Garden Clearing

March has only one week left.  Despite the cold air, the spring has been marching all over around here.  The spring equinox was on the 20th March; the day is longer than the night.  The dynamism of plants are rapidly activated in the last couple of days, which means our garden need to be cleared for the coming seasons.  I'm not a very keen gardener, I'm afraid.  During the last autumn and the winter the garden had been just abandoned as usual.  Every weekend now I have to get rid of dead plants and weed so that I can sow seeds and replant seedlings.

Some weeds have survived over the winter and some have overgrown so quickly.  Grass invaded onto the flowerbed and vegetable patch....  My youngest son helped me to extend the flowerbed to plant my lavender seedlings I planted in planters last year.  A patch of the grass was removed and the mixed soil with sand and compost was put in the extended area.  My son transferred my lavender into the patch.  We'll see how they grow.

The hazel bushes have a lot of female flowers this year.  Hopefully we have a good crop of nuts.  But there are not only us who are waiting for the nuts.  Squirrels, magpies, black birds etc.

The green leaves of rhubarb have been growing and the stems are becoming vibrant red.  Though we have to wait for picking them for baking until they grow enough.

Early dog violet and green alkanet are normally considered as weed.  Early dog violet wasn't in our front garden when we moved into the house.  They spread every year and now occupy and cover the flowerbed in the front garden.  It's very hard to get rid of them.  The roots are very hardy and the seeds spread everywhere, even at the tiny gaps between stones.  I gave up to get rid of them.  Looking at the small pretty flower, you can't just weed out them.  Besides, the petal of violet is edible and a kind of herb.  I can use them for petal jelly, tea , garnish for salad and cake etc.  The green alkanet is our new comer; this plant is sturdy as well.  Though, it is a borage family and I like borage.  (I have borage in our back garden every year to enjoy the beautiful blue flower for eyes and mouths.)  Which is why our garden keeps a lot of weeds all round the year???

 early dog-violet

green alkanet

Foggy Days

It's been dry, no rain.  But it had been foggy for a couple of days this week.  Everything outside had been sunk in the milky cold atmosphere.  Animals, especially birds and squirrels,  were interestingly silent as if they had put a mute on them.  Fog appears in this area not very often.  They must be awake somewhere in the thick fog, and be waiting until they can see that they are safe to move.

I was walking at a sea shore.  It was low tide.  I couldn't even hear the noise of the sea waves.  A man with a dog appeared vaguely from the milky vail on the sandy beach.  I walked to another pebble beach.  Tiny reddish leaves between pebbles caught my eye.  Perhaps common storksbill?  They probably survived the mild winter there, safely protected by the pebbles.

I walked on a lakeside park on the same day, too.  There, animals were silent.  Even though I saw a lot of birds like swans and seagulls, they were silently floating on the lake.  It was like being in a huge fridge.  The air is misty and cold.  The usual places looked now mysterious.  The mute landscape is enigmatic.

No wind, but I could see the tiny bits of moisture drifting in the air.  The moisture sometimes stops over the surface of plants while drifting.  The sun must have been further above the thick fog, and been shining as ever.

Finding Spring!

After the horrendous stormy wet winter, the spring has come very quickly to us in the south Wales.  The clear blue sky tempted me to go out for a walk when I woke up.

Honey bees were busy with collecting nectar from the early cherry blossoms on our front garden.  As the vegetation is activated, the animals get active, too.

We went for a walk to the woodland near by our town at noon.  The sun was shining gently yet we wore a thin jacket, just in case.  In the shade it can be still chilly.

At the beginning we saw the scars of the wet stormy winter.  The ground has been becoming firmer but still muddy.  On a footpath of the woodland, there were deep cracks on the ground resulted by the excessive rain fall.  We then noticed the path was actually closed due to the cracks when having passing over the end of the path.  There was no sign at the beginning of the path (for us not for other people from the other side, perhaps).  It was too late.  We went through safely anyway.

Various plants were now showing their beautiful flowers; primrose, lesser calandine, daffodil, wild anemone, etc.

When we were walking toward to the beech woodland, the subtle smell drifted.  Wild garlic!  As I expected, the young wild garlic leaves were sprouting everywhere on the ground.  We picked some of them, young soft leaves, for our today's supper.  (We made the wild garlic dip sauce.)  An elderly gentleman with two sticks (presumably Nordic Walking?) said to us with a wide smile as passing by the woodland footpath, 'Are you going to have a fresh wild garlic salad tonight?'  'Yes, maybe' (I wasn't bothered to object his kind suggestion.)  Maybe it tastes nice, mix together with other baby leaves, splash balsamic vinegar and olive oil....

People with children and/or dogs were walking leisurely in the warm spring sunlight.  Children and dog were enjoying running around in the woodland.

In the woodland curiously vivid red fungi (scarlet elf cup) were growing here and there like fallen red rose petal.  I don't know if they are edible and taste, but saw some fungi eaten by someone (maybe snail?).  I'm not keen on foraging fungi, better to enjoy the humorous shapes and colours.

Toward the end of the walk, we went out of a field where a kind of pussy willow bushes (goat willow?) with furry catkins were.

Blackbirds, robins, probably sparrows and other small birds were chirping somewhere we couldn't see, to find their partners, or maybe just enjoying the warm dry sunny day.

Still Very Wet, Yet Spring Approaching

This January was one of the wettest in the past 100 years; I have read such articles in the various mass medias.  Every day someone is reporting about the bad weather, disasters such as flooding, high tide and storm...

Now it is in the second half of February, and the rain fall has been still going on.  I caught a few sunny hours last week for a walk last week.

