My life in rural Suffolk. The wildlife around my home, the weather that affects what I do, my family and the people I meet.

The Sky at Night

21 Wed May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

clouds, evening, Rain, rainbow, sunset, sunshine

The following photos are ones I took this evening. We have had a cloudy day today but much better than forecast because the predicted rain didn’t come until late afternoon and then it was fairly light and patchy. It is now 10.30 at night and I can hear that the rain has now become much heavier and we have had a little thunder too.

A Rainbow.

A Sunset.

The rainbow and sunset happened concurrently so you must imagine me photographing the rainbow at the front of the house and then running to the back of the house to take photos of the sunset. I was upstairs and downstairs and outside too so I have had plenty of exercise.

The Ugly-Bug Ball

19 Mon May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in fish, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Bees, Cuckoo-spit, Damselfly, fish, Froghopper, gardening, Green Hairstreak, Hornet, Hoverfly, Lily Beetle, Mimulus, moorhen, yellow iris

The first Yellow Iris is in flower.

The weather has been warm and sunny for the last four days so I have tried to make the most of it by being outside. The tubs of spring bulbs needed tidying and getting ready for their long sleep until next year. I bought some plants for my window boxes a couple of weeks ago and have now planted them up and fixed them under the kitchen and utility room windows at the front of the house.

I have put this mimulus in both window boxes

I also had a few plants that had to be planted out and a few that needed repotting. I have got other pots of plants that have yet to flower and some more that I’m not sure what to do with, so I’ll feed them all and give them a sort out during the next few days. I have many more pots of perennials than I would like but until I make a new flower bed or re-instate the one I abandoned after Dad died and all sorts of things went wrong, they’ll have to stay where they are. I have enjoyed myself very much indeed and wish I could spend all day every day gardening.

With the warm weather all sorts of insects good and not so good have arrived. I have killed five red Lily Beetles so far – such beautiful insects but so destructive. They and their nasty grubs can destroy a lily plant in a couple of days and not only lilies but fritillaries too. If they think they are under attack they drop down onto the soil under the plant, red side down and then bury themselves and can’t be found. I creep up on them and put one hand under the leaf they are on to catch them if they jump and then squash them as quickly as possible. They do sometimes bite but it’s the last thing they do!

I am hoping that the mild winter we had this year has meant that many more insects have survived. I can put up with a few more troublesome insects if we have more butterflies and moths, ladybirds and hoverflies, lacewings, crickets and grasshoppers . The bats flying round the house this evening certainly were catching lots of things to eat. We have hornets here and they have become noticeable this week with their deep buzzing and their large yellow and brown bodies, flying ponderously about the garden. They are different in their behaviour to wasps. They aren’t very intelligent I think, and once in the house have no idea how to get out again. Wasps are in your face all the time, spoiling for a fight but the hornet is more like a bee, not really interested in us and just wanting to get on with their own business. I’m not saying they are harmless, far from it; I wouldn’t mess with a hornet! We had a hornet’s nest in our old shed a few years ago and as they had positioned it against the door we couldn’t get anything out of the shed until late autumn when they had all perished. They are attracted to light and will fly towards it at night like moths. It was so strange to see them crawling up the outside walls of the house trying to get to the outside lights or into bedroom windows. We have had to learn to keep windows shut when we have the lights on at night. I would like to get fly-screens fitted to the windows one day.

Today, I saw the first Damselfly I’d seen this year. Such a thin body, so fragile looking but so beautiful. The male, a sliver of turquoise and the female a reddish-brown. I tried to photograph the male but it came out blurred – I’ll try again tomorrow.

Froghopper larvae are exuding frothy ‘cuckoo-spit’ on all the plants in the garden.

Lots of different bees are flying about. I noticed bees entering a crack between the mortar and one of our kitchen windows, there are lots of mining bee holes in the dryer flowerbeds and while I was in the conservatory watering R’s cacti today I became aware of a leafcutter bee with its orange underside carrying large pieces of leaf in through the door. It has made a nest in the soil of one of R’s cacti and was rolling up the bits of leaf and taking them down the hole.

There are many different types of hoverfly about.

I noticed a little butterfly had got into the conservatory today so went to get a glass and a card as this is the best way of catching insects I know. The butterfly was a Green Hairstreak and the first one I had ever seen. The top of their wings is brown but the underside is a brilliant green. The butterfly kept its wings shut so I could admire the glorious colour. I tried to photograph it while it was in the glass but it didn’t work out well at all.

On Friday morning while having a walk aound the garden I came across this on the path…

I couldn’t think how it could have come to be there. I was also surprised to see such a big fish which had no doubt come from our pond. Why hadn’t it been eaten? What had caught it and left it there? What type of fish is it? Is it a bream? It wasn’t until R and I were talking about it when he got home from work that we worked out how it had got there. It has a stab wound low down on its body and R suggsted that a heron might have inflicted it. I then remembered that when R had gone down to his vegetable plot near the big pond the night before he had disturbed a heron.

