Maundy Thursday

18 Fri Apr 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, wild birds

Tags

Flower Fairies books, Jack-by-the-Hedge, Ladies Smock, Maundy Thursday, sparrowhawk, stock dove

I have recently come home from taking my mother to the Maunday Thursday service at her church which I found quite moving. The word Maundy is an Old English word which originally came from the latin word mandatum – mandate/command. This refers to Christ’s command for us to love one-another. On Maundy Thursday the Maundy money (specially minted silver coins) is distributed by the Queen. On Maunday Thursday we commemorate Christ’s Last Supper and His washing of the feet of His disciples, even Judas Escariot’s who was about to betray Him. The service ends with the altar being stripped of all it’s candles and cloths to leave it bare and then a vigil takes place when we pray and meditate. Mum and I didn’t stay for the vigil as she was quite tired and she was concerned that I should get home sooner rather than later. It was her 84th birthday today. I tried to phone her this morning but couldn’t get through as the phone was engaged for ages. Apparently my sister phoned and an old friend from where Mum used to work rang as well. This was pleasing news to me.

My friend H contacted me about my last post and said that she usually calls Cuckoo Flower ‘Ladies Smock’. I also noticed that Mr Tootlepedal mentioned Ladies Smock in his post. I must admit that I usually call this plant Ladies Smock too but I suddenly had doubts about this and didn’t want to give wrong information out. I then looked the plant up in a couple of my wild flower reference books and neither of them said anything about Ladies Smock so I played safe! H also reminded me that Garlic Mustard is know as Jack-by-the-Hedge and we then had an e-mail conversation about The Flower Fairies books from where we got our first knowledge of wild and garden flowers and plants. H thought that the sparrowhawk might also have been responsible for the possible loss of the goslings. The geese are fierce, protective parents and bigger than the hawk but the hawk is extremely fast and, as I have mentioned, there is not much cover round the pond at the moment. So yes, that is another possibility.

I will end with a not particularly good photo of a stock dove. I include it because it shows the lovely iridescent green patch on the neck.

Catching Up

15 Tue Apr 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals, wild birds

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

amelanchier, bluebell, cow parsley, cuckoo flower, early spotted orchid, fruit trees, garlic mustard, greylags, Holy Week, honesty, mallards, marsh marigold, pasque flower, rooks, St Lawrence, St Mary Homersfield, stock dove, thrift, tulip, wood pigeon

We spent last week, 5th to 12th April, away in the Lake District staying in a rented cottage with no phone signal and no internet. As I don’t have a smart phone I wasn’t able to send or receive messages or post anything on my blog. It is very nice to be away from home and duty and all other pressures but there is so much catching up to do on one’s return! Lots of e-mails, lots of interesting posts to read and such a lot of housework!! As I am still working my way through two weeks worth of washing and ironing I don’t envisage that this post will be very long – but I may be fooling myself and will ramble on at length as usual!

It took us five and a half hours to get home which wasn’t at all bad as it had taken us over seven hours to get there on the 5th. The roads were dry and it was cool and cloudy – ideal driving conditions. We unpacked and had a hot drink and phoned our mothers. R’s mum was fine but was worried about her new home help who will be coming to her twice a week. Her old help recently retired and mother-in-law doesn’t want or like change. It doesn’t seem fair that at 88 years of age she has to constantly make concessions and put up with unwelcome changes and interference in her way of life. But, if she wants to stay in her own home for as long as possible, that is what she has to do. My mother seemed fine and had had a visit from my brother, who lives in Surrey, on Friday which had pleased her very much. She had not been able to go to church the previous Sunday so my brother was the only person she had seen and spoken to since I had taken her out the Wednesday before that. Nine days with only her cat to talk to! I arranged with her that I would take her to church on Sunday as I knew she wouldn’t want to miss the Palm Sunday service.

R and I then did a tour of the garden and there were some pleasures and a few disappointments. The most noticeable thing was that the goose was no longer on her nest but there was no sign of any goslings. What had happened while we were away? Had the goslings hatched out and subsequently died? Had all the eggs been infertile? In which case wouldn’t we be able to see them still on the nest on the island? Had the goslings hatched out and then been taken off somewhere else after a couple of days? When we first lived in this house that is what the pair of geese did then but after three years they began to stay until the goslings fledged. We had a change of geese nesting on the island last year after a bit of a battle between two or three ganders, so perhaps the new pair don’t feel this is a suitable place to bring up their young. There is still hardly any grass round the pond and we have got rid of all the willow cover on the bank which might be another reason why they didn’t stay. We had no goslings last year either, but we put that down to the terrible weather in the spring and also the goose wasn’t good at sitting on her nest. The goose this year was very good on the nest and only left it twice a day for very short periods and always covered the eggs well with down. We will never know what happened but I would like to think that one year we will get goslings in our garden again.

