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| << May 2024 | June 2024 | July 2024 >> |
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1st: New growth and tired dogs Having been filling up the cold frames with spent bedding and muck over the winter and spring, today we planted this year's veg, two each of: courgette, squash, cucumber, pumpkin and tromboncino. Last year everything did really well in the cold frames, let's hope this year we have the same success!! We also put more cucumber and tomatoes in the greenhouse. Must also mention that this week we have started to eat the first strawberries, with the outside bed already bursting with lots of green fruit which we hope will be turning red with the coming week's sun. We have also harvested coriander for our salads. Meanwhile, our rewilded land with its long grass and ever more varied vegetation is proving wonderful for the dogs who have spent much of their walks today chasing smells. We then went on to have a 'very' quiet evening!! Perfect!!    |
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2nd: New Willow Today Andrew and Lynda gave us ten Purple willow trees that Andrew had grown from cuttings. The bark is red/purple so should add some wonderful colour to the land. We have planted them just this side of the well in Oak field where hopefully they will find more than enough water and do well. We have been so lucky with the tress that have been given to us for our rewilding project. We have so many other plans including planting orchids as mentioned a few days ago and also scattering a lot of wild seeds from plants we have elsewhere, such as the yellow poppies and the fox and cubs. All very, very exciting!!  Meanwhile we (Jack) has been trying to get to grips with our new Macro lens....     |
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3rd: A Man and his Dogs!! (well two of them) |
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4th: Always something new to find... Our walks round our fields always see us finding something new or different or bigger or in greater numbers.... Today has given us a Red and black froghopper on a nettle (not seen one of these before), a foxglove in Oak field now out in flower and the first flowering Bittersweet. (Still working on mastering the new Macro lens though...)    |
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5th: More Macro Fun Clockwise from top left: Unopened Spear thistle flower; Red Campion; Cuckoo spit on Cleavers and Rough chervil     |
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6th: Black and white  |
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7th: The Boys They lead a very quiet life, these two. Days are spent eating, chilling with the sheep and being on alert when the puppies enter their field... (The latter have learnt who is in charge here!!)   |
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8th: Buttercups This was using the Telephoto lens, not the Macro.  |
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9th: Chulmleigh Open Gardens A fabulous afternoon with Becky Rose enjoying Chulmleigh Open Gardens. We visited 14 stunning gardens in and on the outskirts of the village and every one was a delight. Huge thank you to everyone who opened up their special places. We met some truly lovely people too - Chulmleigh really is a great place to live!       |
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10th: Lime, Bressay and Whalsay |
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11th: Fabulous walking with the dogs today!!       |
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12th: Goats doing what goats do best   |
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13th: The Oak trees we planted seem to be thriving |
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14th: Look at those tongues and ears!!    |
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15th: Mullein caterpillar A Mullein caterpillar - common-ish, although the moth it turns in to is rarely seen as it's nocturnal and resembles a dead plant stem!! 😅 The caterpillar eats mullein (verbascum), figworts and buddleia so isn't always a gardener's friend. This one was munching on water figwort in our ex-poultry area (now a haven for wildlife) and is very welcome to stay there. Interesting how the caterpillar uses 'warning colours' to scare away predators, whilst the moth uses camouflage. Notice the 'face' on the front of its head (third photo). Isn't nature fascinating?    |
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16th: Invertebrate life?? Like many people at the moment, we are lamenting the lack of invertebrate life this year so far.. We keep telling ourselves that we aren't officially summer yet and they will come.... It was rather fab therefore to find no less than four pairs of mating shieldbugs and leatherbugs on one dock plant this afternoon: two Common green shieldbugs and two Dock leatherbugs. (These bugs are one of our favourite insect species). We also spotted a spider with a HUGE egg sac and a couple of brown butterflies, not to mention several of the Mullein caterpillars we first spotted yesterday. They were all in our old poultry paddock that is now very full of plants, some of which we introduced from other places on our land. A haven for wildlife - we hope!!   |
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17th: Spot the dogs - Orange Moor |
