Ella – Garden Gate Flowers

Rewild at Heart

Simon Barnes was speaking on Radio 6 the other Sunday morning, promoting about his book “Rewild Yourself: 23 spellbinding ways to make nature more visible”. He has ideas to get everyone to be more in touch with the natural world around us. One suggestion – to learn the songs of some common birds which – is exactly what Mrs B and I have been doing recently too. We reckon we have learnt the great tit, song thrush, robin, blackbird and chaffinch so morning strolls are now very much a multi-sensory affair as we listen out for birdsong.

And bird song is not the only sound that attracts the attention at the moment as the countryside reverberates to the drumming of greater spotted woodpeckers on hollow branches, and the overhead thrum of closely packed wings as a flock of starlings arrives at a nearby tree. Whenever I see starlings I recall one sixth former from a private girls school asking the question “starling….is that anything to do with that bloke in Russia?” The subsequent incredulity of staff and students said it all: thirteen years of school fees for this? Some serious rewilding needed there.

Mrs B and I were very much at one with our natural environment on the morning dog walk this week. We listened to the song thrush which regularly sings at the top of the same tree each morning; we watched flocking starlings and spectated as two deer fled the attentions of our hopelessly out-paced labrador. Potentially a pet dog might have a negative impact on the local ecology, but those deer will be fitter and healthier for the hundred workout sprint they put in before the dog threw in the towel. Ella proceeded to flush out a couple of pheasants and then a rabbit but she was no nearer catching them than she was the deer. She might have had a chance with a grey squirrel – but she did not spot that – and fortunately failed to see the badger bumbling which was oblivious to our presence just fifteen yards away. We put the dog on the lead: this was one piece of wildlife she would probably do well to avoid.

Back home the (flocking) starlings were trying to get back into their nest sites under the tiles of the house. I’ve put wire over some of the holes to stop this so now, as I sit at my desk, all I can hear is them scratching away at the bars trying to get in – like an avian Andy Dufresne in reverse. I would not mind them being there, but we decided to evict them when they started removing loft insulation and depositing large tufts around the garden.

So no more artificial domesticity for them – I am encouraging them to do their own bit of rewilding.

The Dog Days are Never Over

The tail end of the summer and into the autumn and we are consuming the results of all our previous efforts . And it is good to get out and do some harvesting or simply get out and about in the Somerset countryside. I have had plenty of time to do both with my uncritical canine assistants.

Ella is the espionage specialist and has all the patience of George Smiley in seeking out those elusive moles that continue to threaten our Western Gardening Meritocracy. She stands for hours over the mole hills awaiting a false move. Then digs deep and fast as if searching for Arnie Saknusson*. We have found the occasional dead mole, so we assume she was responsible. But it is all very Top Secret – she never admits to neutralising any of the underground threat.

The more diminutive canine companion (Fudge) is a little less useful or co-operative. As I opened the door to water the hanging basket at 8 a.m. one Saturday – a time when good working folk are likely to be enjoying their rest – the ginger flash spirited herself out like smoke and proceeded to play a game of Grandmother’s footsteps with me down the garden path. As I followed her she maintained her distance. As I accelerated, she (quietly, carefully) raised her speed. As I whispered and gesticulated for her to stop, she pinned her ears flatter and stared straight ahead. “Hear no command, see no command” is her motto in old age and she hopped over the wall and was crossing the road to disappear down the lane when my patience ran out.

“FUDGE!!!” I shouted.

She stopped, thought for a moment, had to admit she had heard that command, and grudgingly returned to base camp – as our new neighbours were waking up, bleary-eyed, wondering what had provoked such a profanity so early on a Saturday.

Fudge is, physically, in remarkably good shape for a dog of her age (we reckon she is about 14), but mentally she is a dementia case. She obsesses about stuff – God only knows what. At least with the other pensioner in my life I know what his obsessions are. The Old Man will tell me every time I see him what he is going to have for every meal, and precisely how he (or Gill) is going to cook it. And this is only after he has told me what he had the previous evening.

And how he or Gill cooked it.

We think that Fudge is probably like the Old Man, with her food-based obsession. If I bring veg in from the garden, she will compulsively try to take some from the basket. I have lost chard, cavolo nero and broccoli to the ginger veg thief, which seems an odd diet for a dog, but there you go. And it does not end at vegetarian “edibles”.

The other day I heard an odd sound in the living room and came in to see Fudge chewing a piece of coal that she had taken out of the container by the fire. And she was consuming it on the (previously unmarked) new beige carpet…. It put me in mind of the day she and her sister (as puppies) ripped open a bean bag bed in the kitchen and looked bemused at the drifts of polystyrene beads wafting across the flagstones – not to mention my own declaration of them as “fuckwits”.

The demented fuckwit continues to lick anything that does not move such as her bed, the kitchen floor, the sofa, and even the hearth (though that is no surprise in view of the coal incident).

And what is the inevitable result of all this food-obsessed activity? The Newtonian law of every action having an equal and opposite reaction dictates that this dog could shit for Britain. But if producing crap was a competitive sport there are not many individuals that I would be able to put up against my fuckwit dog. She defies the normal laws of physics. In what is the defecatory equivalent of cold fusion she manages – in the space of one 45 minute walk – to produce faeces in excess of her own bodyweight. She starts before she is out of the garden (before she is out the door if we do not move quickly enough) and is still pooping as she returns to the house. I could name a few people who produce more than their fair share of metaphorical crap, but in literal terms, pound-for-pound my little demented Fudgey dog takes the biscuit.

