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30 days Wild 2020

May30

The Wildlife Trusts are once again asking us to do one wild thing a day throughout the whole month of June for your health, wellbeing and for the planet. That’s 30 Random Acts of Wildness and anything connected with nature counts so if you are stuck indoors, making hedgehog cup cakes might be something to consider.

You can still sign up for 30-days Wild and receive downloadable information about activities to help you complete the challenge.

Personally I will be relying on my Wildlife Garden for inspiration-a barren patch of land which I transformed into a haven for nature 4 years ago and which is now thriving with a variety of creatures seen throughout the year.

Now that lockdown has been eased a little this challenge is very do-able and can be used as an opportunity to start exploring those foreign lands beyond the front door.

I will be posting about my Random Acts of Wildness every day, however small or insignificant they seem, and I’m hoping that lots of people do the same so I can gain some inspiration.

As well as helping nature and teaching people about wildlife, the 30-day challenge has also proved to be a source of relaxation and stress relief so have fun and enjoy 30-days Wild!

 

 

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Positivity wins the day

Jun10

Tut. Tut. SIX months since my last post-that’s a record and not one I care to brag about. The good news is that I am winning my fight against those Black-Dog and extremely anxious days which can creep up gradually when your guard is down or just as likely strike without warning as a reaction to specific circumstances. At 55 years young I consider myself a slow learner but I’m not sure whether I am slowing down as a result of my age or, more hopefully, my experience but either way, a slower and more measured and calm way of life seems to suit me.

My mother always said that if I had been born 30 years later I would have been diagnosed as “hyper-active.” My psychologist initially thought I was bi-polar due to the extreme fluctuations between energy and fatigue and even now I get comments that I do too much and I have more energy than many people much younger. I make sure every second counts in my waking hours and I am always doing and making something but I am learning to do it slower and try to enjoy being in the moment.

Driven by a combination of both nature and nurture I have to make use of every waking moment and, unless I am making quilts, hedgehog houses, cards, or Twinchies, decorating, gardening, blogging, taking photographs or organising my next project, I am wasting my time.  I can’t help it, I have to be doing something but, although I do get tired, I get a lot of satisfaction from my many and varied activities and this helps me keep mental equilibrium (and sleep).

I have decided that much like Tutenkhamun, I will be buried with my most treasured possessions; knitting needles, sewing machine, crochet hook, camera, hammer, nails and electric saw and, maybe IF I get to heaven,there will be a long-arm quilting machine, unlimited Kaffe Fassett fabric, a very patient crochet teacher, a wide-angle lens and pre-cut wood pieces waiting for me!

Here’s just a few of the projects I have been working recently.

 

Memory book
Card for my Canadian quilt partner
Maple Leaf rug-mug
Iran 2018 journal
Hexies
Mystery Quilt 2018
Iphone and Kindle cases
Mini quilt
Book quilt
Valentine quilt
Cathedral window cushion cover
Aga covers
Butterfly grotto in wildlife garden
Jasper’s Sherlock Holmes coat and hat
Mystery quilt 2017
Will’s scrapbook graduation page
Will by Grace
Will by Bradley

 

 

My wildlife garden 12 months on

Jun17

Some of my more resilient readers will remember that this time last year I requisitioned the piece of ground that hubby used to grow vegetables on for my wildlife garden. Hubby didn’t have the time, and I am more interested in hedgehogs, birds and frogs than vegetables and so, over the next few months, a wildlife garden it became.

Only 12 months after my first efforts, I agreed to open my garden to the public on our village Open Garden Day. I was a bit worried that no one would be that interested and wasn’t expecting many visitors. Hah! how wrong can a person be? In this case I was hopelessly wrong and desperately ill-prepared for the masses that descended on my small garden.

Between 11.00am and 5.30pm we had a constant stream of visitors that were interested in how to attract wildlife into their gardens. For these enthusiasts, my garden is perfect. I was in the lucky position of being able to develop a garden from scratch purely with wildlife in mind, and although I didn’t plan it formally, the garden which evolved organically is beautiful and what’s more important, definitely attracts the wildlife. I am very proud of my efforts but am even more in awe of the plants that have established themselves so comfortably in the last year and presented a garden to be complimented last weekend.

More details of how I achieved the end (but ever evolving) result in later posts but here a just a few photographs of the finished product as at 11 June 2017.

