A cold start to the month only 6C when we got up on this the first day of the month, why can we not have a month of decent weather, warm and sunny like in my youth? Yes I can still remember it.
Somebody has suggested that I date each day so they can compare what is going on in their gardens on that day so I shall give it a try if I remember to put a date on.
!st.
Firstly I apologise for such a rotten shot of this insect, it had been flying around, settled and I ran and got my camera from indoors and rushed the shot in case it flew off.
I was convinced this was a Bee and searched online to identify it, turns out it is not a bee but a an Great Pied Hover Fly, which imitates a bee so as not to be eaten by birds. I have never seen one before but according to the internet it is a very common fly throughout Britain.
2nd
Now we often hear Owls both Tawny and Little but I have never photographed a wild one, so when this opportunity arose I got this shot of the one. This is the Lesser Spotted Big Bird Scare Owl, Common on a lot of fisheries to attempt to keep Ospreys at bay, it does not work as I have seen an Osprey dive on fish in this very Lochan that I fish weekly at Blair Walker.
An additional shot for today is we got up from lunch to find this young Robin (that is getting fairly tame with us) on my old slippers in the kitchen waiting to be fed some mealworms.
3rd
Another babe that has appeared over the last few days is this young Buzzard. Now how you know how human babies cry when they are hungry, well this youngster just sits on one of the three power cable posts most of the day and just mews for it to be fed. Occasionally a parent will show up and feed it or it will bomb it until it takes off and follows the adult. This enables the parents to give it a flying lesson, we have had low fly passes in front of the house or if there is a bit of a wind blowing the adult will take it up on the thermals to some great heights. Though I must say the babe is a bit reluctant to do the steep dive of it’s mentor, which are spectacular.
4th.
As I have stated before I am not much of a gardener, mowing the lawns is about my limit. But I do keep us supplied with lettuce and above is my system of production. The furthest right is the lettuce we are eating at present, it produces at least one more crop on a cut & come up again basis. It will give us three growths but the third one tastes fairly bitter so we normally just take two off of it. The middle tray will be the next tray ready when the first is finished followed up by last weeks sowing which, in this weather is growing fast. It is organic in growth as we only use our own compost to grow it in and it is watered by rainwater that we collect, so very healthy and low calories to eat.
5th.
In yesterdays post I told you about our lettuce growing and how we used our own compost, so today I thought I would take you through our 3/4 year process of making that compost.
We start of with 4 compost bins 4′ by 2′ in size.
The first is empty at the moment but when bin 3 is full we will start on this one, in the mean time we allow any weeds to grow in it and as that years compostable material goes on top of it it will die and add to the final compost.
This second bin is the one in current use and we try to add as much variety as possible, ranging from the household items from the kitchen, egg shells, coffee slops, tea bags and veg peelings, but no cooked food. Last on as you can see is rhubarb leaf’s.
The next bib is 2 or 3 year materials covered over and not disturbed , so we stack support twigs for the flowers that need support whilst growing.
Finally the finished product, beautiful loam that gets added to all the beds and growing areas in the garden and if being used for seed beds get finely sieved before use. The whole process is so worthwhile not only does it benefit the garden it saves me many a trip to the refuge dump in Pitlochry.
6th
At long last we have some rain and it looks like we are in for a wet weekend, the garden is absolutely desperate for it. Though we had one ten minute downpour nine days ago and it has not been particularly warm we do need this. Our Rowan trees have a lot of berries on them this year and they looked good with the rain on them so in between the showers I popped out and took the above shot. Folklore has it that if there is a lot of berries it means we are in for a bad winter, hope not, but we shall see. My only hope is that the fruit remains until the Redwings and Fieldfare arrive and they can feast on them and I can add them to the November/December blog, as I never got them at the start of the year.
7th.
We purchased a Clematis called Bill McKenzie as a climbing Clematis and boy since we have had it has it climbed. The first shot shows the attractive yellow flowers it has and the “old mans beard” type seed heads they turn to. The second shot shows how extensive it has taken over this mature Silver Birch on the left hand side of the shot. So the section I photographed is just a limb of the tree about 30 feet up, the main trunk of the tree goes up at least another 25 feet and the Clematis goes virtually to the top and is very vigorous. Therefore if you want a Clematis that forms a hedge or climbs up trees I can certainly recommend this variety.
8th
Went for a walk up Glen Fender and if we looked North West from us roughly a mile or so away this was what we saw, a menacing rain cloud. This proves the fact that it is so difficult to forecast the weather in our sort of terrain, because we were dry and not such menacing clouds above us. Twenty minutes later we got in the car , still dry and drove home a mile in the direction of the clouds . Sure enough we got home and got wet just going from the car to the house and it bucketed down for the next half hour. Love that little cottage in the middle of nowhere, the ruins beside it I think is the remains of a small kirk, to service the glens community in days gone by.
