Green

Posted on July 15, 2020July 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Garden, Green, Ideas, Leaves, Musing, Plant, Shady, Thinking2 Comments

Such a calming colour. Green in plants is caused by chlorophyll in their leaves as sunlight converts water and air into sugars and starches.

Green, the colour of the Amazon and other forests and jungles. The colour of growing crops and leaves on flowering plants. Cool and tranquil, shady and soft. Then cactuses spiky, full of fluid, green against the rocks of deserts and hot dry lands.

Green means life, it means various other things too. Green for go, green for someone new to a job, green when you feel ill or queasy. Green seaweed, green on trains, the green walking man light on pedestrian crossings. So many things. Green was a livery for different train services. British rail trains used to be green. Even science fiction has green blooded Vulcans and a character called Green Lantern. Green for different alcoholic and fruit drinks. It’s interesting where you can find it.

What would we do without it.

Back yard view

Posted on July 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Back yard, Blogging, Cat, Environment, Flowers, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Hanging baskets, Nature, Plants, Summer, Terraced house2 Comments

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Doing what we always do this time of year. Cram the back yard full of flowers. We have a big patch of land next to the house, but it’s full of trees and shrubs and fruit trees and a couple of small plastic greenhouses with tomatoes. But the back yard is visible from the kitchen and living room and I love a riot of colour. The baskets are mainly from a nursery, but some managed to survive the winter. My hubby even planted an iris in one of the baskets. We’ve put a couple of lilies in the far end so the cat can’t get near them (poisonous to cats).

They will grow and get blousier. It’s amazing that the brackets can hold three baskets in one go. Water the top one and the lower ones get watered too.

I will post more images as they grow.

Two frogs

Posted on July 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Amphibians, Environment, Fish, Frogs, Fun, Garden, Humour, Life, Nature, Pond, Wild life garden2 Comments

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Hubby often goes down to the pond at night to look at the fish and feed them. The pond is deep so you can’t see them easily in the daylight. He has got a few minnows and goldfish in there. But over the last couple of nights he’s disturbed a frog that plopped into the centre of the pond. Tonight when he went out two matching frogs were looking back at him from either side of the pool.

So I asked him which one he’d kissed?

Lol.

For the birds

Posted on July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, Blogging, Cherries, Environment, Fledglings, Food, Fun, Garden, Nature, Seeds, Species, TreeLeave a comment

The blackbirds sing,

The thrushes too

The robins nest,

Their fledglings new.

A magpie there

And pigeons too?

They congregate

And feed on seed.

Blue tits

and house sparrows,

All had their nests.

Feeding them all

Is our happy chore.

Yes eat your fill,

Of cherries ripe.

We’ve had ours now

The rest, enjoy.

Hedgehog dining.

Posted on June 29, 2020June 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Blurred, China bowl, Eating, Environment, Feeding, Food, Food bowl, Fun, Garden, Glad to help, Hedgehog, Humour, Nature, Photos, Poem, Poetry, Random, Rattle a bowl, WordPress2 Comments

A shady, spikey creature

Banging bowls together.

Clattering crockery,

Hog food left out for him.

Gobbling and scoffing quickly.

I opened the back door.

A glint in his eye and..

He scuttled off into the dark…

I imagined him saying

“I’ll be back……..”

Rainy day

Posted on June 27, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Annoyed, Garden, Gardening, Grumpy, Hot, Irritated, Lockdown, Relax, Tense, Time, TiredLeave a comment

View out the back door. The yard needs work but there is a passing thunderstorm so I’m keeping dry and watching a classic race from 2018 in the tour de France. At least the heat has gone. Its a good thing to I was shattered yesterday. Still tired now. I didn’t sleep well because of the humidity.

The madness continues my hubby is not happy. Grumpy. We are winding each other up in this weather. Even my feet feel tense. I have a low level tension running through me. All my muscles are tight. I feel like exploding. I think I will go out in the rain…..

Cherries, before the storm.

Posted on June 26, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, Blogging, Cherries, Cherry crop, Fruit trees, Garden, Gardening, Low hanging cherries, Red, Ripe fruit, TastyLeave a comment

We just picked all these from the lower branches of our cherry tree. Had to use steps to get at some of them. We go for the lower hanging fruit but try and leave the unripe ones. The birds are getting ready to feast. Some of the fruit has already been pecked. Blackbirds and wood pigeons are particularly partial to them.

Hubby used a broom to hook the branches while I climbed up a couple of steps ( I’m too wobbly to go right up). Then he climbed to strip a well laden branch. Luckily they are bendy so it does no damage to pull on them. We’ve got a bowl full of cherries ready to ripen. Saves them blowing off in the wind which is whipping the branches about. The forecast is for big thunder storms later. It got to 33.3°C in places yesterday. Hot!

Poor minnows…

Posted on June 22, 2020June 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Fish, Frog, Garden, Goldfish, Minnows, Nature, Nature red in tooth and claw, Pond, Sad, WaterLeave a comment

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Oh dear! My hubbies minnows have been disappearing from the pond. He only put them on a couple of weeks ago. And there only seem to be three left.. There were six. The other thing he saw tonight was a large frog..

So I decided to Google ‘Do frogs eat minnows?’, the answer came back..

. Frogs living in captive setting will eat guppies, minnows and goldfish, provided the prey can be caught and is smaller than the predator. Frogs prefer live fish. Many frogs catch the fish they eat by quickly rolling their sticky tongues to capture the prey and then swallow the fish whole.

Er, we didn’t know that. I’m worried now that the rest will go. Hubbies going to try and rescue them, but I dug the pond four feet deep! How we deal with it I don’t know… We want a wildlife garden…

Sisters photo of poppies.

Posted on June 18, 2020June 18, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Blue poppy, Garden, Gardening, Himalayan poppy, Mecanopsis, Photo, Plants, Sky blues2 Comments

I saw these today on my sisters timeline. FB_IMG_1592521493915

I love Himilayan poppies. I’ve tried to grow them on many occasions. One year I bought a plant and for a glorious few days it flowered, but that was it, it withered and died. Too much water? Too little? Too shady? I should have read the instructions. Mecanopsis. Beautiful.

The delicate blues like washed sky after a rainstorm, edged with the shade as the sky starts to darken at nightfall….

Remember snow?

Posted on June 14, 2020June 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cherry tree, Garden, Leaves, Life, Memories, Rhythm of life, Six months, Snow, Summer, Thoughts, Time, WinterLeave a comment

Six months after this image was taken, and the garden is in full growth. The cherries on the tree are swelling and lichen is growing on the tree.

Life runs in cycles. Soon the height of summer will be with with us. I hope it isn’t too hot. I don’t do heat. Maybe lockdown will end. Hopefully the virus will be bought under control. Only a small percentage of people have died out of earth’s massive population, but that doesn’t make the pandemic any less devastating. Maybe it’s time to think back and remember all those people who have died. Stay safe.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Garden