I had a bit of a rat problem last year and had to make some reagrrangements on the bird feeder front. The tree was easy game for a rat to climb so I’m now using one of those wrought iron poles with four arms to hang the feeders on instead of the tree.
So, when we looked out and saw a rat on the table… grrrr! Yup, the little critter has learnt how to climb the pole. It turns out there are two of them living in a snowgloo created by the vegetation. We have created a baffle by cutting up a PET bottle. We shall see…
Well… kind of snow. It would probably have been ‘Scotch Mist’ or ‘Light Drizzle’ had the temperature been three degrees warmer. But we have a light sprinkling of powder over the landscape. It looked rather pretty as I walked into Chesham for the local produce market. I thought it was time to change the header image.
Had a brainwave last night. Now that the polytunnel is clear, there was room in there for the wormery. Even though it was seriously wrapped up in bubblewrap it was still semi frozen on top this afternoon. Hopefully, overwintering in the poly will make it easier for the worms.
The bird’s cake seemed to be a hit
First with Robin, then with Tit.
But when the Startlings came to tea
The cake was gone by count of three!
It was a wonderful day in the garden for bird watching. Spotting movement around the Buddleia, we saw around twenty Gold Finches having a seed break. Unfortunately, they seemed to be on their way somewhere else.
Then all the Starlings on the ‘cake’. They did look rather hungry.
A day to tidy up the greenhouse. Overcast but not too cold. The last of the tomatoes are now ripening on the window sill and the old plants sent to the compost heap. The pepper plants look keen to carry on so I’ll give them a bit longer.
This morning I made the birds a ‘cake’. I tend to keep the crusts off our brown seeded loaf and leave them to dry out ready for use. I broke them up and soaked them in a warm mix of water and beed dripping. Added some more bird seed and packed the mix into a plastic punnet to set. This afternoon a Robin was standing on the ‘cake’ helping himself to some fatty seeds. Most gratifying:>)
There are so many kinds of feeders developed for different birds’ feeding habits, many of them with squirrel baffles. All very well unless your habit in ground feeding. Then we had to stop putting food on the ground as it was encouraging rats, so we made a table top feeder to hang from the tree. I was a bit worried about all the blackbirds and dunnocks that regularly visited for the ground pickings. Would they be able to adapt?
I am very pleased to report that the dunnocks caught on quite quickly to the table and soon the blackbirds managed it too. But the dunnocks surprised me by going one step further and have learned to cling on to the squirrel baffle and take a few seeds from the tit feeder.
Any food reaching the ground is soon cleared up by pidgeons so, with any luck the rats will stay in the compost heap…
There is an old rule that anything not harvested by Samhain (better known for Hallowe’en) should be left for the wildlife. I almost kept to it – but not quite. I still had not collected any sloes, and there was a bottle of gin waiting to embrace them.
So it was ten days into November before my time and a bright day co-incided, and I set off to fetch sloes. Fortunately, I took the camera because it became a berry photo fest.
Thirty minutes walk took me to the spot I had been watching all year which was a patch of loaded Blackthorn bushes covering a bridle way. When I arrived there was much indignant squawking of Blackbirds and I felt very guilty about stealing their supper. Even more guilty when I saw that the bushes had been seriously cut back, presumably, to make way for horse and rider.
Apologetically, I stole a few, but guilt got the better of me so I decided that there would not be much sloe gin this year.
The camera lead me on to get some ploughed field shots and I was thinking how useful it would be if a path home turned up about now, when one did just that!
I followed it in a homeward direction and, low and behold, came across an very long hedge of loaded Blackthorn. There were no birds squawking at me this time and, in the presence of so many berries, I didn’t feel guilty. Sloe gin here we come:>)
I have been good in the garden though. All the apples I could not reach have now fallen from the tree and these are definitely being left for the wild folk.
I’ve picked 5lb of wild plums, three are now chutney and two are plum sauce. Also made three bottles of Fruity Brown Sauce.
Still to come is a mammoth apple chutney bash.
I had a chance to catch up with the Harvest work today:
- Transferred the elderberry wine from bucket to demijohn
- Five jars of Spiced Apple Butter
- Six jars of Beetroot and Apple chutney
- Picked a few Damsons which are on their way to liqueur via vodka and sugar
and made a cake :>)
There are still more elderberries, blackberries, two trees of apples and some wild plums to be turned into something. I want to create a recipe for brown sauce.
It seems the fruit harvest is a good one this year.