A lot of damage had been done by rabbits. A hole had been dug at the back of my border against the house.

A number of my plants had been eaten – probably by rabbits perhaps by deer. We did find a dead, fully grown rabbit near R’s flowerbed. It had been dead for a couple of days and R couldn’t see any obvious reason why it had died. No scavenger had fancied eating it either. Moles had been making lots of molehills.

A blackbird had been killed and plucked next to the greenhouse. I have seen a female sparrowhawk flying about a lot since our return, strafing the small birds with fear, so I suspect her or her mate were responsible for the blackbird’s demise.

We were pleased to see that the pear tree was in full blossom.

The greengage and the bullaces had lost nearly all their petals and we hope that we may have a little fruit. The bird cherries were still in full blossom. R decided that he ought to start on the mowing. We have well over an acre of garden and most of it is grass so we have a tractor mower. It is some years old now and makes R infuriated when it keeps blocking up – I think we will be getting a newer better model soon and then I will see R in his element again, racing round the garden, weaving in and out the trees just like at Le Mans!

The rook chicks have hatched out in the rookery as I can hear them squeaking and squawking all day. Here is a rook looking for tasty morsels. Notice its glossy black feathers and feathered breeches. I have included the second photo even though it is blurred as you can see the shape of the beak and the bald scaly skin at the front of the face. The older the rook, the balder the face.

The duck and drake mallard are still happy in the pond at the front of the house. A couple of common crows are also nesting in the trees on the opposite side of the lane. Wood pigeons abound and so do Stock Doves.

Duck and drake Mallard

Wood Pigeon

Stock Dove

The marsh marigold in the big pond is flowering well. The flowers are more than two inches across.

The marsh marigold in the little pond is flowering well too.

I have found a cuckoo flower by the big pond. This flower belongs to the cabbage family but is much nicer than cabbage. John Gerard, the 16th century herbalist said this pretty flower was called cuckoo flower because it blooms ‘for the most part in April and May, when the cuckoo begins to sing her pleasant note without stammering’.

Cow Parsley is coming into flower. In East Anglia it is called Sheep’s Parsley as well, because in olden times this area was a wool producing part of the country. Another name for it is Queen Anne’s Lace which is a lovely name and describes the frothy whiteness of large quantities of the plant along the hedgerows.

Bluebell spikes are just appearing under the crabtree at the front of the house.

The crabapples are also coming into flower. Pasque flowers and Thrift are blooming in my flowerbed.

As are miniature scented tulips. I used to have more colours than this orangey-red but they have gradually disappeared over the years.

The Amelanchier is in flower. It was planted in the garden a few years ago but then got damaged so I dug it up and I’ve tended it in a tub. It will no longer grow to be a tree as I had hoped but will look alright as a shrub. Once it has stopped flowering I will plant it out in the garden again.

An Early Spotted Orchid is coming up in one of the tubs containing jonquils. We are fortunate to have a lot of these orchids in our garden and they like seeding themselves in flower tubs.

One of R’s cacti is in flower in the conservatory.

This is a Bee-fly. It is harmless to humans despite the nasty looking proboscis. Its larvae live as parasitoids in the nests of mining bees.

In driving about during the past few days I have noticed Alexanders and Stitchwort in flower in the hedgerows. I have also seen Orange-tip butterflies flying. The food for their caterpillars is Garlic Mustard, another member of the cabbage family and the only one to smell of garlic.

I found some perennial Honesty at the entrance to one of the farm yards down our lane.

Oil-seed Rape is everywhere this year and is in flower at the moment. We are surrounded by it. We see it to the left of us…

and to the right.

It has a strong distinctive smell both when in flower and when left to set seed. I don’t like it very much and it gives me hay-fever.

It is now Holy Week and we start, on Palm Sunday, by celebrating Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. At Mum’s church we gathered in the church-yard and processed into church carrying our palm crosses. Mum and I enjoyed the service, both having a bit of a cry during a favourite hymn. Poor R went to St John’s church on his own but met our friends there. I went to Compline on my own on Monday night as R had a migraine. (I had woken with a migraine myself early on Sunday morning!). The service was at St Lawrence church but sadly there were only four of us there. As I drove to the church the sun was setting on one side and the almost full moon was rising on the other side of me. The church door was left open during the service and even though the church is up a lane off quite a well-used road the sounds of the few cars driving along it at 8pm faded away and the silence enveloped us. Now and then we heard the evening warning calls of blackbirds and robins but most of the time it was absolutely quiet. St Lawrence church is built on an ancient site. The Romans had a building yard there, I think, and a Roman carved face is set into the wall of the church. The road from which the lane to St Lawrence church turns off is called Stone Street and is a Roman road. If one comes from Halesworth it is known as the Bungay Straight and if one comes from Bungay it is known as the Halesworth Straight. On my way home the sky was apricot on the horizon where the sun had disappeared. Above that the colours changed from yellow to turquoise to dusky blue and the enormous moon was shining brightly. I saw a couple of hares and some tiny rabbits, only about four inches long – probably on their first night above ground.

