Wildlife on Our Doorstep

I have always been in awe of nature, appreciative of all the blessings along with the trials it sometimes brings. The mesmerising waves crashing on the shore, the changing of the leaves from rich greens to a patchwork of oranges and reds, watching and listening to a thunderstorm or breathing in that evocative smell of the first drops of rain after a dry spell. However, since moving to our smallholding I have become so much more aware of the variety of wildlife around us who allow us to share the land and weather. Taking a moment to look up and down not only rests our tired muscles but gives us the chance to observe the beauty of wildlife and learn more about the world around us.

This beautiful Damselfly was having a little rest in the polytunnel; thankfully I don't think it tends to eat the brassicas quite as much as the caterpillars so we were happy to take a photo and let him be. (I did have to do some reasearch to confirm it is a Damselfly and not a Dragonfly.)

While we were moving some old coal sacks we can across this little nest of chicks. There was a Robin nearby so we assumed it belonged to her, covered it up again and left. Unfortunately when we went back a few weeks later they had all died. Although we had found it by accident and tried our best not to disturb it, we may have upset the parents and sadly they abandoned it.

This is our Midden, it's a large pond like area which historically collected and filtered any animal waste and rain water from the byre. It still fills up with rainwater and provides a home for many insects and animals. Unfortunately it does suffer a little from blanket weed and algae when there is reduced rainfall but generally it seems pretty healthy. The frogs returned this year and produced a lot of frogspawn which we watched become tadpoles and then teeny tiny frogs - lots of tiny frogs.

There was an really interesting piece on Countryfile about the cleansing abilities of mussels and oysters so after some further investigation we thought we'd give it a go. Above you can see our 6 native mussels which will hopefully help to keep our midden cleaner.

M decided to put them in a bucket of water from the midden overnight just to make sure they were still alive. The water was murky when they went in and almost clear by the morning. In fact we were then able to see this little newt who had also got scooped up.

M got in his canoe to put the mussels in the midden, placing them gently into the water and returning the newt safely back home.

While he was in his canoe M went to check on the duck house but it was completely empty. However, about 2 feet away was this little nest. We later saw Mrs. Duck snuggled in here among the reeds, she is really well hidden and camouflaged and (keeping our distance) we can only see her with binoculars. She has been doing a great job and this week she was out on the water with 8 gorgeous little ducklings swimming behind her. Now we just need to hope that the foxes and heron leave them in peace. We're trying to keep really quiet and only watch from a distance so may be able to get some pictures soon.

There is a little alleyway between the byre and the barn and this gap in the barn wall has become home to a nest of 3 chicks.

We think these are the chicks from the wall, they flew the nest, only making it as far as the chicken yard where they stayed for a few days. 

Although we haven't seen any deer for a while we have been aware of their presence in the woods and this week we saw this chap in the next field. It was hard to get a photo of him before he lay down in the long grass to hide so this is the best I could do.

We had an abundance of House Martins last year and they made a real mess of mud and poo under the porch at the back of the house. This year we have managed to deter them from nesting in the exactly the same place but thankfully they have found new homes. It looks like they are nearly finished and ready for occupation. The House Martins also seem to love the midden, diving down to the surface and flying around the for hours. Sadly they are really fast and any photos I've taken have always come out fuzzy so I'll just have to enjoy watching them without recording it.

It's lovely to have a distraction from all the work sometimes and to watch the beautiful colours of the Gold Finches, the numerous Robins, little Wrens, Buzzards, Kestrels and what we think may be Willow Warblers to mention a few. Along with the evening Bats and Owls we have plenty to keep us busy when the day's work is done.

The rain we hoped for arrived; the veg, fruit and flowers are all growing well but more of that next time. We were also able to make the most of the wet days to tackle another room in the house; after the kitchen makeover last year it has taken some time for us to summon up the enthusiasm and now it's time for the living room revamp. M has been extremely busy but as it is presently in a state of evolution I thought I'd leave you with this beautiful picture of a bumble bee in a pumpkin flower. Hope you are all enjoying the long sunny summer days and the nature we share it with.

Phew!!!

And Breathe

Well, it took a while but I got there in the end and managed to complete a round up of our first year on our smallholding. If you read it all then congratulations that you made it through; hopefully you got a sense of what we are up to, our challenges and how we are getting along.

