So, we have dogs and cats lazing in the study, fish swimming (in a tank!) in the lounge, hens wrecking the garden, tadpoles doing whatever tadpoles do in a bucket in the conservatory, and now we have caterpillars in the bedroom. Jon’s Christmas present from his brother’s family was a butterfly garden net. Caterpillars are only available from March to September so I duly sent off for them last week – all my earnings from my first eBay sale went on their P&P! – and now we’re just waiting for something to happen.
Meanwhile, I planted more herbs in my potager garden (Jon keeps saying “Your what?!”) last week and spent the weekend sowing the rest of the leeks and a lot of Calendulas. Closely followed by the chicks, who in turn were closely followed by various robins. We shall have to see how many plants actually come up, but there are significant bare patches on the area of grass lawn that we have just sown and Gabriella and Monica are definitely the main names in the frame.
Today has been an overcast, rainy day, not one to be spending too long in the garden, so I planted the second batch of various seeds indoors: lettuce, peas, mangetout, runner beans and gladstone daisies. The onions and sweet peas I planted a fortnight ago have failed to show so the seed is probably no longer viable but the mangetout in particular is looking good. I was just watering the seeds when I glanced up and spotted an oddly coloured lamb in the field. It quickly dawned on me that it was a badger venturing out in daylight, presumably because the rain had brought all the worms and slugs to the surface. I tried using Jon’s camera – too complicated to use when I was in a hurry – so grabbed the little Finepix instead and made my way down to the gate on to the field:
By this time, badger had spotted me (and Megan) so decided to make a run for it, just in case.
