,
along with a couple of Great Tits.
Greenfinches are common birds but we don't see them here very often.

Mrs Chaffinch taken from a distance. The Chaffinches are common birds
and like to eat the duck food that I put out!

A really distant shot hence not clear at all but I wanted to show that we do have
Blackbirds and Robins here - again common birds, but not easy to get close to!

This was taken at a distance through my bedroom window and double glazing.
It's a Fieldfare which are winter visitors and we tend to see them only when
the weather is particularly harsh.

The rest of the shots are all of Blue Tits. They are small birds and one of my favourites. Being small they were so desperate to feed that I was able to get closer to them than the other birds, so some better shots of them.

Getting a bit bored of this now

Looks like another week of freezing weather ahead and I'm starting to go a bit stir crazy. I really want to get on with the orchard and all the apple and pear trees that need pruning. Having finished the jumper I'm in danger of having a shiny clean house and that just won't do!

In the meantime here's a few photos taken of the 'weather'.

Freckles yesterday before it snowed again. It's unusual for her to walk on the ice but she'd found a swimming hole up the far end where the stream comes in and when I went up there to have a nosy I disturbed a mallard drake who she'd obviously been having a bit of fun with. Then she decided to come back and take a short cut across the ice. Didn't even slip!

And this is what we woke up to this morning. That's not blue sky - it was very grey but this is early before I went out and messed it up with my footprints. The photos are taken from my 2nd floor from the only window that looks out over the back garden.

Looking right towards veg patch, barn and chook and duck sheds. It's not impressive as snow goes but we've rarely had deep snow here. Thank god!

Looking to the left towards the lake.

It's melted quite a lot now and I hope we don't get any more!