Today while walking round the pond I disturbed a moorhen and her three chicks. The parent rushed off into the reeds as usual and left the three chicks to find their way back to her as best they could. As I watched them, one of the chicks started to squeak and looked as though it had caught its foot in something in the water. I thought this strange so got closer only to see the chick dragged under water and disappear. What could have done this? What have we got in the pond that eats baby moorhens? I thought it might be a pike but R thinks it unlikely that a pike would live in a pond this size. He thinks it might be a carp. Has anyone any suggestions?

I took a few photographs of the perch (I think) in our pond today.

I’ll finish here tonight and do another post tomorrow when I’ll talk about the birds and flowers I’ve noticed this weekend.

A Hotch Potch.

16 Fri May 2014

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Allium, Alpine Pasque Flower, Ant hill, aquilegia, Balm of Gilead, Bee, blackberry, Bramley Apple blossom, Cacti, Cedar of Lebanon, chaffinch, Christmas Cactus, Clematis, Common Sedge, Common Vetch, Cotoneaster, Damson, GERANIUM, Goat Willow seeds, Great Tit, hare, Hawthorn, Holly, House Spider, Japanese Maple, Jay, Knautica, moon, Muntjac, pheasant, Shrub rose Canary Bird, Spindle, stock dove, sunset, thrift, Thyme-leaved Speedwell, Tufted Duck, vegetable garden, Viburnum, White-Shouldered House Moth, winter-flowering honeysuckle, Zebra Spider

Last evening while I was admiring the pink sunset…..

….E was admiring the rising of the moon. She called to me to come and see it as it was so large and orange. I joined her at her bedroom window and we watched it slowly slide up the sky behind the trees. I went into my room hoping to see it more clearly from there and saw below me on the drive, the hare again! Typically, I had the wrong camera with me, it was too dark and the hare wouldn’t stay and be photographed.

This is the only photo I managed to get.

I went outside into the twilight with little bats flying about the garden and crossed the road and looked at the moon through the hedge. It wasn’t orange any more but it was still beautiful.

The visit from the hare and the rising moon reminded me that hares are supposed to be magical and people today still take care not to hurt a hare. One of Mum’s neighbours was new to the area a few years ago and asked another neighbour how he could get rid of the rabbits and hares which were damaging the trees and plants in his garden. He was told that the rabbits could be shot but ‘we don’t shoot hares in Suffolk’. In Anglo Saxon mythology, Ostara the goddess of the moon, fertility and Spring was often depicted with hare’s ears or a hare’s head. Eostre (where we get the word Easter from) was the Celtic version of Ostara and was the goddess associated with the moon, death, redemption and resurrection during the turning of Winter into Spring. Eostre was a shape-shifter too and took the shape of a hare at each full moon. Well, well, well! (I looked all that up using Google!).

Yesterday was a busy one with my usual shopping with Mum and then going to Halesworth to hand in my prescription at the surgery and post a couple of letters. I got home just after 2.00pm and had some lunch. The afternoon was spent dusting, vacuuming and doing more mending. R got home just as I was finishing. He had had a fraught day at work so after we had had our cup of tea he went into the garden and planted out his peas and beans. A soothing task which took him over an hour and was all done except the watering-in by the time I had cooked the evening meal.

This morning I went out to admire his handiwork.

Putting the anti-rabbit/deer/hare/pigeon etc barriers up had taken most of the time yesterday. We hope they work! You can see the potatoes coming up in the bed behind the peas and beans. While I was down at the vegetable patch I had a look at the pond and saw a strange looking duck. I tried taking its photo with my small camera but wasn’t able to get a clear picture. I fetched our newer, better camera and tried again.

I think this is a female tufted duck who visited to sample the fish in our pond. I had to crop the photos as I still couldn’t get near enough to the duck. The pond, as you see, is covered in the fluffy seeds of Goat Willow. The seeds aren’t only on the pond but are everywhere, floating in the air, covering the grass, coming into the house.

This is a spider’s web I noticed yesterday on the outside of one of our windows. It is covered with fluffy willow seeds. Despite my brushing the web away very often the spider insists on making its web just there all the time.

The rest of this post will be a strange selection of photos that I took today and some others that I haven’t been able to put in any of my recent posts.

This is a late entry in the apple blossom awards. We thought the Bramley Apple wasn’t going to flower this year, but we were wrong!

The Cedar of Lebanon has new leaves growing that look like old-fashioned shaving brushes.

All the hollies have new leaves too.

