Early autumn?

 We're just coming to the end of (I think) the 4th heatwave of the summer. The grass is completely dry, and some of the plants and small trees are struggling. However, some of the leaves on the bigger trees are starting to go yellow, the pumpkins on the allotment are getting big and a few have turned orange, and the garden is full of blackberries. Are these indications of early autumn, or just the result of multiple heatwaves and very little rain? Either way, really hoping this is the last heatwave of the year. 

We have had frequent badger visits recently. I think it may be a young badger, it looks quite small and is quite keen on climbing into things to find peanuts. We also had a deer wander through the garden one night, and appear in the field next to our house during the day. It's always nice to see deer wandering around.

Hopefully, now the weather is getting slightly cooler, we might actually get some rain soon. The ground is so dry at the moment, even though I've been watering everything every day, it doesn't seem to make much difference. I hope we do get an early autumn, I think myself and the garden really need some nice, cool, rainy days!

 

Another heatwave

 Currently in the midst of another heatwave. Apparently, it's going to get to about 30 degrees tomorrow. I'm watering the garden and allotment every day, early in the morning (before it gets too hot). The stuff growing on the allotment (pumpkins, squash and some fruit bushes) all seems ok, for now. But some of the small trees in the garden seem to be struggling a bit, the leaves are drying out and getting scorched by the sun. I'm really hoping they survive through the summer.

We need some rain, I think. Not just the odd, little shower now and then, which is what we've been getting for the last month or so, but a proper rainy day (or few days, ideally). Having a bit of water once a day is obviously not enough.

Optimistically, I'm hoping this is the last heatwave this year. Personally, I think anything over 23 degrees is too hot, so 30 degrees is horrendous. Too hot to do anything, too hot to sleep at night. I'm not a big fan of summer, generally. Autumn is much more comfortable.  

Little update

 Haven't written on here for so long! To be honest, I forgot all about this blog...is blogging even still relevant? Who knows. Basically, life and general chaos got in the way. Other things have taken up my time. 

Anyway, I might try to do this again, a bit more regularly. 

It's currently very warm and humid, pollen levels are very high and my allergies are being very annoying. We're basically in summer now, the Summer Solstice is actually still a few days away, but nevermind. The garden is full and probably a bit over-grown, but all the trees are doing well.

We've started to get some gooseberries, blackcurrents and raspberries ripening, also a few strawberries. Apples and pears are still tiny, but will hopefully continue to grow. All the roses seem to be doing very well this year, and the herb garden I planted recently is working out well. (I've started using the rosemary to make a sort of potion to thicken my hair a bit....it's really just rosemary and boiled water, but it seems to be helping a bit.) Actually, I should probably make some more soon, haven't got much left now.

The badgers are still visiting, occasionally. There are still lots of birds in the garden, generally being quite noisy. The rooks, jackdaws and magpies are slowly getting used to us, they will actually come down to the feeder while I am in the garden, as long as I don't get too close.

Creeping towards autumn

 I know it's still July, so essentially still the middle of summer, but it feels almost autumnal at the moment. It's chilly (I've put a cardigan on today), raining heavily and getting quite windy. The blackberries have started to appear in the hedges down the lane and in our garden, although they are still very small and green, as are the berries on the hawthorn and rowan. 

I'm not complaining about this at all, we had a heatwave a couple of weeks ago, and that was more than enough summer weather for me! Autumn is definitely my favourite season. I've vaguely started my autumn preparations...ordered some firewood (for delivery in September) in case it gets cold suddenly, making sure everyone in the house has suitable clothing and footwear for cooler, wetter weather etc. This is possibly just because I get a bit over-enthusiastic about being organised, or because I get over-excited about autumn generally.

I'm almost ceratin that we will get more hot weather over the next month or so, and I will complain about summer lasting too long, being too hot and humid etc. But at the moment I am enjoying the slow, subtle hints that autumn is coming.

