Tales from the Garden

Hello again World! The second month in a new decade! It is a quite some time since I posted on the blog. To be honest, I rather lost the enthusiasm for blogging, and indeed anything involving technology, preferring instead to spend my time doing things and not sitting in front of a screen.

I have also been feeling somewhat jaded with modern day life and the temptation to escape to a hobbit hole in the woods is very tempting (check out Dan Price who really does live in a hobbit hole in Oregon). However I discovered that even Dan Price has a smart phone and records his thoughts and activities on-line! 

Therefore, I have decided that with a few changes I shall pick up again and continue blogging and capturing pictures and thoughts of my simple life at La Petite Maison, (including tales of Evie and the other wildlife); the good life at the allotment and my stitching journey.

To start this year off, even though it is rather belated,  I must show you some of the images of the garden in its summer glory last year. 

The garden has become a haven of wildlife; in the warmer weather, butterflies fluttered by and a hedgehog caused a trip hazard as he went about his nocturnal meanderings. The hedge is full of little songbirds that flit all around the plants and trees, singing cheerily. Last year, two young blackbirds that we named Laura and Hardy clowned around the half coconut on the feeder 

and a large family of long-tailed tits swooped and fluttered amongst the roses 

and around the garden, undaunted by my presence in their midst.

The ponds became home to several frogs 

and I kept a close eye on them, noting how interested Evie became suddenly as she uttered several high-pitched little cries of excitement when her sharp gaze discerned the form of frog, 

even though the ferns and crevices 

camouflaged their presence to all but the most eagle-eyed predator.

During a day trip out to Glenarm walled garden with Tara and Tineke, we discovered a water feature full of the tiniest little frogs. 

They were so adorable I was tempted to bring a couple home with me to live in the trough where once Freddie the frog resided happily under the miniature waterlily… before he mysteriously disappeared……!!! Naturally, I left the tiny creatures behind to enjoy their lives in the magnificent walled garden, safe from a cat with a penchant for catching frogs.

The garden frogs kept Evie occupied, until her attention was drawn to the corner where the half-coconut is located. Sometime previously, I had been watching the birds feeding upon the coconut when between their visits I spotted the nose and whiskers of a mouse peeping through the top of the willow screening before running down the feeder and nibbling the coconut.

I named him “Tarzan the Treemouse”. With the coconut located high off the ground, he had no need to risk his life in descending from the hedge and trees where he lives.

(No doubt he lives in a little mouse house similar to one between the covers of the Brambly Hedge books!)

Until of course, the coconut was eaten, by which time he had become rather a rather rotund mouse with a large appetite to satisfy. 

As I sat stitching in the sun, Evie lay close by, motionless, her ears pointing forwards and eyes fixated upon the daring Tarzan who gazed boldly back at her at as he foraged around, confident that his escape routes were Evie proof. Poor Evie spent hours staring at him waiting hopefully for one wrong move and the opportunity to pounce.

Unfortunately, for Evie, she has recently become the vulnerable one, and no longer feels secure on her own in the garden. As I drank my breakfast coffee and gazed out upon the misty morning, the bristly grey muzzle of a dog fox suddenly loomed up close on the path outside the window. 

The fox now known as Reynaud has only been visible on a couple of occasions, but Evie is well aware of his presence. The added terror of the neighbours trespassing Jack Russell has not helped matters either and so Evie has adapted from being Hedge Cat to House Cat.

Today although it is cold and despite the tumultuous weather we have had recently, there is a hint of Spring in the air. Fresh leaves have formed on the roses and there is the promise of new beginnings. Perhaps this is why I have been moved to begin writing again.

There is a lot to catch up on – the latest developments from the allotment and of course lots of creativity with my stitching and soaps.

As the season begins to change, I shall finish this post with a more appropriate seasonal photo of the last of Caroline Zoobs 2019 subscriptions designs, “The First Skate” that I stitched last December.

xxx