It's been quite intriguing to look back at what we have been doing, what we achieved and how the landscape has changed in a short 12 months. I love the picture above as it captures so much of what we have been doing; from the orchard and hedging to the veg patch and the pig ark, it's all here.

I didn't even get around to mentioning the wonderful wildlife we have here, the deer we see in our field and woods, the heron, frogs and ducks in the midden, our resident barn owls and the local bats. We have been mesmerised by the variety of birds and since my recognition skills are so poor we just had to get a book of British birds. It is a shame they don't stay still long enough to give me a chance to find them in the book. At least we could identify robins, sparrows, crows, magpies, buzzards, kestrels, willow warblers and I think curlews. Unfortunately we never seem to have a camera when it's needed.

We had numerous house martins nesting around the barn and at the side of the house and had to rescue a few of the babies who weren't quite ready to fly. The most exciting moment was watching a fledgling learning to fly, it was running down the yard flapping until eventually it flew.

There was a commotion one day with some wrens making a lot of noise and then we realised that a chick had got it's leg caught in some twine used for it's nest and was hanging upside down. The mum and dad couldn't get it free and then it fell quite a distance and bounced off some old crates. Thankfully we were able to rescue it and put it back in the nest, after M had remove the dangerous plastic twine.

 

In an effort to combat the intrusive weeds and generally tidy up the veg patch M built wooden edging around the whole area. it definitely neatens up the whole place and will hopefully make it more manageable next year.

One unexpected and unwanted surprise was the discovery of this little family in the barn, yes, they are baby rats. It probably explained the ripped pig food bag but M took these off to the far side of the field and put preventative measures in place to deal with the parents. The pig food is now secure and will hopefully be eaten just by the pigs now.

Talking of pigs, they are growing really big now and are still as entertaining as ever. They are loving the apples and rooting around their large enclosure. We have learnt that they are very quick to notice when the battery is flat on the electric fence and will then try to disconnect the whole thing. Hopefully this is one mistake we only make once.

 

I love this time of year, the change in colours can be so dramatic and the gorgeous deep red of the blueberries is heart warming.

As the leaves turn and fall we are able to roam more freely in the woods again although it does mean there are lots of jobs to do before the onset of winter. Thankfully M is a dab hand with the mower, strimmer and brush cutter!!! We also coppiced a lot of willow, clearing out as much dead wood as possible. It's a pretty big job which we have yet to complete as there's nearly as much willow as ash around our woods.

Although it's been a mild autumn we have had a few wet and windy days which call for indoor activities and so emerged another bench made by M. Unfortunately we didn't have any paint left over and so we had to buy some more, this was half price for some reason!! It wasn't until a few weeks later that we realised how bright it really was as we could see it from the road, 3 fields away.

 

Another great thing about this time of the year is the end of the main harvesting and preserving of vegetables, which in our case meant the last carrots, peppers and Jalapenos. We are fortunate to have an old, highly productive apple tree and some autumn raspberries and in a last ditch attempt to use them all I embarked on another batch of apple and raspberry/blackcurrant crumbles. We also had some bananas well past their best so I made a couple of small banana loaves with the aim of freezing one but they didn't last the weekend - too tasty.

This is the very last picture of the kitchen, I promise, but I had to include a little photo of the final touch, our blinds arrived and for once we didn't pick plain neutral colours. I just love them.

I often think autumn can be as busy as spring in the garden as plants are lifted, divided and potted up before the cold weather, tender plants are brought into the greenhouse, pots are replanted with autumnal colours and bulb planting beings in earnest. Having removed all the dead lobelia and marigolds from the hanging baskets we managed to give them a lift with some ivy and winter pansies which I hope will start to flower soon. We were pretty disappointed with the lack of bulbs/flowers around the woods last year and so set about planting lots of daffodils, tulips, ferns and primulas in areas where we will get the benefit of their colours. I can hardly wait until Spring.

One last job for M was a second coat of black paint on the yard gates which look great and match the house now. We were thrilled when a car stopped one day and a chap (with 4 children) got out to chat about the history of the farmhouse where he spent the majority of his childhood when his grandparents owned it. He was a lovely man and the memories he had were fascinating. We are still so delighted to be here and hearing his stories brought the farm of old to life for us.