Tonight R and I went to Compline at St Mary’s Church at Homersfield. Another lovely church which has been in danger of closing for some time. There were eight of us there tonight and the church was lit by lamps and candles as there was no electric light.

As I thought it would, this post has got to be a long one again and I haven’t done all the housework I should have!

Gallery

Violas

03 Thu Apr 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary

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violas

This gallery contains 8 photos.

Pollution and Other Matters

03 Thu Apr 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

amelanchier, belemnite, blackbird, Blue Tit, claypipe, Garden Warbler, ground-ivy, Jacob's Sheep, jonquils, Mistle Thrush, pollution, rhubarb, tulip, violets, woodpecker feather

The warmer weather that was forecast certainly arrived bringing with it hazy sky – and pollution. Everything outside was covered with a coating of fine yellow dust – from the Sahara Desert – and this was especially noticeable on our cars. Here in East Anglia our air isn’t as pure as we would like. As we live in the countryside many people think that the air is fresh and clean here; but they would be wrong. The prevailing wind from the south-west brings pollution from London and winds from the south-east bring pollution from the Continent – mainland Europe. The cleanest air is on winds from the north-east but that is also the coldest! East Anglia is a mainly agricultural area with plenty of agricultural vehicles and large trucks delivering feed, grain and other supplies on the narrow lanes. The farmers use herbicides and insecticides and the crops are sprayed at least two or three times a year. Because there is very little public transport we all have to drive everywhere that is too far to walk or cycle. R and I are fortunate to live in an area where the local farmers are trying to make the land better for wildlife. Wide strips of land are left fallow around each field with the hope that wild flowers will colonise them and animals and birds will find more food and shelter there.

Since coming to live in Suffolk twenty-six years ago I have developed asthma, hay-fever and other allergies that I didn’t have in south-east London and Kent. R also has hay-fever and E has asthma. This morning both R and I woke feeling quite unwell with headache, sore throat and other hay-fever symptoms. Fortunately we always have a stock of anti-histamine tablets in the house!

Yesterday, after getting home from taking Mum out, I had a letter to post so walked down the lane to the postbox. I was hoping to see the Jacob’s sheep in a field close to us as I had heard them arrive there on Monday. They always bleat a lot when they are in a new field but soon settle down and if I hadn’t heard them arrive I wouldn’t have known they were there. It was quite difficult to see the sheep and lambs as the hedge is high and thick but I managed a couple of photos.

Jacob ewes and lambs

Jacob lamb

I then took a few more pictures of the garden, fed the birds and watered the tubs of flowers. More and more birds are singing and the dawn chorus is getting louder and louder. Yesterday I woke to hear what I thought was a Garden Warbler, our second summer visitor, singing in a tree across the lane. As I was still sleepy I wasn’t sure whether it was a Garden Warbler or a Blackcap, the songs being quite similar, but having heard it again today I am sure it is a Garden Warbler. We do get both birds here in the summer but the song I heard yesterday and today was definitely the faster more garbled song of the Garden Warbler. The Song Thrush has been singing all day, every day for some time now and yesterday he was joined by the Mistle Thrush. We now have a wonderful chorus of birds in the garden – too many to mention without it becoming a long and boring list. Here is a photo of a male Blackbird and a Blue Tit on the peanut feeder.

Blackbird

Bluetit on the peanut feeder. A Chaffinch is in the tree at the back.

Today I took some more photos of the garden and also of some objects I have found in the garden. The belemnite I found in my herb garden on Monday. I remember finding lots of these when on holiday with A when she was little at Charmouth on the Dorset coast. They are fossils of squid-like creatures.

The feather I found a couple of weeks ago. No doubt from a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.

The broken old clay pipe I also found in my herb garden but about five years ago. I can’t bear to get rid of it!

The rest of the photos are of plants, flowers and trees.

White violets in the grass verge near my mother’s cottage.

Ground ivy. This is an evergreen wild plant and if the leaves are bruised they smell minty. Also known as Alehoof, the leaves used to be added to ale during brewing to clear the fermenting liquid and sharpen the flavour. Even after hops were introduced to England in the 16th century liquor flavoured with ground-ivy was still made and sold for a time. Another name for ground-ivy is gill and a drink called gill tea was made by infusing the leaves with boiling water and adding honey. This was supposed to alleviate coughs and other chest disorders and was still being sold by street vendors in London in the 19th century. Culpepper says ‘The juice dropped into the ear doth wonderfully help the noise and singing of them, and helpeth the hearing which is decayed.’

Some jonquils.

A pink tulip.

Rhubarb!

The Amelanchier is just coming into flower.