(And the kale, and the coal)

A Walk with a View #2

After the yellow weather warnings last night and the subsequent torrential rain this morning it seemed timely to post another photo album from one of our neighbourhood walks. This morning as I set out at 8.30 with the dogs I looked west and where normally we can have views across to Glastonbury Tor and the levels, there was simply a grey curtain of doom. Within fifteen minutes we were all getting drenched. I was not too happy with it, but not half as pissed off as Fudge who slowed her progress to the point where it was difficult of ascertain if she was actually alive, with her tail buttoned down tight as if to keep her waterproof. Only Ella – thick in the fur and thick in the head – was oblivious to the wet, romping through the wet grass.

Contrast this with Thursday when I was out at the same time enjoying a proper jamspangler of a day. In my previous post I captioned a picture “this is why we garden”. I guess this album should be tagged “this is why we live here”. In such warm – perhaps I would venture to say hot – weather I am always reminded of one of my favourite passages from John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) as he describes a “land turtle” getting up and over a road:

“The sun lay on the grass and warmed it, and in the shade under the grass the insects moved, ants and ant lions to set traps for them, grasshoppers to jump into the air and flick their yellow wings for a second, sow bugs like little armadillos, plodding restlessly on many tender feet. And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass: His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly through the grass, not really walking, but boosting and dragging his shell along. The barley beards slid off his shell, and the clover burrs fell on him and rolled to the ground. His horny beak was partly open, and his fierce, humorous eyes, under brows like fingernails, stared straight ahead”

Dog in the foreground – spot the deer on the horizon – the dogs didn’t

Muddy legs -she never liked getting dirty…

Against a Dark Background

August flew by in a whirl of picking, podding and freezing as the beans, tomatoes, peppers and others all grew to maturity and beyond. But behind the fecund abundance, the menace of death and destruction lurked in the garden.

I have commented on the battle with interlopers such as moles and caterpillars, and our combined efforts to reduce the numbers of said assailants. But more desirable garden visitors have not always managed to avoid the dangers of the garden environment.

For example, one morning as I was heading out I saw a squab (young pigeon) walking up the yard – lost, and flightless, it seemed to have fallen from a nest somewhere. I did not have time to do anything with it, leaving it to its own – or its parents’ – devices. But later in the day Fudge and Ella (our newest recruit to the Garden Home Guard), were discovered with said squab in mouth. Claire managed to “rescue” the flightless victim, but only in time to give it the last rites. The bird was still breathing, though, and as the Old Man pulled up after his morning shoppping and gossip trip, she asked if he would complete the job for her.

Well, by the time he had decided on how to get out the of car, what to do with his shopping, managed to select which pocket to put his car keys in, walked five paces towards the bird, formed a plan on exactly HOW he might despatch it (wring its neck? Swing it against a brick wall? or perhaps take an air rifle shot at it?), the bird had decided “sod it” and quietly slipped off this mortal coil out of sheer boredom. Death by exasperation was the coroner’s verdict.

We have had a plethora of woodpeckers in the garden this summer – Green and Great Spotted varieties. I could hardly turn a corner without having some noisy fledgling flying up from the grass, yaffling at me for disturbing it. Great Spotteds spend more time in the trees (and the bird feeders) but can get confused by greenhouses, as one found out to its cost. I guess it just flew into the glass and broke its neck. A shame. “Beautiful plumage”, to quote Monty Python.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — The two feathered salute

The garden is not only a dangerous place for wildlife. It is for domestic life too. The hens have a new potential predator in the form of our new, supposedly soft-mouthed, retrieving hound, Ella. She managed to get into the chicken enclosure the other day and had a magically entertaining minute running after the squawking hens before I managed to pull her away from Foghorn Leghorn (our best layer). The hen remained lifeless as I took Ella inside, and still did not move when I returned. She did eventually get back on her feet, and remains fine, though her tail feathers now form a rather tell-tale V shape – as if to give a two fingered salute to any passing labrador puppies.

IMAG0267 — Caterpillar – and the remains of the meal

In terms of deliberate, more calculated exterminations, we have continued with the annual cull of cabbage white caterpillars, which have had a field day (or rather a full summer campaign) on our caulis, cabbages and brussels, not to mention the curly kale. An enthusiastic expert on TV last night was commenting on what a brilliant year it has been for butterflies. He was excited about the Orange Tips and Red Admirals, but I think their numbers are dwarfed by the sheer density of Cabbage Whites in my veg patch. It is a grim and stinky job picking caterpillars and squeezing them like runny toothpaste. But oddly satisfying.

And what of the moles? A chance conversation with a member of the underground arms trade gave me access to a weapon of mole destruction and the means to – literally – blow them up. I thought he was joking at first, but when he explained that this piece of kit, entitled “Le Detaupeur”, (“satisfait ou rembourse”) was imported from France I thought it probably did what he said. And sure enough it does. I set it up with a bucket over the top and some chicken wire around it to prevent the dogs getting too close and after a couple of nights (and a re-set in case I had not got it right) came out one morning to find both bucket and detaupeur blown out of the ground. (The voice of Michael Caine echoed in my head here – “it’s only s’posed to blow the bloody doors off”).

The mole was – I assumed – dead, but I was not prepared to excavate the area to find out. But I need not have worried: five days later, our adorable puppy decided she would do some digging and I only latterly realised where it was that she was working the soil. She successfully uncovered the decapitated mole – which I disposed off beyond her reach. So moles need to look out – we have now tapped into the murky world of the international arms trade.

And no UN mandate or weapons inspector is going to help them.