The Japanese Maple has the most beautiful cherry-red seeds.

It has beautiful leaves too that glow in the sunshine.

I got home yesterday and saw a Jay in the garden. I had great difficulty taking these photos from inside the car.

This is one of my Christmas Cacti and it is flowering again for the third time in six months. It first flowered in November, then in February and now in May. I think it is very confused!

R’s cacti are all coming in to flower too.

Mammalaria

Mammalaria flower

Peanut cactus flower.

I don’t know what this one is called.

The little white Alliums in the garden are very popular with the bees. They are under the laburnum trees which are also full of bees and the noise they make is astounding. I think they sound like cars in a grand prix race – the pitch is almost exactly the same – it’s like listening to a race about a mile away.

The new shoots on the Viburnum Bodnantense are crimson.

Tiny damsons.

Willow seeds.

Bee on the cotoneaster horizontalis.

Geranium Phaeum in R’s flowerbed.

Flowers on the Spindle tree.

The Hawthorn hedge at the bottom of the garden near the old summerhouse.

A White-shouldered House Moth

R took these photos of a muntjac deer.

A chaffinch

One of my herbs – cedronella canariensis (Balm of Gilead).

Alpine Pasque Flower

A Great Tit

A Stock Dove.

A female Pheasant.

A Zebra Spider. These spiders are only about 4mm long. They are jumping spiders and can leap a distance of about 4cm.

A baby House Spider.

The tiny flowers of Thyme-Leaved Speedwell.

Aquilegia flower

Thrift flower

The wonderfully scented Clematis Montana ‘Rubens’

Shrub rose ‘Canary Bird’

Blackberry flowers

Knautica Macedonica

Aquilegia flower

Reflections in the pond

Common sedge

Common Vetch

An ant hill

Male Holly flower buds. We don’t have any female holly bushes so no berries!

Heart-shaped berries of the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle

These lovely berries don’t last long as the blackbirds find them irresistible.

A Good Day

15 Thu May 2014

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

barley, Common Whitebeam, Early Purple Spotted Orchid, English Oak, field maple, Lady's Smock, Lesser Whitethroat, Oak-apples, orange-tip butterfly, Red Clover, Red Horse Chestnut, Red May, St Michaels church, St Peter's church, stag-headed, the Beck, Turtle Doves, Willow Warbler, Wych Elm

I had a very good day yesterday. The weather was much better than it had been for a week and I was nearly back to normal after my cold. I hung some washing out on the line in the garden and then set off for Bungay where I had to get some shopping. Just as I was nearing Flixton I noticed some birds at the side of the road, mainly woodpigeons but among them were a pair of Turtle Doves. I was so pleased to see them I nearly shouted out loud! Turtle Doves are becoming so rare, not only because of the reduction of places to nest in this country but also because of the dangers they face during migration – being shot for sport for example – and the lack of suitable places to spend the winter because of deforestation in Africa. Even if we get no Turtle Doves in our garden this year I am happy that there are at least one pair in this area! Their song epitomises high summer for me – a lovely drowsy, purring noise. We used to get them every year and they stayed around until the end of August. In recent years we have had a Turtle Dove sing for a day or so and then go off elsewhere in search of a mate. Last year they didn’t turn up at all. Many people believed that was because of the terrible spring we had had. Turtle Doves had arrived in this country and then we had the late snow and frost which killed some birds and others just turned round and went back to France.

I went to my usual car park in the centre of town and noticed all the trees planted around the car park had come into flower. They are all Red May trees – Red Hawthorns – and look so pretty with their deep pink flowers.

Red Mays are not as popular here as where I grew up in Kent. My father thought they were wonderful and planted one in one of the houses we had when I was a girl. As I walked about the town I remembered having seen another red-blossomed tree recently and thought I would go and have a closer look at it later in the day.

I found the opportunity to go for a quick walk in the early afternoon. The day had warmed up considerably but there were still a few black clouds around. As I walked down to the end of our lane and out into the next I listened to a Willow Warbler singing in the top branches of a group of trees nearby. The Willow Warbler is another bird whose song I couldn’t do without – it has a sweet song of descending notes in a minor key. Weep, weep, weep, weep it says and makes my heart swell and I find I am near to tears at the beauty of it. It is another bird whose numbers are reducing drastically. Again, we used to hear them all summer long but not any more. I hope this one finds a mate and stays to sing for me. I stood under the Field Maple tree it was singing in and eventually saw it in the top canopy. It sang and then busily flitted from twig to twig in search of food and then sang again. I tried to photograph it but wasn’t quick enough.

This is the result. Can you see it? No, neither can I.

On the corner of our lane where it meets the other lane is a wide area of common land and a couple of ornamental trees have been planted there. One is a Sweet Chestnut which is only just coming into leaf and the other is a Whitebeam, a native tree but not one that usually grows in this part of the country.