Jackdaws

I may have mentioned before that we have jackdaws living/nesting on the roof, they have been here since we moved in. A few weeks ago, I had the very upsetting experience of finding a dead one in the garden. Well, actually I found it in a bin in the garden. The bin was otherwise empty (we don't use it for anything), there was no lid on it. Why would a bird go into an empty bin? And why wouldn't it it just fly out? Did it go in there to die in peace, away from everything else? Anyway, it was horrible. I cried about it for hours, not even sure why it upset me so much, but it did.

 Since then, one jackdaw has finally ventured into our garden, occasionally. It either sits on the roof of the workshop, or sometimes actually comes to the bird feeder and has some food. It never stays for very long. Now, this maybe that it has to come to the feeder for food, as it's been so hot and dry here, that it can't find other food easily. However, it could also be that it finally feels safe/comfortable enough to come into the garden, which I hope is the case. 

 I am determined to make friends with the jackdaws. I was a bit concerned that a dead one in our garden would mean that they would hate us, but apparently not.

Baby birds

 Feels like summer at the moment, it's been sunny and warm (sometimes too hot) for a couple of weeks now. There have been a lot of baby birds in the garden, mostly (very noisy) starlings, Although we have also seen a baby robin, some young sparrows and a young blue tit. The baby starlings like to sit on top of the bird feeder and shout at their parents until they come and feed them. It's adorable, but very loud.

A very sweet family of geese visited the garden the other day, 2 adults and four babies. Our neighbour called my husband to let us know they were in our garden. We watched them for a few minutes, they wanted to get through our garden to the field at the back, but the wire fence that was put up a couple of years ago was stopping them. Poor things looked very confused, then the babies started to wander off away from the parents. So, I went out and pulled up the fence (which was not put there by us, but it's on our garden boundary), making a big gap at the bottom. Luckily, after a bit of searching for their babies, all the geese went under the fence on their way to wherever they were going. The big gap/hole shall remain in the fence...as I don't want any wildlife getting stuck in a stupid wire fence. (I'm very proud of myself for making a hole in the fence to help some geese!)

One of the baby geese

 

Also, actually saw a deer in the field at the back last night. First time we've manged to see one in there! My son spotted it, while looking out of his bedroom window.

The Rat is Back

 We're finally at the end of the heatwave. It's cooler today, but very humid, and we have warnings for thunderstorms over the next few days. The birds are a bit more active in the garden today, I think they've managed to throw some of their food from the feeder across the lawn (which is all yellow/brown). The rat (who occasionally visits the garden, usually when the grass is longer) has come back today and is eating all the seeds off of the ground.

I know I should be ok with it, and I'm really trying to be. I have a bit of an issue with rats...I'm really not keen on having one in the garden! The poor creature is probably just hungry (as most fruit and vegetables etc. haven't really grown very well because of the heat and lack of rain). If I just ignore it, maybe it will just go away once it has finished eating the seeds that the birds have spilled. As my husband keeps telling me...if we're going to live somewhere rural and insist having a wildlife-friendly garden, I'm probably going to have to accept all wildlife....including the rat.

 

Unexpected Owl

 The badgers are still visiting our garden every night. On saturday night, we were looking out of the bedroom window, watching a badger snuffle around. Then something flew passed the window, wings flapping but completely silent. It took me a few seconds to work out what it was, as it was moving quite fast, but I think it was an owl! It was quite big and looked fairly pale in colour (it was just getting dark, so I couldn't see that clearly).  My son, who was watching the badger with me, declared that it was a barn owl. He may well be right, he's much better at identifying birds than I am (and his eye sight is much better than mine).

I've never seen an owl in the wild before, so it was very exciting to see one just fly past my window. You can understand why people describe them as ghost-like, not only because of their colour but because of the weird silence. It was quite close to the window, which was open, and I couldn't hear any flapping noise from the (fairly large) wings or anything. It's really odd when you think about how big the owl is, my brain tells me that I should have heard some kind of noise as it flew past, but there was none. Obviously, it's well known that owls can fly silently, but it's strange and amazing to actually see, but not hear one in real life.

