Tuesday 29 May 2018

the Fairweather Gardener - Mini Beasties in May

Plenty of bees around now which is good, my foxgloves are just flowering and the bees love them. Also hover flies around, which are not only good pollinators but have nice fierce larvae, which the same as ladybird larvae will happily munch through loads of aphids. I like hover flies.

Male orange tip feeding on cranesbill flowers

Early in the month the butterflies began to appear, the first one I saw was an orange tip, flew up from the geraniums and away over the wall. They're quite unmistakeable, or the males are, the females are more discreet and have no orange tips, so they look more or less like another white butterfly.

Next, there were a few nests of untidy silk with small caterpillars in them. The first one I found was on the car, which was a bit weird. Then one or two appeared in the garden on the apple tree and I started finding small brown hairy caterpillars in random places. I wasn't worried until the cat sitting on my lap suddenly stood up and stated intently at my shoulder. I found a caterpillar on my collar, I just brushed it off, but too late. I came up in a horribly itchy rash all round my neck! Online I found a few hysterical headlines about toxic caterpillars. I took a closer look at mine, they're brown tail moth caterpillars, not toxic, they just have irritating hairs. So I kept away from the apple tree until they had dispersed.

Brown tail moth nest with caterpillars hatching -
photo from the Forestry Commission

Loads of ants, there are some tiny ones living under the patio by the house, which is fine, they excavate little piles of sand and I don't mind, I just sweep it away from their holes and down between some other stones. But I do have to discourage them from coming into the conservatory, found several in the cat's food bowl. Am keeping the floor cleaner and have blocked a couple of small holes from the outside. It's working so far.


Lily beetles mating on the stem of my fritillaries -
blooming cheek!
My current garden infestation is spiders - tiny ones just hatched out and clustering in small mobs in unexpected corners. Slightly larger, more independent minded ones are hanging out all over the clothes lines. My laundry will soon be covered in silk or, more problematically, the remains of dead flies etc. I do have a bit of a spider phobia, but can live alongside them most of the time without freaking out.

Every time I move a flowerpot the woodlice hurtle around in panic and sometimes a few springtails too. I just let them disperse, they're quite harmless. Wish I could say the same about the snails. There are hundreds, I sometimes gather them in handfuls and lob them into the vacant, nettle filled lot behind the house, but I know its a waste of time.

None of the creatures in my garden are going to be fed or sprayed with anything toxic, not even the pretty scarlet lily beetles which have devastated my poor fritillaries this year.

Wednesday 23 May 2018

World Turtle Day 23 May

To celebrate World Turtle Day, make sure you know the difference between a Turtle and a Tortoise - they are not the same creature.

Sunday 20 May 2018

Fleetwood Mac, 'Oh Well' - My Desert Island Discs - 2

I loved Fleetwood Mac as a blues band, long before they became a pop group. I saw them live more often than any other band apart from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, where three of the band originated anyway. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were Mayall's rhythm section when Eric Clapton left and Peter Green stepped in. It was an improvement! Clapton is technically brilliant but his guitar playing has no soul. Peter Green has a true bluesman's soul, his voice and songs are from that soul and his guitar is sublime.

All three musicians - Greeny, McVie and Fleetwood - subsequently left The Bluesbreakers and became Fleetwood Mac.  Mayall didn't miss them, that band has always been about him anyway, I don't think he ever really liked others in the limelight. He frequently changed his line-up and he's still touring today.

The last time I saw Fleetwood Mac live, at the Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone in 1969, they played 'Oh Well', written by Peter Green, which was on its way to becoming a hit record - it reached no.2 in the UK charts. For the live version they were loud, though not as loud as Led Zepplin who I'd go to see a month or two later. However by this stage Fleetwood Mac had three lead guitarists - Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. As a live band they were unsurpassed and though the opening riff and the major part was played by Greeny, the others joined in - the intensity of the sound was incredible. As far as I remember, they didn't play the eight minute full length version.

As the rules don't allow me to take my copy of Fleetwood Mac's first album (known as the dog & dustbin album) to the desert island, I chose  'Oh Well', because of that live performance and for the defiant lyrics -

"...don't ask me what I think of you,
I might not give the answer that you want me to!"

I didn't love Fleetwood Mac after the three guitarists had left and the Mac became just another pop group.

Saturday 19 May 2018

Shape of the Beast


Chew
grass is bad now
smells not sweet
grass is dry now
taste of dust
sticks to tongue 
Not filling hunger


Smell 
smell of Acacia tree 
tree here good 
makes shade from hottest sun
between nights.
Tree makes food shade 
Smells of gerenuk
so no leaves to reach up
in the sand 
fallen leaves fallen fruit
good good fruit sweet chewy 
plenty fruit fill hunger…
fill...
fill…

Itch
itch on shoulder
no tick birds here
Acacia tree here
good for scratching…
gooood for scratching...


Listen 
Distant
Small roar not of lions
lions are beyond the hill
small rumble
not of elephants…
rumble bigger…
not stampede of wildebeest 
no wildebeest when ground is driest…

Turn 
turn from tree
face ears to sound…
listen more...
smell more...
taste the air...
Rumble not of rhino
no smell of rhino…
rumble and chatter clatter…
not monkeys…
not porcupine…
not wind, no wind, much heat
chatter of hyena...


Louder
smell of…
smell of… 
smell of the long black track beyond the lion hill
The beasts of the black track are here 
beasts that roar and sting
beasts that kill lions
kill elephants

kill  

Turn
face them 
Face Them 
Rumble not of thunder,
smell of the long black track
shape of the rumbling beast  chatter clatter

Flashes
flashes not of lightening
Face the beast 
Horn down…
CHARGE...