Common Whitebeam tree

Common Whitebeam blossom

Common Whitebeam blossom

The grass of this patch of common land was covered in Lady’s Smock flowers and a female Orange Tip butterfly was feeding from them.

The red-blossomed tree that I had remembered seeing is a Red Horse Chestnut and it had been planted only a couple of hundred yards down this other lane. To get to it I had to cross yet another wide area of common land and in doing so I was surprised to see an Early Purple Spotted Orchid in the grass. This one was a little past its best but I rather liked the colour combination of the petals.

There was more Bugle or Ajuga flowers and some Red Clover.

Red Clover

I love the pale markings on Red Clover leaves. I am also fascinated by the grass in the photo which is just about to flower. It looks like a row of tiny balls are packed into the grass stem or a lot of minuscule snails.

The Red Horse Chestnut is a fairly young tree so I was able to photograph the flowers easily.

A Red Horse Chestnut is a hybrid between a Horse Chestnut and a Red Buckeye. On the way back to the road I found another Early Purple Spotted Orchid.

Our lane is looking very nice at the moment.

On my way back home I heard another summer bird but this was one I hadn’t heard before. It’s song was a little like a part of a Chaffinch’s or a Yellowhammer’s song but without the end flourish. It also had a few little sweet quiet notes to start off the song and they sounded very much like a Warbler. When I got back I listened to a few of my bird recordings and found I had been listening to a Lesser Whitethroat.

I managed to get all my washing dried outside which was really good and took some more photos of the garden while I fed the birds. I had started on a great heap of mending by the time R came home from work. He didn’t seem to want his evening meal straight away so I suggested a walk across the fields.

This is one of many ancient oaks we saw on our walk. Once they get to about seven or eight hundred years old they start to die back a little. A little like us humans: when we get to a certain age we start to shrink a bit too. When they get dead branches sticking out of the top of the canopy they are described as being ‘stag-headed’.

A young Horse Chestnut.

View over the fields.

A field of ripening barley.

A Sycamore tree with flowers.

The Beck

Bridge over the Beck.

Views across the fields on the other side of the Beck.

The lane going up the hill from St Peter’s Washes.

Another ancient oak tree. I think this one’s trunk must be about twelve feet in circumference – it must easily be about a thousand years old. I must try to bring a tape measure with me next time we walk this way and see if I can get through the hedge and measure it.

I love standing under trees and looking up through the branches. Trees are the most magnificent awe-inspiring things.

We looked down across the fields in the direction from which we’d come and then down the lane. Many people think that East Anglia has no hills and no hedges. This proves that we do have both though the hills aren’t very steep or high.

St Peter’s church over the field.

Fruits on an Oak Tree.

The top of the tower of St Michael’s church can just be seen above the trees.

More views across the fields from the top of the lane.

The signpost at the end of the lane.

Another view from the top.

An oak-apple with fruits

An oak-apple.

This is a picture of a Lesser Whitethroat! It is just below and just to the left of centre and has a curly leaf over its face. You’ll have to take my word for it that it really was a Lesser Whitethroat.

A Wych Elm and fruits.

Toadstools

Late sunshine.

We walked back home quite content and I cooked our evening meal.

A Wet Day

14 Wed May 2014

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

ash die-back, ash tree, calendula, clouds, collared dove, Eye, lupin, moon, Rain, Rumburgh, St Chrysostom's prayer, St Michael and All Saints and St Felix church, St Peter and St Paul's church, yellow iris

The past couple of days have been fairly busy doing mainly mundane chores. Fortunately, I am feeling much better and have regained what little energy I usually have.

View from our front door on Sunday after one of many showers

I took Mum to church again on Sunday morning. A windy day with lots of heavy showers. Her church is currently full of scaffolding and difficult to get around. Quite a few years ago they bought a new second-hand organ at a bargain price (still many thousands of pounds I believe). They took out their old one and sold it on but before they could put in the new one somebody thought it might be a good idea to make a Parish Room with a kitchen and toilets too. This could be done more easily without the organ being in place. The church is quite a wealthy one but even so, some time was spent fund-raising and then all the architects reports, and surveyors reports and moving of tombs etc took even more time. Bits of organ pipe and casing were handed out to all and sundry to look after at home as there was no-where to store the new organ in the church. All money raised was spent on the Parish Room and the church had to make do with a little electric organ. At last the Parish Room was finished and everyone was pleased with the result. Saving up for the installation of the organ was resumed and was going very well until the boiler broke down and had to be replaced. Fortunately, some very generous parishioner kindly paid for a new boiler for the church. At last, a few weeks ago the installation of the organ began and should be completed in time for the arrival of their new priest in the Autumn. When I got to church with Mum on Sunday even more scaffolding had been erected as they had decided to investigate a large damp patch that had appeared above the Rood Screen. They also have a Doom painting up there (covered with whitewash) which they want to look at to see that it isn’t deteriorating too much.