Every night now, when I look out for the badgers, I will also look out for the owl. The likelihood of seeing it again is probably minimal, but I can hope.

Buzzards....maybe?

 We actually had some rain yesterday....but not very much. It was just sort of drizzle on and off all afternoon. Unfortunately, not enough to make any real difference to the garden, everything is still very dry. I keep seeing warnings that August will be quite a dry month too, so we should be careful with the amount of water we are using. Still really hoping for a big storm or just some heavy rain! 

There are a lot of birds coming into the garden, and they are still enjoying the extra bowls of water we've been putting out. Temperatures continue to be above average for the time of year, but at least we're not in another heatwave (at the moment). The badger is making nightly visits to the garden too, and sometimes a second badger comes along.

The pheasants seem to be coming back into the field near our house, I've seen a big male pheasant strutting around a few times in the last week. Recently, we've seen a couple of birds of prey in the field too. They are around most days, either circling above the fields or resting on the fence posts. I think they are buzzards, but they are always slightly too far away to see clearly. We hear them quite often too. (I'm not that good at identifying birds of prey.) They are quite big, brownish coloured and make a screeching noise. Hopefully, I'll either get a clearer view at some point, or be able to get a photo of them. 

Hoping for rain (and foxes)

 The heatwave is over, but it has been fairly warm for the last few days and hardly any rain, just the odd shower which only lasts a few minutes. The garden is very dry. We let the grass grow quite long, but at the moment it looks like straw. Probably going to have to mow it soon, as I think it's basically just dead now. The onions I was growing really dried out too. I've pulled them all up and I think most of them will be ok to cook with, but they are all very small. Luckily, the squashes, courgettes and most of the flowers seem to have survived. We really need some rain though! Rain is one of those things that I don't really appreciate until there isn't any for a while, then I really miss it (as do all our plants). 

The badger seems to have become a regular visitor to our garden, we can look out of the window most nights at a round 10.00 and see at least one of them snuffling around. I'm really pleased, as it means that I get to watch it munching on the peanuts we leave out, and so does my son. I never saw badgers when I was a child, so I'm happy that he can. We're quite lucky, really.

Still no sign of the fox that used to visit. I'm hoping it's still around. My husband said that he could hear some foxes last night, so maybe we'll see one (or more) again at some point soon.

Return of the Blue tits

 We are currently in the middle of a heatwave, it's going to reach about 26 degrees again today. Personally, I struggle with this weather....I hate the heat. I'm definitely more of an autumn/winter person. We're putting out bowls of water for all the wildlife in the garden, which the sparrows seem to enjoy, and making sure the bird bath is always full. I'm trying to water all the plants and trees every day, but everything is drying out very quickly. However, in the last couple of days, the thistles and the teasels have started flowering.

A few days ago, I briefly saw a blue tit in the garden. I was so pleased to see it! We haven't seen any in the garden for months, not since the incident with a local cat (see earlier post). Then yesterday morning, there were two little blue tits on the bird feeder. Obviously, it's quite unlikely that these are the same blue tits that were nesting here before, but it's still really lovely to see some visiting the garden again. My neighbours probably think I'm insane....I think they heard me yelling, 'There's TWO blue tits!' while I was in the kitchen, making some tea.

I hope it cools down a bit soon, not sure all my trees will survive....the leaves are starting to look a bit crispy. Actually, I really hope we get a decent amount of rain soon. I think all the wildlife in the garden is struggling a bit.

The Cheerful Sight of Rabbits

 Woke up with a slight headache this morning. I'm not really getting out for our usual walks at the moment, we are slowly renovating our house and there seems to be a lot going on. Stuff needs to be moved and wallpaper needs to be scraped off the walls, deliveries turning up etc. It's tiring, but I appreciate that we are lucky enough to be in a position to do this (we are doing most of the work ourselves, rather than paying someone else).

