The south end of William was in the pond!

Ever since we put in the pond William has refused to drink from a bowl. Instead he prefers to balance rather precariously on the rocks by the side of the pond...

Three nights ago Ian warned me that William was wet. I thought that odd considering that it wasn't raining. Upon examination, his rear end, tail and one back leg were thoroughly drenched. We can only assume that he must have slipped and fell in! He spent the remaining part of the night leaving wet patches all over the place and finally washing himself dry. I refrained from photographing him in his soggy state.

For those of you who don't understand the significance of the title, you must read 'Once upon a lilypad' by Gilly Meredith. A classic childrens book. Can't find a picture I'm afraid.

The back fence

On Tuesday south west water were doing some repairs at work. Since they weren't sure how long the water would be off for we stayed at home. Whilst I did some work (of the sitting at a computer variety) Ian and Dad decided to spend a couple of hours doing some 'real work' putting up our new back fence.

the old fence last year

during

after

Thank you both for a fantastic job.

Dunsford Wood

This morning we visited the Devon Wildlife Trust nature reserve at Dunsford:

http://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/index.php?section=places:reserves&reserveid=26

The reserve has 6 species of fritillary and the rare wood cricket. Today we saw many insects including two species of cricket:

male dark bush cricket

female dark bush cricket

male speckled bush cricket

Dragonflies

Another dragonfly species arrived in our garden today - the migrant hawker. We had two females - one on the damson tree and the other on the house wall.

Caterpillars

This was supposed to be a blog about vegetables, but after experimenting with lots of different varieties this year we've found that due to the combined efforts of slugs and butterflies we're going to be growing mostly root vegetables next year.

For the last few weeks whenever it's not been raining the white butterflies have been fluttering about, laying batch after batch (or is it a brood when it isn't fish?) of eggs. We no longer have any brussels sprouts to speak of, nor cabbages. I have one ornamental cabbage left and the only reason that has not been eaten is because it is next to 2 large sprout plants. We have therefore decided to abandon our above ground vegetable crop and to grow caterpillars instead. We're doing very well at raising caterpillars.

Calla lilies (again)

More calla lilies. I love how the plants sometimes seem confused as to what shall be a flower and what shall be a leaf - resulting in some very pretty leaves.

I broke off part of the pink calla

to give to Dad, but it reverted to yellow rather than pink. Still, the yellow is very pretty.

Bye bye bush

This week, Ian cut down the bush in our back garden. It has been a lovely feature during the last year and has provided cover for both mammals and birds, but it didn't feature in our long term plans. Once we have dug out the roots we shall plant a damson tree just to the left of where it stood.

The garden looks so much bigger now.