I had lunch when I got home and then spent a quiet afternoon reading, checking e-mails, feeding the birds and preparing the vegetables for our evening meal. Our church had an Evening Prayer service at 6.30pm and R and I went along at 5.45pm to get everything ready. It is fortunate that the lovely prayer of St Chrysostom is used during Morning and Evening Prayer, because if it wasn’t one might be tempted to wonder if there was much point in having the service. There were only five of us there including poor Maurice who had prepared a very thought-provoking homily and led the service so well.

‘Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests…’

Monday was another showery day with a few rumbles of thunder as well. I did a lot of supermarket shopping and washing and other necessary jobs around the house. I took a few photographs in the garden in-between the showers.

The tallest tree here is a lovely Ash tree. It upsets me to think that it probably will be dead in ten years time because of Ash die-back disease

The lane in front of our house is looking particularly green at the moment.

A lupin in R’s flower-bed

Calendula/Pot Marigold in R’s flowerbed

Yellow Iris in bud by the pond

You can tell by the Collared Doves’ blurred feet that it was moving fast and I had difficulty keeping up!

The sky gradually got cloudier and more stormy-looking as the day progressed.

Living in the (fairly) flatlands of East Anglia you can always see what the weather’s going to be like before it gets to you.

This is a plane from one of the local air bases

I was glad I wasn’t flying before the storm.

I got indoors just in time.

(If anyone is wondering why there is a brick on top of the cage over the ground bird feeder, it is to try to stop squirrels lifting up the lid and eating all the bird seed.)

By dusk the rain had stopped and the moon had risen.

Fruity Tutti

10 Sat May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, Gardening, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

apple trees, blackberry canes, crabapple trees, fig tree, Fruit, fruit salad, honey and lemon drink

I have been craving fruit during the past few days; that and yoghurt and ice-cream and hot tea!

This is my favourite night-time drink when I have a cold. Hot honey and lemon drink. The juice of half a lemon mixed with a good sized spoonful of honey and freshly boiled water. A little sugar sometimes but not always. R likes to add a tot of whisky with his but I don’t like whisky and prefer the drink non-alcoholic. The mug was a present from A and is just right for this drink and other herbal teas. It fits so nicely into my cupped hand!

I also made a fruit salad this evening with the first locally (well Norfolk) grown strawberries. This is so early for strawberries I was expecting them to be either sour or tasteless but they were very good. The other fruit was imported mainly from Spain – raspberries, blueberries – I can’t remember where the Galia melon was grown and the blackberries came from …… MEXICO? I do try to buy fruits and vegetables in season and locally grown but I do succumb sometimes and as I said, I really want fruit at the moment.

While I am on the subject of fruit I will show some photos of our fruit trees. These photos have been taken over the past week or two. I haven’t been out of the house today and photographing would have been difficult anyway because of the wind and regular showers of heavy rain.

This is our Concord pear tree on 23rd April and as you see the fruit was beginning to set. I tried taking a picture of the much larger fruit yesterday but I only got blurred images as it was so windy. We have found that Concord pears are best as cooking pears. If we wait until they are beginning to soften on the outside they have already started to rot in the middle. If we try to eat them while they are hard and crunchy they are quite tasteless. But, if we cook them when hard but ready to be harvested they are wonderful. My favourite is caramelised pears!

Our Saturn eating apple tree on 23rd April.

Saturn blossom. The Saturn has now lost all its blossom and the fruit is setting.

Egremont Russet eating apple tree. Note the attractive chicken wire which protects the tree from deer and rabbits. This photo also taken on 23rd April.

Egemont Russet blossom. As I mentioned in an earlier post the apples on this tree are not like true Egremont Russet apples so either we have been mis-sold or we have a tree that has been adapted to suit people that don’t like the look of traditional Russet apples. I love them with their dull, rough, RUSSET skins. They are sweet, juicy and crunchy and the skins are not tough; the flesh has a good nutty taste. One of my favourite apples.

‘Harry Baker’ crab apple tree, 23rd April. This is the tree that R has tended so carefully and it is now looking so much better and growing upwards now! You can see from a lot of these photos that the trenches made by the JCB a couple of months ago are still in evidence. We have contacted the landscaper to ask him to fill in the holes with top-soil and make good. We are waiting for him to turn up. Apparently he is on jury service.

‘Harry Baker’ blossom. The fruits are enormous and make very good crabapple jelly.