The great thing about living where we do, is that we live next to a small field (which I'm hoping will remain a field and not end up being built on, as a lot of fields around here have been sold to developers. I won't get into a rant about that here). For the last couple of mornings, I've come downstairs & looked out of the window to see one or two rabbits hopping about in the field, or just sitting there munching on the grass. Occasionally, I get to see a baby/young rabbit. Such a cheerful sight first thing in the morning! In the evenings, we can sometimes see quite a few rabbits in the field at the back, they run around and chase each other. I don't think I'll ever get bored of seeing them. There are usually two or three horses in the field too, who occasionally wander over to the fence to say hello and peer into our garden.

Even though I am not getting out as much as I'd like, I'm so glad we can still see mice, birds etc. in the garden and wildlife (and horses) in the field. It never fails to cheer me up a bit.

My Love of Trees

 We are properly into summer now. The garden is full of flowers and very long grasses (we don't mow our lawn very often, we prefer to let it grow into a sort of meadow). Starlings and sparrows seem to be in the garden most of the time and we get occasional visits from a couple of goldfinches. I did see a few butterflies over the weekend. I think one was a Red Admiral, but I couldn't say for definite, they all flutter around quite quickly.

When we moved into this house, the garden was mostly lawn. Over the last two years, we have put in several raised beds for vegetables and quite a lot of trees. Planting a tree is one of my favourite things to do, especially if I'm feeling a bit miserable or stressed about anything! They are good for the environment and will eventually provide some shade in our garden. I know a lot of people don't want shady gardens, but I think it's good to have some shade, especially during heatwaves (which seem to be getting more frequent). So far, we have two rowan trees, a hawthorn, a spindle, two plum trees (one was already here when we moved in), a hazelnut, a pear and a cherry tree. We also planted a couple of holly bushes and a friend gave me a tiny oak tree he'd dug up from his garden (which I have planted, but I'm not sure it will survive, I think the roots were damaged when he dug it up). I'd like to get an apple tree at some point soon, not quite sure where we'd put it yet though.

All of the trees are still fairly small, but a few of them look like they may produce fruit and berries this year. Tiny berries have started to form on one of the rowan trees and a few cherries and plums have started to appear. I'm stupidly happy about this! Autumn is one of my favourite seasons (the other is winter), and I love seeing all the berries and fruit on trees. Plus, it provides food for all the wildlife.

Regular Visitors

It seems that summer has arrived here, it was quite sudden. The last few days have been very warm and pollen levels have been very high (I have been sneezing a lot).  The grass in the garden-meadow has reached waist-height. There are still plenty of birds visiting the garden, although they are not the same birds who visited us in the spring.

Back in the spring, we enjoyed watching all the regaular birds coming to the bird feeder. There were two long tailed tits who visited every day, along with the blue tits and great tit. A couple of blackbirds would hang around in the garden, as well as two (or sometimes four) robins. I assumed, wrongly, that these birds would be around for most of the year. I'd talk to them occasionally (don't judge me, I don't get out much!). I think I took it for granted that they'd always visit our garden, and come to our bird feeder.

Now we are in summer, I don't see those birds anymore, or at least not as much. Occasionally, the great tit still flits into the garden for a couple of minutes, then disappears again. However, we do see a lot of sparrows now, they are in the garden or on the bird-feeder for most of the day, and fly back and forth to the hedge. Also, there are a lot of noisy starlings around, who also like the bird-feeder. We've seen a lot of swifts flying over recently too, and occasionally a couple of goldfinches. I'm not complaining at all, I love seeing all the starlings and sparrows. The young ones are adorable, funny little creatures! The blackbirds still hang around the garden a bit, and I think two of the robins still visit regularly. I do kind of miss the other birds though. Maybe this is just what happens in summer, and this is the first year I've actually noticed? (And yes, I have started talking to the sparrows and starlings too. Would be rude not to!)