R and I discovered another goose nest in the undergrowth on the other side of the pond yesterday. Unfortunately, today the goose was no longer there and all the eggs gone. The good thing about nesting on the little island is that foxes and other predators cannot get to you so easily. The bad thing about our island is that it isn’t big enough for more than one goose nest.

Monday’s Garden

31 Mon Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, churches, cooking, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 4 Comments

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blackthorn, bullace, cowslip, daffodils, Elmer Fudd, fritillaries, greengage, jonquils, ladybird, lathyrus, Mothering Sunday, pieris, primulas, rabbits, saxifrage, simnel cake, wild cherry

I must admit to having an Elmer Fudd moment this morning. I went to have a look at the cowslip/primula plants I had transplanted last weekend and to my horror I saw that all the flowers and buds had been eaten on almost all the plants. I suspect some wascally wabbit! I will now not know until next spring which of the plants are normal cowslips to be planted at the top of the ditch and which are the different ones to be grown on elsewhere.

Very strange weather today. It was quite warm – in fact it got to 18 degrees centigrade but we only got a little sunshine at midday and then a few showers of rain during the afternoon. Quite humid all day and extremely cloudy this afternoon. I walked round the garden checking on the bird feeders and looking to see what plants had started to grow or flower since Saturday. I hadn’t been able to get into the garden at all yesterday as I had been busy cooking lunch after coming home from church and then entertaining Mum all the afternoon. We had had a good Mothering Sunday service at church and all the women had been presented with little posies of flowers. The Rector looked wonderful in his rose coloured chasuble but sneakily removed it before I could photograph him!

My eldest daughter A had sent me a card which had arrived in the post on Saturday and she telephoned me when I got back from church. E gave me a card and two stoneware pots for the garden. Mum arrived bringing with her an apple pie and a simnel cake. My mother will be 84 in a couple of weeks time and can hardly see but she still manages to bake and garden and run her house with no help at all.

Mum’s simnel cake.

The goose is still sitting on her nest on the island. She probably only has another week or so to go until her eggs hatch and then we’ll see how many goslings there are. While I walked round the pond I heard not only frogs croaking but also what I assume to be toads as well. We do get toads in the garden but I’ve never noticed them in the pond before. I also saw flower buds on the marsh marigold in the big pond that has never flowered before as well. I was really quite pleased about this as the pond has looked so awful since we had the work done to remove most of the willow scrub. What willows we have left are full of pussy willow flowers and alive with so many bees.

The wild damson or bullace tree is in flower.

The wild or bird cherry is also just coming into flower too.

Our greengage tree has its first flowers. We planted it the autumn before last and it didn’t flower at all last year but grew very well. My mother-in-law had asked us if we would grow one as she likes greengages so we got it especially for her and we call it Joyce (her name).

The blackthorn at the front of the house is now in full flower. The tree at the back of the house has finished flowering and the tree by the front gate hasn’t started to flower yet. The front of the house is colder than the back and the gate is coldest and shadiest of all.

My pieris ‘Forest Flame’ has new leaves on it.

The saxifrage has started to flower.

The new Frittilaries under the crabapple are flowering. I am pleased to see that there is a white one.

Primulas.

Cowslip.

Daffodils at the front of the house at the edge of the ditch.

A seven-spot ladybird on a daffodil. A lot of our daffodils suffered in the hail and rain we had last Wednesday and they also have to put up with all sorts of wild fowl trampling over them.

An orange-red cowslip.

Jonquils.

Lathyrus vernus ‘Spring Beauty’. This is an ornamental vetch – a member of the pea family.

The Weather

27 Thu Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blackberry, clouds, cowslips, gardening, primroses, rhubarb, snow, weather

The weather is a topic we British never tire of talking about. This is because it is forever changing and unpredictable. The temperature can rise or fall by as much as ten degrees centigrade in just a few hours at any time of the day; we can have warm days in winter and cold days in summer and a rain cloud is usually just about to appear over the horizon. Our lives are all affected by the weather to a lesser or greater extent. The North Atlantic Drift around our shores protects us from the bitter cold winters that other countries this far north have to endure. We are a maritime nation.

I live in north Suffolk at a latitude of about 52.5 degrees north which is further north than Winnipeg and at about the same latitude as Berlin, Warsaw and Irkutsk. We are buffeted by the strong, wet, warm Westerlies from the Atlantic but also get winds straight from the Arctic or from Siberia and, if the weather forecast is correct for this weekend, we also get nice warm winds from the south-east; from the Mediterranean. Lovely!

Yesterday began with a frost. The temperature had gone down to minus 2 degrees centigrade overnight but at dawn the sky was starting to cloud over and the frost soon disappeared. We then had a day of ‘April’ weather – lots of showers of hail, sleet and rain – and also some sunshine. Not a good day for gardening! I spent most of it with my mother taking her shopping and then to church with her for Stations of the Cross and then a Mass.