View from under the apple tree
Bug Hotel
Woodpile with resident hedgehog
Hedgehog house
Bug B&B
Cup & saucer bird feeder
Towards the pond
Belfast sink pond
Mr & Mrs Scarecrow
The pond
The pond
View from halfway
Faeries moved in!
Pond area
Robin’s nestbox
Frog hole in the ground
Plants for butterflies
My leaky wellies put to good use
Trellis planter
Bug and bee house
My garden
Exhibition in my garden
Teasles for the butterflies and bees
The butterfly diner
View from the pond area
Pine cones for ladybirds
nesting material (dog hair) for next Spring
Funky planters
Frogs
Lovely native yellow iris
Sedum flower
Margarets old decking made into a planter!
Orange and purple-cool
Goldfinch-my favourite
Double joy

Dogs and Hogs

Apr6

I love all animals and given the choice and funds, I would have a huge animal sanctuary in the countryside catering for all creatures great and small who need a home.
Unless I win the lottery, I have to make do with animals I do have, namely a gorgeous dog called Jasper and a number of hedgehogs who live and/or visit our garden every night now that their hibernation period is over.

I say a lovely dog, but he was less than gorgeous when he came back from a walk with his Daddy last Sunday. When he left, Jasper was a light golden colour, fluffy with a swishy plume of a tail. When he came back 2 hours later he was…… What can I say?

Jasper after his walk
Jasper before his walk

He had certainly changed colour quite dramatically, although he was clever in keeping his favourite ball very clean in comparison!

He is great company and he is also very good at sniffing out the hedgehogs when they appear.

Over the past few weeks, I have spied more and more hedgehogs running around the garden enjoying the warmer, dry weather and the cat food and mealworms which I feed them. I followed one after he finished eating and am thrilled to learn that he has made his nest in the ground-floor space of the insect house which I built last year. Lets hope it becomes a family home this spring and we have some hedgehog babies (urchins)to boost numbers.


keep calm

Butterflies flutterby

Jul18

At last. Just as I was beginning to despair of ever having a butterfly in my butterfly garden, along comes a red admiral. What a beauty especially when set against the bright yellow flowers that were clearly supplying a good breakfast of nectar.

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Red Admiral

 

I hope that this is the first of many. Either that or I just go out at the wrong time!

The hedgehogs keep coming and this week we’ve had a little darling whose face is covered in ticks poor thing. Most of the hedgehogs have ticks on the body, but this is the first one I’ve seen with so many close to his eyes and mouth. A quick call to the local wildlife hospital this morning and I can take him/her in (if I can catch it!) to be de-ticked. I could be on late hedgehog watch tonight.

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Ticky-Hog

 

Last week I was off work and managed to catch up with some of my other projects whilst the wildlife garden takes hold. Luckily we have had some very warm weather and along with plenty of rain and watering, the plants are really growing fast and filling the gaps.

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Sink Pond in Butterfly Glade

 

I should have some nicotiana flowering in the next few weeks. Apparently moths like the evening scent and once they are in bloom, I will put a night light amongst the flowers and watch for the different moths that visit. That’s the theory anyway.

In the warm weather, the teasles are starting to flower. The bees love these and I can normally get some good close up pictures. This year however, the teasles are taller than usual so I have to stand on a chair. I haven’t managed a great shot yet but there’s still plenty of time.

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Hungry Bee

 

I picked up some great logs last weekend. I cant believe that I get so excited about a few logs but these are well weathered and quite light as they’ve been in a garden for about 5 years and dried out. They are great shapes as well so some of them I will use as features amongst the plants; they will make good seats or bird resting areas.  I’m trying to get hold of a birch tree log to hang as I understand these will attract woodpeckers. I can hear the tap-tap-tap in the morning and it would be lovely to tempt one in.

The sink-pond has got a new resident! At first glance I thought that the frog which had moved into big-pond had swapped allegiance and transferred to sink-pond but no,there is one in each. It’s very satisfying to know that I have provided shelter for a little creature and he looks very comfortable in his new home.

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Sink-Pond frog

 

Altogether I have done the main wildlife landscaping and it is now more a case of letting things grow. I still have plenty to do but they are much smaller projects and features. Like new seats!

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New seat made from railway sleeper and thermo-bricks

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Big-Pond & Bog Garden taking off

Hoglets

Jul11

Following the sightings of a number of different size adult hedgehogs over the last few weeks, the last two evenings have seen the appearance of a couple of baby hedgehogs, hoglets.

I think that they are two different hoglets; it’s difficult to tell but looking at the size of the feet, and shape of the nose, I believe they are two babies, not one. Based on their size, I also believe that they are 2016 babies, probably born in early May. They are too small to be 2015 babies as they wouldn’t have survived hibernation at this size. They need to be at least 450-500g when they hibernate and so I am pretty confident that they are this year’s model.

