Hello :) It's been a long time since my last post, but I am still enjoying my garden and all the birds, wildlife and flowers that visit or find a home within it, as you can see by one of my latest scrapbook pages. No new photos, so I've been "recycling" my old ones! The scrapbook page was created for a challenge with the theme of Happy at Real Life Scrapped.
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| Happy is enjoying my garden |
Last weekend would have been the perfect time for a photo of a fox in the garden. Unfortunately I had my hands full of aquilegia's that had long gone over and not my camera. I'd been working at the end of the more "formal" bit of garden, turned around and there under the pieris with its nose in the songbird special bird food mix was a fox. A rather smart looking fox too, I would say it was a younger one. It made me jump, and not it! It just looked at me, put its nose back in the bird food for a bit, then stood there a bit longer before walking past me to a gap in the fence to our neighbours and disappeared!
I am suspecting this is the current fox that has firstly stolen the floating light we had in the pond and secondly been playing with one of the rubber ducks from the pond too. Yes, we are back to that, finding stuff from the pond somewhere in the garden! And this morning I found the feather remains of a wood pigeon on the "lawn". So I am guessing that somewhere there is a very happy fox that got its bird for breakfast.
The garden over the last few months has been as busy as ever. The squirrels have constantly been around and now for them it is burying time, so it is busy than ever! There has just been a squirrel on the front lawn, wondering where to bury its latest acorn, they are so entertaining!
The blackbirds as expected "disappeared" for a month or so, but are back now on show. Some are still looking very haggard.
Lots of blue tits and great tits this year. There were so many young! The great spotted woodpeckers have had lots this year too. There have been multiple peckers in the garden all at the same time, I think I've seen up to four, which is quite a lot. And there has been pecker chasing too.
The robins did well too, with a few young ones. The greenfinch's seemed to start breeding early and finished late, with a number of young ones. I saw one being fed just this week.
I chopped back the oregano and marjoram a couple of weeks ago and I disturbed a few little frogs. I've not seem many in the pond this year, so it's nice to know they are still around. They hopped off in the direction of the sage, and hopefully found a new place to hang out.
The flowers have been great this year, and there has been quite a few butterflies, although I would say not as many bees as last year.
I've planted four hydrangeas, three in the back garden and a beautiful white one out front. They are all growing well. This is when I realise that I haven't taken any photos of the hydrangeas and they have started to go over now. Next year! I moved some plants from the back garden to the front, including a number of lavenders and so far they all seem to be doing well.
I planted up a couple of spare tubs that I had with a variety of herbs. I've used them in salads, vege stews and homemade sandwich fillings/dips.
I don't know where the summer has gone. Autumn is definitely on its way. The leaves have started to fall and there is a chill in the air first thing in the morning. I am hoping that autumn will be full of bright days, even if a little chilly, where freshly fallen leaves crunch underfoot.
Last notes: the little birds are at this moment singing away and it's so lovely to listen to, it makes me smile when I hear them :)