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18th: Spent an amazing afternoon with Nick Withers at his and Claire's wildlife oasis on Rock Hill in Chulmleigh. Nick spent three hours teaching me (Jack) some of the tricks of the trade when it comes to wildlife photography. He was utterly brilliant and I cannot recommend him enough. He was so knowledgeable, patient and inspiring. I arrived home totally beaming and David didn't need to ask me if the session had gone well. 😁 You can see Nick's amazing work on his instagram account: ❤ The photos below are some of mine - all very much work in progress but was quite pleased at the odd one or two. Sitting and watching the wildlife in their garden was just amazing, so relaxing and de-stressing. If only more people created such wildlife havens, we might not be in quite so much of a mess with our bio-diversity as we are. It was all very humbling!!       |
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19th: Orange Moor  |
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20th: Gardening Today we tackled the silver birch border: removing brambles, nettles and docks - these are the only three 'weeds' we really remove and there are many times when brambles are left in a hedge or at the back of a border. Our gardening is all about not allowing any plants to dominate and leaving as much for the wildlife as we can. Only tough plants tend to make it with us it has to be said!!   |
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21st: Butterflies and Toads We are starting to see a few butterflies... this is the Meadow brown, very common and widespread with caterpillars that feed on a wide variety of grasses. We have been spotting a couple or so a day this last week. And whilst gardening today we were delighted to find these two: our favourite amphibian ever: the Common Toad - bufo bufo. We see more toads that frogs in our garden and despite a rather 'full' pond that desperately needs a dredging, they lay ever year.     |
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22nd: Never tire of the views from our land |
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23rd: Catching moths We have invested in a moth trap and after two nights (19th and 23rd) we have caught a total of 45 moths, 21 different species, 15 of which we have identified. The night of the 22nd (which was a damp, misty one) we caught just one! The following night which was much clearer saw us capture 31 in total. It's all quite fascinating and restoring a bit of faith in our land being home to wildlife. Trying to photo them before released is a lesson in extreme patience and ambition.... Here are a few of the better (ish) photos. Row by row: Brimstone and Buff ermine, The Snout and White ermine, Common wave and Garden or Olive Pearl and lastly Common yellow conch and Common carpet. What a collection.         |
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24th: Buttercups and dewdrops!!! |
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25th: A surprise visitor We haven't seen any crickets or grasshoppers on the land yet but this chap was spotted resting on the doorframe of the study sliding doors today. We haven't been able to do a positive ID yet but we think it is a bush cricket of some sort! Meanwhile we had fun with the light taking pictures of the Nipplewort - the buds aren't really blue and the whole flower is actually all yellow - but we love the effect!!   |
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26th: Blackbirds A male blackbird all fluffed up and a little hot - this was 10am this morning on top of our wood pile by the summer house. Hope he found somewhere cool for the day. And the female was on the allotment an hour or so earlier - we get a lot of them on the allotment, which reminds us, we must cover our currant bushes as the berries are starting to ripen and will be way too tempting for the birds! Love blackbirds - we get a lot here. When we first moved, magpie numbers were huge and blackbird numbers were small. Pleased to say that there has been a steady reversal of that situation year on year.   |
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27th: Neptune Modeling the latest fashions in picture one, followed by 'the look' when I asked him if he would like me to remove it for him!!   |
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28th: House Plants We are starting to fill the house with house plants again - it's been a few years since we had plants indoors - we have never had them here in fact. Here's hoping we can keep them away from puppies and cats!!!! In this box: Chinese Money Plant, Tradescantia Zebrina, Peace Lilly, Maranta Fascinator and Peperomia caperata. (A fab mixture of common and latin names there..)   |
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29th: Mininbeasts It's been a great day for finding minibeasts (although capturing them on camera has been a challenge...) Row by row: Scorpion Fly (Oak field); Crane fly and honey bee (Garden); Pond olive mayfly (on decking) and Meadow brown butterfly (Oak field); Lucerne bug (Allotment) and Sabre Wasp/ a type of Ichumen (Garden). A fascinating collection - maybe invertebrate life is starting to show itself at last!!        |
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30th: There's beauty in everything (Meadow Brown butterfly and a Sawfly larva)   |