‘Evereste’ crabapple tree, 23rd April. I don’t make crabapple jelly from these fruits though I could easily. I like to leave them for the birds – blackbirds and fieldfares – who enjoy them after they have been frosted. Most of the fruits from last year were left on the tree as we didn’t get a hard enough frost this winter to make the fruits palatable for the birds. There must have been enough food for the birds this winter without them needing these apples. I had to cut them off the tree as the leaves were coming out and so we have had hardly any blossom this spring. I am glad to say that, because of this, the tree is at last beginning to grow again.

‘Evereste’ blossom.

Our weeping species crabapple. The smell of the blossom was overpowering and when I bent down and went under the tree the buzzing of the many bees enjoying the flowers was very loud. Mr and Mrs Mole have been working hard on their tunnels under the tree as you can see!

The fruits are very small on this crab tree and are eaten by birds. I have included this tree because it is so beautiful. It does have fruit but not fruit that we would want to eat!

I wanted to take another photo of our Turkey Fig tree yesterday to show the new leaves and the enlarging fruit but the wind prevented me.

This is the photo I posted in March and I will try to take a new photo as soon as I can. We have a Bramley cooking apple but it has decided not to flower this year. It is growing well so we are not worried.

This is our ‘Norfolk Biffin’ cooking apple tree. The tree is also known as a ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and is a heritage tree. The apples are very large and have a slightly spicy taste when cooked almost as if some nutmeg or cinnamon has been added. They are apparently very good as dried apples and that is how they were often used in Victorian times. We hope to get a dryer one day so we can try this out (and so that I can dry some of my herbs too). Norfolk Biffins are mentioned in Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ in Stave Three when Scrooge is out on the streets with the Ghost of Christmas Present. He talks of them being eaten after dinner and it is true that when left long enough they do become sweet enough to be used as an eating apple.

Biffin blossom.

The greengage tree which is quite new had its first flowers this year – four of them. We may have fruit but it is hard to say as yet. The damson/bullace trees have fruit setting on them but whether I will get any before the birds, squirrels, wasps etc. get to them is anyone’s guess.

We have been harvesting our rhubarb for a while now and we are leaving it for the time being to grow more leaves.

The flowers on our blackberry canes. Last year we were able to have quite a few fruit as there were hardly any wasps about. Usually the wasps get to them and ruin them no matter how I try to protect them.

A Windy Day and a Wet Blanket

09 Fri May 2014

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

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Escallonia 'Apple Blossom', greylags, laburnum, moorhens, peas, potatoes, runner beans, tomatoes

The day began sparklingly. Green and blue so intense and raindrops scintillating in the sun and breeze. I went out into the garden quite early to open the greenhouse and have a wander about. The wind was picking up and blossom was flying from the trees. I went back indoors and collected my camera.

The greylags keep paying us flying visits. The female goes onto the island and sorts over the old nest. Poor thing ! I wonder what happened while we were away. Did the eggs hatch out and then did she lose her goslings or did they not hatch at all? Did something (an otter?) eat the eggs or were they infertile?

Amusingly, while the female was busy on the island the gander was attacked by a moorhen. Moorhen are quite feisty birds when they want to be and despite being much smaller than the gander, this one made the gander run very fast! I walked round to the far side of the big pond and could hear moorhen chicks calling but couldn’t see them in the thick reeds. Moorhens feed their chicks until they are quite big and are very caring parents until they are spooked. They then run off as fast as their silly feet allow them, leaving the chicks to fend for themselves! Why?

I had a look at R’s vegetable patch and admired the potatoes already coming up.

We are growing two types of potato – white mid-season and red lates. I like it when R grows potatoes as they store well and I don’t need to buy them from about August until Christmas or later.

The trees were whipping about in the wind so I thought I’d better take a picture of the laburnums before the wind and rain stripped them of all their flowers.

These laburnum trees were meant to look the same, as I have been hoping to make a little arch with them. But look at them! One is squat and spreading outwards and the other is reaching for the skies! I will still try to make an arch but I don’t think it will end up looking like ‘Homes and Gardens’ material. They also grew A LOT last year and I didn’t get my act together and do anything with the trees at the right time – oh dear!

Escallonia ‘Apple Blossom’. The book I have says this is a dense evergreen shrub. This one is not at all dense and I’m not sure why not. Other Escallonias we’ve had in the past have been really good shrubs – good enough for hedging with, but this loses all its leaves in the middle and a number of branches die off after a year or two. I think I will cut it hard back and see what happens. It may also need a lot of feeding as the soil it’s in is a little stony.

I went into the greenhouse.

Some of R’s runner bean plants.

And some of his peas.

His tomato seedlings are doing well too.

The heavy showers started shortly after I returned to the house and they’ve continued on and off all day. A couple of times I’ve ventured out only to have to dash back in again, usually from the furthest parts of the garden.