The buds of English Oak on the field were caught by my eyes.  The red bronzy buds in the blue sky pleased me.

But, as I walked to the edge of a woodland, there were streams everywhere, from higher to lower level.  The footpath, pictured above, became a stream, in which the clear water was streaming and it would be wonderful if it had been a real stream.  But it was to be a footpath. Wearing a pair of sturdy wellies was reasonable.

I walked in an oak and beech rich woodland.  There I walked a lot, and yet didn't notice the oak trees were actually downy oak until I saw the fallen leaves on the footpath.  I sadly witnessed several big fallen trees there.  Presumably they could not keep their trunks against the gust of wind and could not keep their roots in the loose ground wetted by the enormous rain fall.

At the edge of the woodland there is a long row of beech trees.  In the summer it is like a green alley.  In the early summer there transforms into a fairytale-like scene with the white flower of wild garlic.  I walked into the beech land.

There!  The shiny young wild garlic leaves were sprouting out from the ground between the fallen beech leaves and twigs.

On a beech stump these fungi were thriving in the winter.

I saw bunch of snowdrop on the sunny slope of a farmhouse at the end of the beech alley.

At a side of the footpath, protected from wind and cold, I found tiny cream white primrose. 

This winter has been wet but mild, which wake the plants up much earlier than usual, I suppose.  Today the temperature has gone up over 10 Celsius (actually, thermometer showed 12 Celsius!).  The plants cannot keep their dormancy (I didn't know this word; the slow metabolism) in the warm winter and the early visit of the spring!  

Created 'My Pages' on the blog!

You may have already noticed, but just in case still not noticed; I have created 'My Pages' on my blog, which show my art work in order.  The art pieces were uploaded as I created with explanations or stories.  But 'May Pages' are sorted in different art making methods.  Every art work has a short caption, which looks neat!

Please look at the picture below:

Under the front page picture, you can see the 3 categories circled with a black line.  They are 'My Pages'.  Just click one of these, one of  'My Pages' appears.  The art pieces in 'Drawings' are not new but not yet introduced on my blog diary.  They are still ongoing and more pieces should be put in.

Paper Cut Work: Winter Woodland 2014

Today is the 1st of February 2014.  I notice the sunlight is getting stronger day by day.  What I am pleased is, the sky is bright when I get up in the morning.  I feel the tiny bit of spring. 

This winter, however, has been relatively mild and quite wet.  I saw a flooding ditch like a long pond or a stream alongside of the meadows where I often have a walk.  The ground of clay soil is everywhere muddy.  Around the meadows and the woodlands near my house I saw a decent mount of berries and rose hips, which feed wild animals.  Or, the mild warm autumn gave so many berries and fruits on the plants that animals cannot consume all of them?  

Anyway birds enjoy the very ripe red rose hips (I'd like to taste them!).  Ivy vines have the fruits ripening for animals.  The wet weather promotes fungi and mushrooms on dead tree trunks or in fallen leaves.  Small creatures like ladybirds and snails are waiting for the spring under the sheltered leaves.  The wooly inflorescence of traveller's joy (the old man'd beard) are still hanging on branches, waiting for their departure on a dry day.

The cream-coloured male catkins of hazel trees are hanging on the branches, and you can find tiny tiny red female catkins when looking closely at the branches.  (I couldn't put them on my work.)

This work, therefore, include a lot of berries and fruits.  The next winter might be much colder and snow.  But so far, the winter in the south Wales didn't let the animals starving, and the spring is approaching.

Winter Woodland 2014

(A3, original paper cut, processed with GIMP)

Warm Wet January

The temperature is mild as usual in the winter, but it's wetter than usual.  We have lived here for over 10 years, used to the wet winter.  And yet, this winter has been so stormy and a lot of rainfalls that many spots were flooded in this area.  The cray soil doesn't soak all the rain water, which caused the floods.

As I walked by the hedgerows, which contain quite a few ancient trees and shrubs, my eyes were drawn to the other side of the footpath.  It is neither pond nor stream in the picture above, but a long ditch along with the hedgerows.  Some ducks were swimming on the temporal (hopefully!) pond.

At the beginning of the walk I saw a man with a black dog.  He walked much faster than I did; rather, his dog wanted to run, I presumed.  When we ran into each other at a gate led to a meadow, he greeted me warmly and passed through.  But he turned around and said to me, 'Watch out for the puddle in front of the gate!  It was deeper than I expected.  I was kept in the mud up to my knees.  See my trousers'  'Thank you, I'll be careful.'  Indeed there was a big cloudy puddle.  Of course I didn't venture to go into it.  (Though I could've done with my wellies.)

I walked through the marshland.  There is always muddy except for the dry days in the summer.  Some meadow plants were half in the water.  The water was clear, though.  Maybe dragonfly's eggs are waiting silently for the spring under the water.

In the woodland various mushrooms were thriving on the dead trunks or between fallen leaves which nurture them.  Look at the black mushrooms on the dead oak trunk!

Everywhere in woodlands is covered with moss.  Looking at closely, we can recognise moss has also wide variety.

Outside at the edge of woodland there were piles of rose hips still left.  Mild warm autumn produced perhaps sufficient fruits.  The birds were obviously still enjoying the ripe sweet fruits.  I saw a few rose hips pecked by a (or more) bird.

At the edge of a meadow, an apple tree stood.  In the summer it had loads of tiny apples and now all gone.  I heard a bird chirping.  I know that!  Yes, indeed a robin was busily flattering between the branches of the apple trees.  Luckily I could take a picture of it.  But then the tiny bird flew quickly away onto the other higher tree.