Pear tree leaves

Posted on October 27, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Biro drawing, Cherry tree, Drawing, Environment, Garden, Life, One inch challenge, Sketching, Yellow and greenLeave a comment

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Yellow leaves are hanging on the pear tree. They haven’t fallen yet, the light is shining through them. Sits been sunny for the first time in days. Everything is sodden from the rain. Our stray cat is wandering around pouncing on fallen leaves.

This is my 27th drawing for the one inch drawing challenge for October. I’ve added colour for the first time with some Faber-Castell pencils. It’s only a touch because I was trying for a black and white theme until my black pen ran out of ink. Now I’ve moved over to biro.

Waiting for Spring.

Posted on October 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Autumn, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Life, Spring, Sun, WarmthLeave a comment

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It’s Autumn and I’m already waiting for Spring! I need to work on the garden, cut shrubs back, plant tulip bulbs, plant snowdrops, then… Wait, wait, wait… Through the cold and rain, through the shirt dates and long nights.

I want to see the baby birds, the squirrel and its kits, the tadpoles in the pond (if we have frogs we must have tadpoles). I look forward to warmer, not too hot, days. Life returns.

In the winter here it usually does not get too cold. But it can be grey, wet and windy.

The clocks go back at the end of October, then the sun will go down an hour earlier, I hate sitting in the dark in the winter, trying to keep warm. Looking forward to the winter solstice when the sun starts coming back a little more every day.

☓

Just had a real fright!

Posted on October 9, 2019October 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Calm, Cold, Crime?, Dark, Fearful, Garden, Incident, knock on window, Life, Patrol, Police, Scared4 Comments

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When you are sitting in your home watching TV at 2.30 in the morning you don’t expect someone to knock on your kitchen window. But that just happened. I shouted up to my husband who had just gone to bed. He came down and went to the back door–and let a young man in!… He said he was being chased by some other men. What could we do? I went to the front door and shouted that I was ringing the police-which is what I did. They dispatched a patrol who arrived after about twenty minutes. In the meantime my husband decided to go outside and have a look round! I was standing next to the young man, in my living room on my own! Luckily I was speaking to the police and trying to keep the man calm. I could feel my chest getting tight, I was quite shocked. At one stage the police dispatcher asked if I needed an ambulance! Anyway the police came and took him away to safety. They checked no-one was in the garden. I’m still shaking. Writing this to calm down and get it off my chest. It’s a case of what could have happened but luckily didn’t !

Drawing challenge

Posted on October 8, 2019October 8, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Begonia, Blue, Drawing, Flowers, Fushias, Garden, Gardening, Green, Hanging baskets, Life, Lobelia, Plants, Red, YellowLeave a comment

Today is day 8 of the October 1″ drawing challenge. This is just a quick sketch of our hanging baskets outside the window. Because they are in the back yard they are a bit walmer than in the main garden so although it’s got chilly there has not been a frost to kill them off. If I remember I will take a few photos tomorrow. I also coloured the picture in with a sketching app.

The flowers are Begonias, Fushias, Lobelia and others I don’t remember.

Pear tree collapse

Posted on September 29, 2019September 29, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Crop, Environment, Fallen tree, Food, Fruit, Garden, Gardening, Life, Pear, Pear tree, Pears, Plants3 Comments

A shout from outside. My hubby had gone outside to feed the stray cat….

There’s a problem, a catastrophe.. The pear tree had blown over in the heavy rain and wind we have been having…

The tree has been gradually leaning more over the last couple of years, and each crop of pears has grown. Till this year we counted over fifty pears. But that of course pulls on the top of the tree.

We had propped it up with some wood, but that had snapped in half. What to do? We tried using an old exercise bike near the roots…

We also tried to pull as many pears off the tree as possible as they were now in reach. My hubby normally shakes the pears down which may be why it’s leaning!

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Finally we used the step ladder to prop it up a bit more. I don’t know if it’s salvageable, the trunk is split. It’s a shame if it has to go as the pears are very tasty. They were just starting to ripen, but the weather has been mad. We weighed the good pears (disposed of the split one’s). 11.7 kilos. Not sure what that is in pounds but I think it’s around 24 pounds.

I’m going to share some of the crop with friends….

Webs

Posted on September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Arachnids, Birds, Garden, Insects, Life, Micro poetry, Poem, Poetry, Spiders, Summerhouse, Traps, Webs2 Comments

Someone said its spider mating season

It’s webby in the summerhouse

It’s webby in the shed

There’s more silk than a silk kimono

Slung along the hedge.

The spiders spin such grand big webs

They catch the birds on high

They set great traps for insects,

And grab them from the sky!

A huge big spider

Came to visit

And stayed for a year

Now its little offspring

Are always very near!

Hover flies

Posted on September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Daliah, Environment, Flower, Garden, Hover fly, Insect, PlantLeave a comment

Daliah with hover flies. Another form of pollinator. They are so similar looking to bees with yellow and black stripes although they are quite a bit smaller. They really do hover almost like humming birds.

I like these daliahs, I like the simplicity and bright colours and because they are not double flowers the insects can get at the pollen easily.

Flower photos today..

Posted on September 19, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Colours, Flowers, Garden, Plants, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Sunshine, Trentham, Trentham GardensLeave a comment

We went round Trentham Gardens at Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent, late this afternoon, and at the far end of the garden past the tea shop and the children’s play area are a series of colourful and interesting gardens, a bit like at a flower show. In fact some of them were show garden winners from previous places like Tatton Park. There are an allotment garden and sensory and secret, plus other styles of gardens. Best of all there was still plenty of flowers in them. It made for a very pleasant walk around the gardens. Relaxed and interesting.

Pears

Posted on September 10, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blossom, Flowers, Food, Garden, Gardening, Growing, Pear tree, Pears, Plant, PollenationLeave a comment

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Never seen so many pears on our pear tree! This year there are over fifty. Sometimes the flowers don’t get pollinated, get caught by a late frost. Or it’s to hot and dry in the summer for them to grow. Sometimes we get too much rain and they swell up too quickly and split. Last year a lot got blown off in June. The tree leans over so we propped it up this year to stop it getting twisted by the wind. Perhaps that’s why we have a bigger crop. Anyway fingers crossed for a bumper harvest. X

Free seeds

Posted on September 4, 2019September 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Autumn, Blogging, Free, Garden, Magazine, Planting, Seeds, Summer, Weeding2 Comments

_20190904_163250 packets of seeds….. Free!

What a lovely surprise, a gardening magazine we sometimes get had seven free packets of seeds with it today. Most of them are worth about £3 each so that means about £20 worth of free flowers.

The other good thing is they can be planted now in late summer or early autumn to establish plants for next years display. All I have to do is dig out a load of nettles so I can plant these out!

The garden is very overgrown so I’m getting someone in to help cut it back a bit. I love it but it’s hard work having big trees and shrubs. A warning, you need to keep on top of stuff to keep it looking good. Anyway I’m hoping by tomorrow I will be feeling a bit better and can do something.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Garden