Automatic Lawn Mowers

Today, as usual on an English bank holiday, it is wet.  I am feeling sorry for all the church and village fetes which are being held today.  Many of these fetes are the major fundraising event in the village with funds being used to assist in keeping a church or village hall in full repair or helping a village organisation to pay bills and therefore to continue their work.

Looking back on photographs taken in June I found a sunny one of a lamb and her mother on the lawn having escaped their field.  Not long afterwards another three escapees joined them.  I chased them all off the lawn and back down the drive a couple of times, but gave up as they kept coming back.  Eventually they went off.

These sheep are left in the field to fend for themselves and give birth outside.  They are not sheared as the wool naturally breaks off.  This gives them a very funny look at times with wool partially hanging off and wool in the field and hanging on the fences

Evening Skies

During the last few months we have viewed some beautiful gold and red sunsets from the hill



 I have managed to capture birds in the middle of the above photograph flying south west - the four dark dots.  As autumn is approaching we are noticing many groups of birds flying south west.

 



Finally, the moon; the parish lantern.

Nature's Perfume

The perfume of the wisteria was so strong on the warm sunny day when I took these photographs last week that I just wanted to sit beneath it all day to enjoy the sun and the scent.

The wisteria was also enjoyed by honey bees (my bees I trust) and bumble bees. The bees have waited so long for some warm sunny days and flowers for pollen and nectar.

The colour of the flowers is beautiful.

What more can a girl want? 

Sun, scent and a beautiful colour to be remembered.

Pheasant - Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

I have lost the plot.  I had lots to do today, a cake to bake and ice for a coffee morning tomorrow, housework and the weeding of a very overgrown border in the garden and I have found myself grinding up peanuts to feed a male pheasant which is quite capable of looking for food itself now the weather is milder.  Pheasants have decimated sections of my garden, eating the growing shoots of plants and I don't look too kindly on them.


Drawing from RSPB Website

 Pheasants make a regular appearance around A Worcestershire Hill.  At the moment we have one male who we have named Boris.  We name all the male pheasants Boris, why, I don't know, it just seemed to happen.  Sometimes we have Boris 1, 2, 3 and 4, depending how many male pheasants are around.  Female pheasants don't get named for some reason.  Maybe that is because they do not stay around long enough.

We had a lot of heavy rain yesterday and Boris looked very bedraggled and sorry for himself.  My partner decided to feed him peanuts which had been ground up for the small birds which do not use the bird feeder and then he left for work stating that he had give Boris all the bird food that was left.  That is when I lost the plot and starting grinding up peanuts for a pheasant.

I had a walk around the paddock next to the house which has not had any sheep grazing on it for some years.  The sheep ate nearly everything, grasses and many of the flowers, but since they have left the flowers have thrived. 

Earlier in the year there were many primroses on a bank which have now died back. 

Now there are a few bluebells and if you look very closely you will just see the edge of a honey bee inside one of the bells.

Celendines always put on a bright show in the sun, although I don't want them in the garden as they will spread and I will never be able to remove them.

Ladies smock looking so delicate in pale lilac

and apple blossom with its early promise of fruit in the autumn

Cowslips - which remind me of the cowslip filled field at the entrance to a farm in Yorkshire which I visited many times as a child.  I called it cowslip farm as did my mother when she was a child living in the village.

I grew some cowslips from seed for the garden a few years ago and they have spread around the garden and, it appears, into the paddock. 

And the last of the Narcissus  I always look forward to these after all the yellow Narcissus have ceased flowering.  These have been planted by a previous owner of the paddock.

There will be many wild flowers to come and I always find it interesting to see what has appeared in the paddock once again now the sheep are not eating nearly everything.