And if you are wondering where the wet blanket comes in – that’s me with my woolly head and deafness, my runny nose and tickly cough.

The Archdeacon’s Visitation.

08 Thu May 2014

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

aquilegia, Archdeacon's Visitation, Easter cactus, Halesworth, hare, lilac, newts, rowan, St Mary's church, woodpigeon

I am amazed at how lucky we were with the weather on Monday! Since then the weather has been ‘changeable’ as the forecasters say. Tuesday had showers in the morning but a sunny, breezy afternoon, Wednesday had light showers in the early morning, a very fine middle of the day and then heavy showers from late afternoon onwards and today, well, yuk! is all I can say. Light showers this morning, heavy showers by midday and persistent rain this afternoon and evening. What makes it worse is that I have a nasty cold in the head. I had hoped to go with R to the Archdeacon’s Visitation service at St Mary’s church in Halesworth this evening but E needed to see her doctor and the only available appointment time was 6.30pm. I drove her home afterwards and saw R driving past us in the opposite direction on his way to the service and there wasn’t enough time for me to drop E at home and join him. And anyway, I think I’m better off at home not spreading germs about.

An Archdeacon’s visitation, as far as I understand it, is when all the Churchwardens (R is a Churchwarden) in the Deanery get together for a special service once a year with all their priests and the Archdeacon. They hand in their annual reports and accounts if they haven’t already done it on-line and also their Declaration. Churchwardens are supposed to serve for six years at most, I think, and then a new one is voted in. However, it usually is a case of ‘once a Churchwarden always a Churchwarden’, as no-one wants the job. The Churchwardens are ‘sworn in’, for want of a proper phrase at this special service and take their oaths to do their duty. A few hymns are sung and this sounds lovely as only large churches are chosen for this service and they are always full. The Archdeacon has his or her say and maybe some of the priests will give a talk too. This year there will be an extra item. Our Rector and the priest in the Benefice next to ours will be licensed to each others Benefice. This will mean that they will be able to serve in each others Benefice without having to get special permission each time from the Bishop. Our Rector looks after a Benefice of eleven churches with a couple of retired priests, one Reader and two Elders to help him. The priest in the Benefice next to ours looks after three churches one of which is in a town. It will make life much easier for our Rector especially, once this is done. Our Rector is due to retire in a very few years and we don’t know if we will get another priest to replace him. We think there will be a lot of changes and not for the better and our priests are preparing the ground for us. To add insult to injury we haven’t even got a Bishop at the moment and haven’t had for some time!

I wanted to go to the service, not only to support R and our church but to go into St Mary’s church again. When I first moved to Suffolk in 1988 I lived in Halesworth and attended St Marys. I was made very welcome at the church and made a number of friends. I also met R there and he asked me out while drinking coffee after a Sunday service. We had our Marriage Blessing Service there too. R has just returned and tells me the service went well and the refreshments afterwards were very good.

I have been able to take a few photos round the garden during the past few days.

Our Rowan or Mountain Ash tree is flowering. It has grown well in the last couple of years and this is the best it’s ever looked.

Rowan blossom.

A very poor photo of the newts in our front pond.

White lilac.

White lilac blossom.

Pink and purple aquilegias.

This the best photo I have of the hare that has been visiting our garden recently. Back view only!

Woodpigeons having a bath in a puddle in our drive earlier today.

Indoors now. This is my Easter cactus which is just coming into flower. Unlike Christmas cacti these flowers shut during the afternoon and re-open next morning.

Easter cactus flowers.

A Walking Week Part 2

07 Wed May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

bluebells, Bugle/Ajuga, Bush Vetch, coppicing, Deer fences, Early Purple Orchid, Lords and Ladies, Pendulous Sedge, primroses, Ragged Robin, Reydon Wood, Roger Deakin, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, violets, Yellow Archangel

By Friday R had recovered from his trip to Gloucestershire, so when he got home from work I suggested that we might take our postponed bluebell-wood walk that evening. He thought that would be a great idea so we set off about 6.00pm and managed to persuade E to come with us. This was a real surprise as E once got lost in Reydon Wood and hadn’t been back since. To get to Reydon Wood we usually go via the road to Southwold, our nearest seaside town, passing by the Henham Estate which is the venue for the Latitude Festival. Henham Woods were awash with bluebells so we were hopeful that our walk would not be in vain.

When we got to the entrance to the wood there were only a couple of cars parked there and plenty of room for us.

The path to the wood.

The path is usually quite interesting in itself as it runs along next to Reydon Wood on one side and fields on the other. Between the path and the wood is a very deep ditch, probably quite ancient and dug as a boundary and/or to stop deer entering the wood and damaging the trees.