March and April can be so beautiful but the gardener must be forever vigilant and protect vulnerable plants from frost, ice and also the strengthening sun. I looked at my diaries for last winter the other day and made a note of the amount of snow we had had. The first lot of snow was on the 5th of December 2012 and temperatures didn’t get much above freezing for some days after that. A thaw on 14th December. Snow again on 13th January 2013 and snow showers continuing most days without a thaw until 26th January. A thaw on 27th January. Snow again on 2nd February and snow showers most days until a thaw on 14th February. Snow flurries from 21st to 24th February and then heavy snow from 9th to 13th March which took ages to disappear. A day of snow on 4th April. And this winter not one flake of snow here at all! Yet! The thaws and consequent ice are the real problems I find during a cold winter. This is what kills the plants and damages roads and buildings.

R and I are weather watchers and we have such a wonderful view of the wide East Anglian sky from the back of our house. I took a couple of photos of the edge of a cold front going over last Friday. The thick grey cloud overhead with a sharp edge to it to the west and clear blue sky beyond approaching on a stiff south-westerly breeze.

The following day was Saturday and a good gardening day. I had weeded round our rhubarb plant during last week, which, by the way is now ready for pulling, and I had tidied the blackberry canes next to it as well. The blackberry wanted to grow where the rhubarb is and I had a bit of a fight with it, removing unwanted canes and cutting down others. It is now nice and tidy with most of the new canes tied up and well away from the rhubarb. I also had to dig up some cowslip plants from where they wanted to grow in the lawn and put them where R and I want them to grow, on the edge of the ditch at the front of the house. R finds it difficult to mow round the flowers when they are in the lawn and even though I think they look lovely there it will make R’s job quicker and easier now they are elsewhere. We have a few different coloured cowslips in our garden and some new plants which are neither primroses nor cowslips. The bees do a good job of fertilizing all our flowers and the resultant mongrel plants are very interesting and varied. Next to the rhubarb on the opposite side to the blackberry I found a wonderful collection of different types of primula. I have dug these up and put them in a seed bed area to see how they develop.

I then spent a little time looking at and photographing the clouds. Caravans and convoys of clouds travelling across the sky. To use a well-worn simile they really are like fleets of sailing ships on the ocean. R likes to look at clouds and see pictures and objects in them: I see islands and mountain ranges in the sky.

Later that afternoon the sky darkened and even though we stayed dry there were rain clouds all around us.

Wild Flowers? or Weeds?

20 Thu Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, wild birds

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bumble bees, chickweed, dog violet, flints, greylag, marsh marigold, narcissus, red dead-nettle, sunset, sweet violet, weeds, white dead-nettle, wildflower

Our garden is too large for us to keep every part of it neat and well manicured and I wouldn’t like it half so well if it was. I love gardening – digging, weeding, tending plants, but there is always risk, responsibility and pressure to do things properly and at the right time. The wild, untamed, untidy parts of the garden are just pure pleasure to me. I have no yearning to tidy them though I realise that some management is necessary which is why we had the work done to the big pond a few weeks ago. The ‘weeds’ I assiduously pull out of my flower beds I love to look at in the wild garden. Flowers at this time of the year are a wonderful source of nectar for insects, especially bumble bees, just out of hibernation.

The red dead-nettle, Lamium, a member of the mint family, grows all over our garden and is a very common plant in Britain and flowers for most of the year. Both it and the white dead-nettle were boiled and used as pot-herbs and as pig-swill in the past. They had many medicinal uses, most notably against the ‘King’s Evil’ – scrofula, a type of tuberculosis that caused skin eruptions. Culpepper says ‘The herb bruised and with salt and vinegar and hog’s-grease laid upon a hard tumour or swelling, or that vulgarly called the king’s-evil, do help to dissolve or discuss them’. It also ‘makes the heart merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirits’. If you look at the photo below carefully you will be able to see the dark anthers under the hooded upper lip and the darker purple markings on the lower notched lip.

The white dead-nettle’s flowers are bigger than the red’s. It relies on bumble bees to pollinate it’s flowers and they (the flowers) are custom made for bees. The lower lip is a landing stage for the bee and has two small lateral lobes and a notched middle lobe. The anthers are black and are under the hooded upper lip. As the bee enters the flower seeking the nectar the top of it’s abdomen brushes the stamens and gets covered in pollen which is then transferred to the style of the next flower it visits.

We don’t have as much chickweed in this garden as in other gardens we have had probably because we get so many ducks, geese and chickens passing through. They love the plant, which can also be eaten by humans as a salad vegetable. The flowers are so small that most people hardly notice them but looked at closely they are quite lovely. The botanical name is Stellaria, little star, and the name is quite apt. The styles are white and the stamens are such a pretty pink. Chickweed is a member of the pink family. It has a single line of hairs which run the whole length of the stem and if a drop of dew lands on the plant it runs down the stem by way of the hairs until it gets to a pair of leaves. Here some of the water is absorbed by the hairs and the rest carries on down the stem to the next pair of leaves and so on. This water is reserved in the plant in case of drought. It flowers almost all year round and is widespread and prolific, which is why most gardeners hate it!

