Frog spawn

After a couple of weeks of daily trips to the ponds I was finally rewarded today with our first frog spawn of the year. Interestingly the frog chose to spawn in the smaller pond, which is currently rather cloudy because we've had a lot of rain recently and when the garden floods the clay particles sit suspended in the water for days.



The sun is currently shining, the first crocuses came out this week and it feels like spring has finally arrived at Frog End.

If you have a garden pond you can help the woodland trust research the impacts of climate change by recording when frog spawn first appears and adding your records to their nature's calendar.

Out with the old

The greenhouse that was here when we moved in has proved very useful, but it is missing several panes of glass and has always been a little too small for our growing needs. We have therefore decided to replace it. Unfortunately that means saying goodbye to the weird and wonderful mosses and lichens that it has been home to.


This beautiful lichen is (I think) a species of Cladonia:



We have a norway maple tree behind our back fence and the greenhouse was just one of the many many places that we'd find little maple seedlings popping up:

Five for silver...

Magpies are usually only occasional visitors to Frog End, but in the last couple of weeks one has made a daily mid-morning visit. Often it only sits in the tree and looks down at the garden, but sometimes it is brave enough to come down and feed. Today our usual magpie was joined by another four. I can't recall ever seeing so many at once before





One for sorrow,
two for joy,
three for a girl,
four for a boy,
five for silver,
six for gold,
seven for a secret,
never to be told,
eight for a wish,
nine for a kiss,
ten for a time
of joyous bliss.