Rabbit, Rabbit.........

 We had seen no further activity after sighting the female rabbit building her nest in mid May. I had looked carefully in the stachys but there was no sign of where she had entered and we came to the conclusion that rabbits probably make several nests in case the babies have to be moved quickly in an emergency. Our theory was based on a programme we had seen about this behaviour in raccoons in Canada; don't ask why we would assume that rabbits behaved exactly the same as raccoons!!

However all that changed a couple of days ago when 3/4 tiny heads appeared out of the greenery. I swear I saw 4 originally but there appear to be only 3 now. Perhaps the fourth has drowned as we are continuing to experience these awful storms, although gutters being cleared out etc. following Mondays episode has alleviated the problems.

We know that we shouldn't encourage the rabbits but we can't help enjoying their antics. It's like having a litter of kittens without all the chaos and devastation indoors.

Where's Noah when you need him?

 Monday morning was spent in the garden.  We came in for lunch and I left the mower outside and the car boot open for us to continue in the afternoon.  Nearly 2 o'clock and we saw some large drops of rain so I rushed outside to shut the boot.  However I did not have time to put the mower away as it started to rain heavily.  Before we knew it rainwater was running down the road ...

... and into our porch as more and more rubbish and stones were washed down from the hill.

 The stones and debris washed down ended up blocking the road and diverting the water onto our standing for the car where it was able to come through the house wall into our boiler room.

 The heavy rain also highlighted some maintenance issues!  A part of the gutter on the front of the house dropped with the weight of water so that the rain cascaded down the wall and leaked into the dinning room.

Also we realised that our run-off system for the gutters was blocked and so, instead of running away into our back field, it flooded our barn (and our neighbours!)

Yesterday, Tuesday was spent in clearing up indoors and outdoors and unblocking drainpipes.

We wait to see how successful are the measures we have taken.  4 days of storms and stormy showers forecast from next Sunday.  Still, the mower got cleaned by the rain before I could put it away !

Some Things Are A Long Time Coming

 When we moved in nearly 17 years ago our back field was full of wild flowers, then we decided to interfere and create a prairie. We followed all the rules, mowing short in September after all the seeds had had a chance to fall and then raking up the grass to stop it rotting down to make compost as wild flowers flourish in impoverised soil, so they tell us! However we soon lost the orchids followed over the years by everything else except the grass. We didn't plant yellow rattle which is supposed to be the key to making wild flower meadows but we have both attempted to seed various other flowers over the years (recorded on the blog) but without success. Last year, because of John's lack of stamina coupled with other events, he did not rake up the grass and voila this year we have the best display of wild flowers we have ever had.

  Scabious and Ladies Bedstraw predominantly.

Some would say this is an "arty" photo, some would say it is just out of focus. I would say it was taken to show that we also have the odd Ox Eye Daisy.

We will probably follow the same regime this year as the stamina is unlikely to return!!

Snake Identification

 We have had feed-back and an expert opinion who tells us that it is a Grass Snake 'Natrix helvetica' ... but we will be keeping the doors shut none the less!

Living with Biodiversity ...

 ... can be dangerous.

Sue was particularly anxious to take photos of the fields of wild flowers which we had seen near a plant fair we went to a week or so ago.

A red blanket of poppies

A blue haze of wild salvias

Then, whilst trying to reverse into a safe stopping spot for more photos of a field of white wild flowers (no pictures taken!), I managed to put 2 wheels into a little ditch and we were stuck.  To our relief, a man stopped within a minute to try and help us out (although he was unsuccessful).  Over the course of the next half an hour about 10 or a dozen people stopped to see if we needed help, before a second gentleman stopped and pulled us out of the ditch.  Our faith in humanity was very much restored!

Meanwhile, in our own garden, we have been visited by deer who have tried eating our small step-over apples and some of the buds on our fairy roses.  Most evenings we capture photos and videos of Mrs Fox checking if we've left food for her at the end of the alley.

However, today we were treated to an unexpected (unwelcome?) visitor.  Lying on the steps outside our front door was a Viper resting having just eaten/swallowed something!!

We sprang into action, sprinkling snake repelant granules infront of all doors and windows, but fortunately the snake, having rested, moved off and disappeared into the undergrowth and off into the next field.

Biodiversity can be worryingly dangerous!