This marsh-marigold plant is in our small pond and is the only decent plant in there. It flowers and flowers and looks so bright and cheerful. We have another plant in the big pond but I have never seen any flowers on that. I also discovered a very small plant in the ditch by the big pond with much smaller flowers. I posted a photo of it a few days ago. Another name for marsh-marigold is Kingcup and according to one of my flower books this is derived from the Old English ‘cop’ meaning button or stud such as kings once wore. Apparently, farmers in many parts of the British Isles, used to hang marsh-marigolds over the byres of their cattle on May Day to protect them from the evil doings of fairies and witches.

We not only have dog violet in our garden but also sweet violet which is the only violet flower to be scented. In olden times they were strewn on the floor to sweeten the air. Their scent is lost almost as soon as it is noticed and this is because the flower produces a substance called ionine as well as the scent. Ionine dulls the sense of smell so that not only does the violet’s scent disappear but any other odours too. Clever! In the verge near to my mother’s cottage are many white violets which are very pretty.

Our garden is full of flints and some of them are enormous. Trying to make new flowerbeds has taken so much time and energy as these great stones have to be levered out all the time and more and more keep appearing. I quite understand the old folk thinking that stones grew in the soil. This is our Lindt flint as we think it looks like a Lindt chocolate rabbit.

A pretty narcissus has just flowered.

The dear goose sleeping on her nest.

And lastly a few pictures of last night’s sunset.

Unphotographable

19 Wed Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in domestic animals, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, wild animals, wild birds

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chiff-chaff, clouds, hare, house sparrow, nesting, phalaenopsis orchid, ploughing, skylark, spring, sunset, terrier, woodpecker, yellowhammer

Spring is definitely progressing quite nicely. We have had some really glorious weather recently – blue, shining days and mild, moonlit nights. Today we had some very heavy showers – the first real rain for some time. In fact, the mud on the roads has been drying out and cars have been causing dust clouds as they travel along our lanes. Most of the recent signs of Spring and many of the things I have seen in the past few days I have not been able to photograph. Either they are unphotographable like birdsong, or my camera is unable to take a decent picture of them – birds in the garden (can’t zoom in far enough) and the moon – or I am driving somewhere and can’t stop.

More and more different types of birds are singing each day and I have noticed more pairs of birds in the garden instead of either solitary birds or flocks of birds. The house sparrows have started building their nests under the eaves of our house. They sound as if they are wearing hob-nailed boots as they busily sort out the old nesting sites under the roof tiles and they clatter about in the gutter chattering and arguing. R and I look forward (I don’t think!) to the mornings when we are awoken by the sound of a happy sparrow singing at dawn -( ‘cheep!’ (two, three) ‘cheep!’ (two, three) ‘cheep!’ (two, three) ‘cheep!…..). When R and I went out for our walk last Thursday evening we listened to many birds singing including a yellowhammer. These birds are getting quite scarce now and this makes me sad. The woodpeckers are starting to drum. I heard a chiff-chaff warbler yesterday – our first summer visitor – and above my head a skylark was singing.

On Sunday evening at dusk I looked out of the kitchen window to see a large hare run along the road to the end of our drive and stop there for a minute. It then raced across our grass at the front of the house then out of sight in the direction of the big pond. On the way to Mum’s house on Sunday morning I had to slow down as a very small terrier dog was running up the lane keeping pace with a tractor ploughing the field next to the road. The little dog belonged to the ploughman who waved an apology to me as I drove very carefully and slowly past. This evening, on my way to Mum’s house again, the sky looked quite dramatic -a thick black cloud-covering which had rents in it with the pale blue evening sky showing through like silk beneath the slashes in Elizabethan clothes.

I will end this post with, first of all, some photos of my Phalaenopsis orchid which I won in a church coffee morning raffle on 5th October last year and which has been in continuous flower since then. (Apologies to friends on Facebook who have seen this already today). I will then add some photos of today’s sunset.

Wednesday 12th to Sunday 16th March

17 Mon Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking, wild birds

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alder, ambulances, brimstone butterfly, chaffinch, church, cowslip, daffodils, dog violet, Eye, fields, figs, greylags, Harleston, hazel, heartsease, Lent, mallards, moon, moorhen, nesting, pond, prayer, pussy willow, quiz night, rooks, Rumburgh, silverlace primula, sunset, tortoiseshell butterfly, trees, Wissett

Wednesday began with frost and mist. This soon cleared and the weather was then lovely for the rest of the day. I did my usual shopping trip with my mother with a detour to a free-range chicken farm at Eye where Mum buys her eggs. I had a little shopping to do for myself, so called in at Harleston on my way home. I arrived home just after 2pm for a late lunch and had time for a few household chores and a quick walk round the garden to feed the birds, tidy up a couple of things and take some photos before R came home.