9th.
After a storm the day dawns a warmer one and you get the clouds rising of the ground, normally along the river course but here you can see it is fairly general, it makes the distant hills in the left side of the shot look like they have snow on them. Thankfully that never happened and it turned into a warm sunny day for once. In fact the sun was out more than forecast today and that ruined any chance of me catching a decent fish, well that is my excuse anyway.
10th.
Within a couple of years of moving in here we discovered the mature Ash tree at our gate was rotten in the middle and because it was such a large specimen we did not want it falling on the garage or anywhere else for that matter. So it had to go, and it certainly was to big a job for us to take on and had to get the professionals in, though we got nearly two years of firewood out of it it was a shame that it had to go. We decided to leave the stump and trunk to as height of about six foot from ground level, mainly because it is between to sheds and hard to cut down lower.
This proved invaluable as when it rotted down a bit (as you can see in the shot) our Greater Spotted Woodpeckers used it as their winter feeding ground, catching the many grubs that called it home. Another interesting fact is to the left of this shot you can see the tree has put out some new growth , though every year it dies back fully in winter. But on the right you can see a Rowan has established itself and grows a bit more each year, So we are glad we left it as nature is slowly making it useful.
11th.
I realise I have put a Blue Tit on already this year but not in this position, we always leave the top of this feeder open to allow birds to learn that on the window side of the feeder there are peanuts, as looking from an approaching bird side of the log there is just wood. If they sit on the top they can see down inside and can either venture into it when full or eat through the wire mesh on our side. This particular Tit discovered this and always feeds internally as it knows it can get a whole nut (not Cadbury’s) if it goes in. The only thing in the past has been in the it has decided it was to dodgy to get caught in the bowels of the feeder, so never fed when it was this low. Now it has decided it can just stay in there and eat the nut inside without being bothered by anything, so will sit and eat one nut, then take another out of the feeder. It is a tight squeeze but has been doing throughout this wet and windy day.
12th
Just driving down to the village and came across this sight that I had not seen before, just in the car park 100yards from home. These two guys are professional guides that are loading up two Highland Ponies getting ready to take two ladies on a trek through Glen Tilt to Linn of Dee. A twenty four mile walk that I did when we first moved up, which is a very scenic, fairly level walk that is most enjoyable. Unfortunately when I did it I only had Shanksies Pony to carry my camping, fishing, camera gear, but managed it. Like the ladies doing the walk I camped overnight about ten miles from home and they liked the idea that I camped by a burn and caught small brown trout for my supper and ate them having cooked them on an open fire. Though the weather is fine at present it looks like a wet and windy night ahead of them, so good luck with that, especially as tomorrow about five miles from the Linn they have to wade across a spate river.
Just to add on, my title for this blog was for August to warm up, last night the temperature went down to 3C and the daytime is just above to double figures, so looks like we need another hot spell to warm us up before Autumn.
13th.
I am spoiling you another four for the price of one. Just down onto the roadway and over the bridge, beside the Fender Burn is this wonderful moss bank (1st photo) and where trees have either been cut down or rotted you get some great structures that I often photograph. In the second shot your imagination can go wild in determining what creature this is, could it be a Woodpecker, or maybe an Anteater? Third shot in amongst the tree roots are all kinds of hiding places for many creatures, I have seen a mouse in the past and plenty of spiders, not seen any fairies or elves as yet, but you never know. Lastly on the rotting roots is this very fine mould which at times looks luminous and contrasts to the moss.
14th
15th.
A while back I showed you some spider webs with dew on them, well this morning I saw this spider sitting in the middle of it’s web just waiting for passing trade, so I had to take a shot of it. Not the easiest of shots as it was only about six inches off the ground and a good breeze blowing it’s web about but laid down with a close up lens and managed, getting up after five minutes ion the gravel of the drive was a different matter.
Well the first half of this month is done and what a disappointment weather wise, cold, rain, wind and not much sun, lets hope this heatwave we have been promised arrives soon.
So the last shot on this blog is from down in the village of the bowling green and clubhouse, somewhere that will be full up with competitors this afternoon as they have matches on a Sunday. Must be good to be allowed back to playing the pastime you enjoy. I am lucky with angling it has not really been affected by lockdown as it is mainly a solo sport and outdoors. Good to see the upkeep of the green and the clubhouse has been maintained. I have never participated in the art of bowling but amongst the villagers and holiday makers it seems very popular activity here in the village, not sure how much influence the bar within the clubhouse has on that, but it always seems well attended.