The tree at the back gate has been here for years and years, the plums are small but sweet and always the first to ripen at The Gables
Late evening drinks on the terrace
This little chick is growing – it’s a single chick and Mrs Silkie is very protective
Cherry ripe
Picking them before the wasps eat too many.
What’s in a name? It’s all in the app!
My walking buddy, Gill, told me about a free app that she has downloaded to her phone. It’s called SEEK and by scanning the phone over a plant or insect one receives an instant identification. So I downloaded it last night and have spent the last twenty minutes walking around the fields and garden testing the app on insects, plants and trees.
Norway Maple
Perennial Sow Thistle
Evening delights
Baby keeping warm in mothers feathers
Bees enjoying the hollyhocks
Click below
Thank you, Elisabeth, for a wonderful Wednesday walk
Olga and Elisabeth are planning a walking and yoga retreat at The Gables in the autumn. They arrived to walk with us, this morning, map in hand. Two Gills and the two visitors set off across fields and along footpaths for a five km walk.
Along the way we met a farmer and discussed the crop of field beans that he was harvesting. He confirmed what Jeremy had told me – many of these beans are exported to Egypt where they make a popular and staple dish called ful medames. Unfortunately the crop is often infested with beetles that eat holes in the beans and those beans are then sold as cattle feed. We also discussed farming and how the increase in veganism and vegetarianism and climate change awareness is having a negative impact on beef and dairy farmers. Then onto the EU and subsidies and by the end of twenty minutes we were no further forward in solving the world’s problems…..but it had been and interesting and frank discussion. None of the farmer’s children want to work the land. Too many hours and not enough remuneration. Gill said she had seen paddy fields in Vietnam unharvested because the young people there have abandoned farming and the countryside for an easier life in the cities.
After an invigorating walk we repaired to The Gables to collect eggs, pick raspberries
And eat lunch al fresco
First there was one, then two and
Finally three
Click below
A smoking bonfire, fresh picked raspberries and a clean cat
When I left for London Jeremy and Chris were tackling a huge pile of wood and hedge thinnings that had accumulated over several months. I spent a couple of hours with mum who enjoyed the fresh raspberries that I picked for her this morning.
When I returned the bonfire had left a pile of ash, Mabel was sleeping and Nigel was cleaning himself. Click below
Several snails climbing, this morning, up the side of the poly tunnel
Why shouldn’t they get a mention now and then?