A moorhen and a chaffinch at the front of the house.

The moorhen again.

A couple of photos of the daffodils that have come up round the big pond.

Some violet leaves that have struggled up through the dried mud round the pond.

And some cowslip leaves too!

Reflection of trees and cloud in the pond.

Afternoon moon.

I had decided what we should have for an evening meal and was about to start it when R offered to cook and I gladly accepted his offer. I didn’t have time to eat anything as I had to go out at 6.45pm to collect Mum and take her to Eye to attend a Lent course. The course in her area is a deanery course. A deanery is a collection of benefices and a benefice is a collection of parishes. In rural areas to have benefice and or deanery meetings or courses means that there will be more people attending and any speakers kind enough to visit will have a good audience. The only downside is that the distances to be travelled by many parishioners is very great. This year’s course is on prayer and Wednesday’s talk was on ‘Prayer with Words’. The speaker was the Precentor from the Cathedral at Bury St Edmund’s; a really pleasant man who gave an interesting talk. He introduced us to poets and poems that were new to us as well as reading from old favourites. My journey home was very difficult because of thick fog.

Thursday. I was woken just before 6.00am by the rooks! I had remembered to bring in the sunflower seed feeder but the rooks were trying to get the remains of yesterday’s seed off the bird-table and were tapping loudly on it with their enormous beaks. I have a cage round the bird-table which is supposed to prevent large birds from getting on it. However, it doesn’t stop the birds from clinging on to the edge of the table with their claws, flapping their wings for balance and pecking food through the mesh! Another lovely day. Went in to Halesworth for a haircut and to get yet more shopping (I always manage to forget something each time I go!) My usual hairdresser is on maternity leave so her Mum did my hair and we chatted about babies. Both her daughters are having their first babies in the next two weeks and they are getting a little apprehensive. On the way home I saw a tortoiseshell butterfly and an enormous brimstone butterfly.

I spent the afternoon gardening as well as having a short (for us!) conversation with my sister who was planning to visit Mum at the weekend. The geese have been very argumentative this week. The gander of the pair who have claimed the island has been spending most of his time swimming in the pond and seeing off any other goose/gander who dares to come anywhere near the pond bank. He must be exhausted as he doesn’t seem to have eaten anything either.

A couple of photos of the mallards in our front ditch.

Miniature daffodils in the grass.

Goat or Pussy Willow. Salix caprea.

When R got home he wanted to go out for a short walk across the fields. The wind had got up a little and it had got cloudy but R managed to take some decent photos while we were out.

Alder catkins and cone-like fruits from last year.

Hazel catkins.

More fog overnight.

Friday. A cooler, cloudier, breezier day. I did some more gardening and lots of ironing. The geese seemed to have resolved their differences. The resident pair came to sit near me while I gardened and whenever I looked up they gave gentle honks. I knew they were asking for food so when I had got to the end of my weeding I fetched some special goose and duck feed I have for just such an occasion (to quote Foghorn Leghorn) and cast it on the grass near by them. Of course, the gander then hissed at me while the goose ate the food. He is a very protective mate and even though I have provided the food he has to warn me off and so I do keep my distance!

Saturday. A quiet morning and another beautiful one. Still very breezy but much brighter than yesterday. Did some housework and spoke to A on the phone. We drove to Mum’s in the afternoon to see my sister F who was visiting with her eldest son and her dog Ben. We had a lovely couple of chatty hours and we then had to leave to get our evening meal before going to yet another quiz night. This one was in aid of Rumburgh village hall. I think it was the noisiest event I had been too since going to dances when I was young. The hall had just been insulated and redecorated but there were no curtains or blinds at the windows yet and I think this was the reason it was so noisy. The two farmers on our team were both a little deaf (caused by driving noisy farm machinery) and they were finding it really difficult to hear anything above the hubbub of loud chatter. Our local Member of Parliament was taking part too. He lives in Wissett, the next village along on the way to Halesworth, and is very good about taking part in local events and is a truely supportive MP. He had been out all day on the ambulances as there has been an enquiry about the time it takes for ambulances to get to emergencies. He was talking to R and one of our farmer friends and said he was very sympathetic towards the ambulance crews, as he had seen for himself the great distances they had to travel and also how many wasted journeys they had to make. R told him about my sister’s job as a paramedic in Kent and some of the problems she has to put up with too. Unfortunately we came ninth today but R won a picture of a tree in the raffle.

Sunday. There was a Morning Prayer service at Rumburgh today but I couldn’t attend as I took Mum to her church. She hasn’t got anyone to give her a lift at the moment and as she doesn’t usually see anyone at all during the week except me, and all her friends are at her church, I think it only right that I take her there. I got back home at 1.00pm and had lunch before doing some chores, putting a loaf on to bake and then back out into the garden. I fed the birds which took nearly an hour – all the feeders were empty, I have a number of them scattered about the garden and the garden is well over an acre in size. I had noticed this morning when I looked out of the window that the goose has started sitting on her nest on the island.