Let’s hope that mum has another litter soon so we have lots more hoglets running around the garden.

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How cute is this?

Feed the birds

Jul8

My birds have gone to bed for the night, but in the morning they are in for a treat. I have made some peanut butter cones and hung them on the fig tree, ready for breakfast.

Very simple to make and apparently birds love them.

All you need;

Fir cones, Peanut Butter, bird seed and string to hang them up.

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Method:

Smother pine cones in peanut butter and roll in the bird seed.

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Hang on trees and wait for the feasting to begin.

maggie-jones-quote-some-people-are-mistaken-they-think-birds-need

 

 

 

Something of the marvelous

Jul6

There is something of the marvelous in all things of nature-Aristotle

Apparently, having water in my garden is the best way to encourage and entice a host of different creatures to visit us. Insects, frogs, toads and newts, birds, and small mammals are all dependant on water to survive, just as we are. It was a good day therefore when my pond plants arrived from lincolnshire-pondplants in the post, safe and sound and ready to pot up. I hope that the two new ponds bring more dragonflies and damselflies as I love their bright fluorescent colours and patterned wings.

The delivery also included some aquatic baskets and compost, so all I needed to add were some pebbles on the surface to prevent the soil from leaking into the water too much. I managed this with the larger pond which is very clear this evening, but the small pond made in the Belfast sink is still cloudy. I hope that it clears tomorrow when it settles down.

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I wasn’t sure what plants to order, so I went online and did some research. It still seemed a bit overwhelming and so I took the plunge and ordered 2 plant packs; one for a very small pond (sink) and one for a medium pond. I was really pleased with the selection I was sent and the condition they arrived in and tonight all are planted up and in situ.

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My newly-resident frog is still sitting on the yellow irises, looking comfortable in his new home. I hope we get some frogspawn next year as I have lots of frogs in my old pond but have never had any spawn. It would be nice to have some tadpoles!

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The plants I was sent include;

A purple Iris, yellow iris, bulrush, Juncus grass, water mint, forget-me-not, oxygenators and some plants with long latin names.

I’m looking forward to next year when they have settled and grown into their surroundings.

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In the meantime I have a herb garden to finish, a vertical planter to plant up, some shrubs to pick up on Sunday and more rockery stones to collect.

Good job I’m on holiday next week!

Nature

Butterflies and bees

Jul3

I had a change of direction today. I moved from building homes for frogs and toads, insects and hedgehogs to focus on butterflies and bees.

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First of all though I went to collect two bags of these gorgeous pine cones for my bug hotel which were donated by a lovely gentleman from the next village. I even got a tour of his garden while I was there; log piles, ponds and bird nesting boxes attached to the trees showed that he is also interested in wildlife gardening. The piece de la resistance for me however was a pretty light lilac Hebe which was covered in bees and the first butterflies I have seen this year, two tortoiseshells. I didn’t have my camera with me so this is a picture from the internet; I couldn’t resist the glorious colours.

small-tortoiseshell

My diversion, although very welcome, meant that I had to get a wiggle on if I was to make the Garden Centre in good time but I did it.

I had a list of suitable plants which will  encourage bees and butterflies into my garden and it didn’t take me long to select my favourites; Coreopsis ” Tickseed” (birds and bees), Coreopsis “Zagreb” (birds and butterflies), Sedum “Brilliant”, (butterflies), Achillea “Summer fruits lemon” (wildlife), Buddleja “Empire Blue” (Butterflies) and finally, I found the very same variety of Hebe that was so successful in attracting bees and butterflies, “Sparkling Sapphires.” It even has a lovely name.

Hebe

Back home, car unloaded it was time to get to work again. My idea was to create a luscious bee and butterfly garden with the Belfast sink making a mini-pond in the middle. I have ordered my pond plants to arrive on Wednesday so I ended up planting around an empty sink. I can’t wait to see what the finished garden will look like with the pond up and running but I will have to be patient.

In the meantime on with the planting and so the bee and butterfly grove was born.

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This is only one small area of the larger wildlife garden which is coming together nicely now. I am hoping that it will flow through from one wildlife themed garden to the next and so far, it’s looking good. Next on the list (after planting up my two new ponds), an arch for honeysuckle to climb up between the butterfly grove and the new pond area.

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For now, I will have to make do with a glass of vino and a rest on the railway sleeper bench enjoying the fruits of my labours so far.

Just like Tessa!

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