New shoots

A spot of rain, a ray of sunshine and the buds burst forth
Here are some signs of life on first a raspberry cane and secondly , a rose.

Frosty starts.

This week we have woken to some quite hard frosts. I'm not sure how well the blackbird would have fared had he tried to bath a few days ago. The morning sun was low in the sky and created a lovely glow through the glass of the greenhouse. Whilst the frost stops the hens from emerging as early as they like it's certainly makes morning a beautiful time of the day.

If you are wondering what on earth this photograph is, see below for the closer shot and you'll see a bathing blackbird.

 I was off today, not feeling up to scratch so I took a day's holiday and did very little. I was roused out of inactivity though when a splashing in the bird bath alerted me to a happy blackbird, dipping his head under the water, throwing it back and flapping his wings to create a little fountain.
I didn't have the correct lens on the camera and didn't want to scare him off so I snapped him in a haze of droplets. Now I know where the water has been going to.

And look who else paid a visit to the garden today. The greenfinch has returned and is seen here, enjoying the peanuts in the company of a blue tit.

Spring colour

Having today off was lovely. I took Luke into Cardiff city centre and after a breakfast of coffee and cake we walked to the National Museum to check out the Ancient Chinese collection which was displayed there. After that I went off to the garden centre on my own (never a wise move) and treated myself to another tray of orange polyanthus, three purple aubretias and some pink bellis.
I planted up the orange and purple plants in between the clematis and roses in the front bed. and used the rest of the polyanthus and bellis to fill my little wooden planter.
I tidied up around the back too, using the edger after witnessing how neat my Mum's bed looked once she'd edged it. I did a wonky line though and Luke had to tidy up behind me. All good stuff for the compost heap!

Greedy girls

I came home today early enough to let the hens out for a couple of hours and they were straight down to the door, peering through the glass to see if I was being their food slave and getting them their seed (which I was). We are both huge pushovers when it comes to those three hens tanking down the lawn and making a beeline for the French windows and a food source.
We keep three bins in the house (well five if you count the usual rubbish/refuse bin and the recycling one too). The first one has layer's pellets (with the right ingredients to promote egg laying in our chicks), the next holds wild bird seed and the last has peanutsin it. We buy them in 20kg bags. Anyway, the girls want anything but the usual pellets and whenever they are roaming free and catch a glimpse of us by the French windows they charge down, wobbling from side to side in their uneven hurry to get to the food first.

6.20pm
I had the phone call from Luke, asking to be picked up from the train station just as Sweetie was making her way up the wooden ramp to the hen house and her perch (Buck Bucky is always the first to go up). I was telling Luke over the phone that they had just put themselves to bed when old chunky chick, Shakira (the brown one) spied me and was straight back out of the run and heading towards me again. She is always the one who has to fill up on 'supper' and peck a substantial amount of pellets before she joins the others on the perch. So I grabbed a handful of nuts and walked back up to the run with her before throwing the nuts in so I could lock the door behind her. Peck, peck, peck; she vacuumed up her offering before heading towards the ramp only to see two nuts that had landed in the layer's pellets that she had missed. Back again to flick those out of the feeder and onto the floor where they were greedily swallowed and then she had to have a little drink to wash it all down. All that time I was hoping she would hurry up as I had to pick Luke up in 15 minutes.

Chickens can't swallow with their head down. They take some water into their beak and throw their head back high so the water will go down their throat. Shakira was pretty thirsty so tick, tick, tick; on went the time as she drank and drank. Eventually she had satisfied her thirst and was ready to climb up the ramp and jump up onto the perch. A large 'thump' inside the house let me know that 'the eagle had landed' so to speak and our three hens were ready for sleep.

Years ago Luke had checked up on them one Bonfire night; concerned that the loud bangs from the fireworks would be frightening them, only to hear one gently snoring whilst her head moved slightly up and down in accordance with her snores. There's so much fun to be had from keeping hens. People always joke that we'll serve them up for dinner one day but once you've witnessed a chicken snoring all thoughts of eating it disappear.

Indoor plants giving a little colour.

The first auricula has burst forth. only another ten to go! 

A cheery geranium balancing on it's long stalk.

Hen maths.

 

Three little hens on their way to the greenhouse.

Two little hens checking out the greenhouse

One little hen leaving the greenhouse.

 

No little hens.

Knowing your onions

Last night I settled down to put some photos of our weekend work on the blog when the telephone rang. It was Jack, next door, inviting us around to see some of his photos. I had time to put four photos on of my hellebores and then nipped round. Two hours later Luke came calling for me only to find us poring over albums with a nice glass of Merlot in our hands (our second one!). Needless to say that it was then too late to come home and add the other photos. Today I shall be working till 9.00pm so may not be able to add anymore tonight.
Anyway, I have stuck on one photo of a neat row of Luke's onion sets. Not very exciting, I know. Will do better next post.

Hellebores in the borders.

These lovely Hellebores are a welcome sight after so much expanse of soil. 

Tiny seeds.

With a good dose of sunshine it was a great opportunity to both get out and do some actual gardening. I've been posting about the birds because frankly there has been no real news in the flower beds. I've been reticent about tackling the borders as there are so many things just under the soil which I don't want to disturb but today it got the better of me. I've lost a fair few plants due to the heavy snow we had just a couple of months ago and there was absolutely no sign of life on them so up they came. I tweaked out little plugs of self seeded grass and the inevitable weed and then got out the fork to little break up some of the compacted soil. I've got great clumps of leafy perennials looking plump and promising. I did get out my gardening book from last year so I could see what the future in our garden holds; it can be difficult to visualise it when there's not much going on. I warmed myself in the sun whilst putting ornamental gourd seeds which had been soaked in warm water for two hours on top of damp potting compost then sprinkling with vermiculite and then moved on to bury little lupin seeds from past successes into small trays of compost. Both had a gentle watering before getting covered by plastic covers to warm them whilst in the greenhouse. Luke planted two and a half rows of onion sets. Last week's garlic bulbs have already popped out tiny green shoots so next weekend maybe there will be first earlies (potatoes) as neighbours in the patch.
Of course the hens were out with us all afternoon and worked so hard at turning over the borders that by five o'clock they all plonked themselves down under the Acer. Over our heads flew the local buzzard, using very little energy, cruising on a thermal till it circled twice over the wood before joining three others. I came indoors, mopped the floors and then settled down with a book. Half an hour later I woke up from an unintentional afternoon nap. Oh dear.