A dog violet in flower.

A silverlace primula.

A heartsease flower.

Figs are starting to swell on the tree.

Lots of pictures of this evening’s sunset.

The rookery in the sunset.

Meanderings and More March Flowers

11 Tue Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, fish, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, wild birds

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blackthorn, daffodils, fish, frogs, hyacinths, lesser periwinkle, Leycesteria, marsh marigold, miniature iris, nesting, oak, pond, primrose, primula, rooks, rose, spirea, tawny owl, Twilight, viola

I went outside in the twilight this evening to collect my two sunflower seed feeders and bring them indoors. I’ll tell you why later. It was very cold – approaching freezing I should think – but so beautiful. The sky above, a deep blue with stars and a gibbous moon. The western horizon a strange mixture of misty yellow, pink and grey – a typical cold, wintry sunset. The strong NW breeze that had been blowing all day had dropped and everything was almost still and quiet, except for a few blackbirds singing and some pheasants calling across the fields. The largest feeder is hanging from the silver birch tree near the big pond and as I walked down the garden towards it a tawny owl sitting in one of the trees at the end of the garden gave a couple of loud, quavering hoots. I went to look at the pond. It was shining and the surface was a little puckered by the light breeze. It looked like pewter and reflected the trees nearby. Every now and then a ‘plip’ sounded as a fish leapt and rings appeared on the surface – frogs were croaking from the reeds at the far end.

Unfortunately, it was getting too cold to stand out there for much longer and I had the evening meal to prepare so reluctantly I returned to the house.

The rooks have definitely started nesting now. They no longer fly off to their night-time communal roost towards Beccles but are staying with their nests in the rookery. At nesting time they use a different call – almost a bleating sound – and as soon as I hear it I know that spring is here. The reason I collect the sunflower seed feeders in at night is because of the rooks. They descend on the feeders ‘en masse’, just at dawn and any seed left overnight disappears very quickly. I have known them unhook the feeders and take the lid off to get at the seed more easily. The smaller feeder is hanging from a pole stuck in the grass at the front of the house. At this time of year dawn is still quite late, but by May and June with dawn at 3.30am it is not pleasant to be awoken by twenty or more squabbling rooks just outside the open bedroom window. Until I decided to bring the feeders in I was having to get out of bed and shoo them away every few minutes. They soon realised that the noise they were making attracted my attention so they started eating in (almost) silence. Their rookishness always eventually got the better of them and some little ‘whispered discussion’ invariably got out of hand and there I was at the window again. I am a very light sleeper and I began to wake up at the slightest noise outside so something had to be done.

This morning started very overcast and cold but by 10am the clouds were breaking up and the sun coming out. I had some shopping to do so drove to Bungay. Bungay is a little difficult to get around at the moment as it is having lots of new pavements put in and the centre of the town is shut off to traffic. My ankle has been painful recently and I found walking through town difficult. Added to this, I was called ‘dear’ twice within about five minutes and I really object to being called ‘dear’ by strangers. I got home again at 11.30 and put the radio on while I had a cup of tea. Lisa Stansfield was choosing her favourite ~~records~~ tracks I mean (showing my age there!) and one of the ones she chose today was by Sylvester. Listening to this took me back to my youth. My friend W will remember that I used to go out with her brother who had a mobile disco which he ran with a friend. I used to go with them to gigs and help them set up and get the dancing going if it was a bit slow. I could dance for hours without tiring! (This also reminds me of a really good spoonerism I came out with at the time, when telling a friend what I did. I intended saying that I was ‘a roadie and a groupie’ but what I actually said was ‘a rudie and a gropie’). I thought a lot about this while drinking my tea. It didn’t seem that long ago when I was dancing all night with no aches and pains and now, here I was hobbling through town carrying my shopping bag and being called ‘dear’! What would be next, I wondered? Mowing passers-by down with a mobility scooter? Elbowing my way through shoppers to the freezer cabinet in the supermarket and running over their toes with my shopping trolley while they tut-tut and raise their eyebrows to each other over my head? Hmmmm….

To cheer myself up I went out into the garden and took a few photos.

We have a blackthorn tree at the back of the house. It is now in full blossom. The blackthorn at the front of the house is still covered with small tight buds. The temperature at the front of the house is very much lower than at the back and there is often about a weeks difference in flowering times.

Blackthorn tree

Blackthorn blossom

Blackthorn

Bumblebee on blackthorn

This oak tree was given me by my father a year after we moved into this house. He had dug it up from his garden and at the time it was only about nine inches tall. I call it Dad’s oak tree. He died nearly four years ago. A wood pigeon nested in the tree last summer and the shallow nest is still there.