Flying squirrel

I just looked out of the window as a squirrel came flying past! I just saw the fluffy tail as it jumped from the fence onto one of the hanging basket brackets, then up onto the kitchen roof.

Why is it visiting us? WALNUTS! We have a walnut tree that we planted 25 years ago and it GREW. It must be 60 to 80 feet high. For years now we know when autumn is getting here when the squirrels arrive. Then they go on the a rampage and bury the walnuts. So sooner or later we have baby walnut saplings springing up all over the place. I don’t begrudge the squirrels, we have said we want a wildlife garden, and it is.

Apple a day

Apple found in our garden in December. I wrote about it in a blog about Wassails. We joined in a virtual Wassail at the weekend and drank too much cider. People posted photos of previous years Wassails when they walked about with flaming torches around the boundaries of the parish. No threats were made but there were so many of us we had to have a police escort and cars were stopped as we wandered down the road to the Penkhull apple tree. A few jolly hours to beat back the cold and the dark. In some places in the past they used to shoot shotguns at the trees to make them flower and bear fruit. There are other traditions where they beat the trunks of Walnut trees to get them to bear fruit. We’ve never had that problem with ours. The squirrels always find enough nuts and then we have to find places far away to plant the saplings, we’ve already got too many!

Autumn view

There is a view from our stairs window across the garden, it’s only about twenty feet away, but it’s like looking across a small wood. There is the skeleton of a building beyond. This was being built in March earlier this year but nothing has happened to it since then. Maybe one day the workmen will come back and finish it off? But I’m pleased it’s still not done, I really don’t want to have people overlooking me as I go to bed!