bunn

 In a fit of optimism, I have dug up all the self-seeded thistles in the small triangle of actual lawn on the lowest level at the back of the house, and planted a Welsh Meadow mix - this is locally harvested seed from Pembrokeshire & Ceredigion, so should in theory be right at home. I bought them from https://britishwildflowermeadowseeds.co.uk, and am now wondering if I should have gone for their 'coastal mix' instead. I was tempted by the extreme localness of the Welsh mix.  

I am going to paste the list of 'likely included' in here for ease of reference, so I can check if any of the plants listed appear.  There might also be the odd orchid, apparently, but tbh I would be happy with wild clover, stitchwort or yellow rattle, and absolutely ecstatic if I got some eyebright.  I've already got some trefoils, ox-eye daisies, and buttercups. 

Cuckoo Flower Cardamine pratensis

Common knapweed Centaurea nigra

Common Mouse-ear Cerastium fontanum

Pignut Conopodium majus

Beaked Hawksbeard Crepis versicaria

Eyebright Euphrasia nemerosa

Catsear Hypochaeris radicata

Rough hawkbit Leontodon hispidus

Oxeye Daisy Leucanthemum vulgare

Bird's-foot trefoil Lotus corniculatus

Greater Birdsfoot Trefoil Lotus pedunculatus

Ribwort Plantain Plantago lanceolata

Self-heal Prunella vulgaris

Meadow Buttercup Ranunculus acris

Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor

Common Sorrel Rumex acetosa

Lesser Stitchwort Stellaria graminea

Dandelion Taraxacum officinale

Lesser trefoil Trifolium dubium

Wild red Clover Trifolium pratense

White Clover Trifolium repens

Grasses:

Common Bent Agrostis capillaris

Sweet Vernal Grass Anthoxanthum odoratum

Crested dog's-tail Cynosaurus cristatus

Red Fescue Festuca rubra

Yesterday I drove into Gunnislake to take my car in to have its various ailments fixed, then walked back home through the woods with the hounds.  The foxgloves are coming to the end of their blooming, but wow, there are a lot of them.





When I got my car back, I was pleased.  Grey door looks a little odd, but the window works again and I also have a new battery so it actually starts and can drive places!  (My car standards are so low :-D )
0

I also made an impulse buy of a new second hand camera on ebay that I can't really afford but what the hell. It's a Sony A6000. Am very excited!

Have a zeitgeisty moment I saw on Tumblr: 2,292 Plants Fill the Audience in Opening Performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu

The cinemas are due to re-open here in the UK.  I wonder if enough people will want to go to them.  I can't say I fancy it.  Although the number of cases and deaths has dropped from the peaks of April and May, the last couple of weeks look more like 'numbers have stabilised' than 'continue to fall' to me. 

I went for a long walk over Dartmoor last weekend and must dig out the photos.  Too hot for a long walk today, but in the shadow of the woods the bluebells are at their peak, and the sunny fields are white and golden with lady's smocks and buttercups.

The willow-trees are seeding, too, a million tiny fluff-seeds floating lazily through the air.  When you are walking through the bluebell woods in sunlight, this is lovely thing to see, the seeds catching the light and turning golden.

We have been watching the Stranger Things TV series recently.  It's very good!  It's set in a 1980's small American town, and features 80's music, children playing D&D,  plus some dark-ish horror fantasy elements, with really interesting writing and beautifully layered characterisation, (though as always with American series that feature some 'high school' children, I always wonder if the 'high school' bits are supposed to look quite as horrifyingly dystopian as they appear to my eyes...)

Anyway, the series uses tiny drifting dots of fluff and gloomy blue lighting to indicate that the characters have moved from the 'normal' world to the dark horror fantasy world, and I admit when I came out of the pet-shop the other day, having gone into the shop in sunlight with people all around, to find that dark blue clouds had rolled across the sky, the car park was now completely deserted, and tiny willow-fluffs were still blowing in vast numbers through the air, it did give me a moment's pause. :-D 

It is hot. I walked in Deerpark wood, hoping to avoid too much sun and flies. Most of the year, Deerpark wood is a walk that definitely requires wellies, because there are so many small streams running everywhere through it that it gets quite muddy, particularly where riders have taken horses through, but on a day like this, there is little mud and the many tiny streams are clear and sparkling. I know it must be really hot because Rosie got into one stream right up to her elbows! Most unusual behaviour for Madam I Can't My Feet Might Get Wet.

She also spent some time huffing and puffing down rabbit holes, like the Big Bad Wolf. She sticks her head in as far as it will go, and presumably, she can see or hear or smell the rabbit, not far away. Because once she has jammed herself in there, she huffs and blows. I am not sure if she is hoping that if she puffs hard enough the rabbit will shoot out of one of the other holes? That's certainly what it looks like.

The foxgloves are still in bloom and there are places where you have to scramble your way through tall purple groves of them. Down by the lower streams, the yellow monkeyflower is everywhere. It's not a native plant here, so I would guess that someone once dumped some garden waste in the wood and the streams have carried the seeds everywhere. And in between the foxgloves and the monkeyflowers, the white foamy flowers of wild carrot, which I usually call Queen Anne's Lace, but for some reason they looked more carroty today.

At the moment the dogs do not want to go for a walk on the hill.  What they want to do is stare intently at a gorsebush while wagging.


After a while, they leap over the gorse bush and stare equally intently at the other side of it.  While wagging.  This can go on for hours.
( Read more... )