It is not easy to see the depth of the ditch with this photo.

We walked a little further until we came to the entrance. The wood is excellently maintained by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. They have started to coppice it again and have cleared away a lot of scrub. They have marked out paths through the wood and maintain the ditches. Bluebells are very sensitive plants and if their leaves are crushed they die so it is best to stick to the paths. Not only are there bluebells in this wood but many other interesting plants and trees. This wonderful habitat is also good for all sorts of animals, birds and insects too.

A bridge over a little drainage ditch.

An old coppiced tree ready for more coppicing. The word ‘copse’ for a small wood means that it was once and maybe still is a coppiced wood. There are many trees which are suitable for coppicing – hazel, ash, willow – as long as they re-shoot after their branches are cut off low they are suitable. Coppicing is similar to pollarding which is more often seen in towns where the branches are cut off near the crown of the tree. If you look to the left of the picture you will see how the paths have been marked out by laying sticks next to each other. A bio-degradable path and easily maintained too.

This is a deer fence made of brushwood. The area inside has been newly coppiced and the fence is here to stop the deer eating the new tree shoots. In Roger Deakin’s delightful book ‘Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees’ he goes coppicing with a friend and also says that some woodsmen put a heap of brushwood on each individual stump to stop deer and rabbit damage.

A couple of woodland ponds.

If anyone can tell me what the plant in the second pond is I would be very grateful. I apologise for the poor quality of the photo but I included it as I wished to show where the flowers are growing. The flowers are a little like primrose flowers and are in tiered whorls. The leaves are strap-like.

Lords and Ladies.

Early Purple Orchid.

Ajuga/Bugle.

Primroses.

Violets.

Ragged Robin.

Pendulous Sedge.

Bush Vetch

Yellow Archangel.

The next few photos are of the bluebells in Reydon Wood.

The Rumburgh May Day Fete

06 Tue May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in music, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

belly dancing, Children's Folk Group, fete, May Day, May Pole dancing, Rumburgh Buck, Rumburgh Morris, stalls

Yesterday R and I went to the Rumburgh May Day Fete. This has been held in the village since time immemorial and takes place on the recreation ground (which is what the villagers call the village green). The church run the cake stall and I had been asked to contribute something for it. I duly spent some time on Sunday afternoon baking some cherry shortbread and some orange tea bread. Both recipes are easy to follow and neither takes too long to cook – ideal for a reluctant cook like me.

The fete began at 11.00am so R and I arrived just before then, so that we could hand over our contributions in good time (R had pulled some rhubarb yesterday morning and brought that along too) and then have a tour of the stalls before the crowds arrived. The weather was perfect – lots of sunshine, a fairly gentle breeze and also nicely warm.

The fete appeals to all ages and is a really sociable event. All sorts of people turn up – the very elderly, tiny babies with their parents, people wanting to sell and those wanting to buy, supporters of those people taking part in the entertainment, bikers in their leathers, old hippies – we all mingled together and enjoyed the day. Lots of food and drink is on sale but a number of groups bring picnics with them.

This stall sold plants and accessories dyed with natural dyes.

This is the bag and jewellery stall.

The plant stall.

The tombola stall and a part of the cake stall on the left. The white construction is the goal post without its net.

The cake stall

The Human Fruit Machine! This was great fun and was run by the W.I. (Women’s Institute). They also ran a bric-a-brac stall.

The Candy Box Sweet Van with someone selling honey and jam next to them.

Hot dogs and burgers.

Girls eating burgers next to the toy stall.

Different types of transport used to get to the fete.

A game of petanque.

Teenagers in the children’s play area.

The ice-cream van.

The May Pole in front of the tea tents.

The entertainment was varied.

Dancing round the May Pole. May Pole dancing isn’t taught any more so these young people hadn’t much idea what to do, but they all enjoyed themselves nevertheless. R tells me he was taught how to dance round the May Pole at school. When done properly it is really lovely. The children weave in and out of each other, some going clockwise and some anti-clockwise. The ribbons are all plaited together and then everything is reversed until all the ribbons are undone again.

This was a bit of a shambles at times but such good fun!

This is the music group that played for the children to dance to.

Lovely belly dancers!

The Children’s Folk Group. These young people were very good indeed. They played without fault for three-quarters of an hour non-stop!

I like this rear view of the older ones!

This is Rumburgh Morris – our very own morris dancers. They are dancing with handkerchiefs.

The Master of Ceremonies

One of the morris musicians

The bells they wear strapped to their shins.

The antlers they always bring with them. The local pub is called the Rumburgh Buck and that is where they meet. The last time I saw these antlers was in the church a couple of weeks before Christmas. We have a Carols and Capers service with folk carols and morris dancing (a caper is a morris dance move – a leap).