First Primrose

It seemed that we had not seen the sun , or a patch of blue sky, for all the dreary days of the week just gone. Last night it rained again and it is raining now, but for a few short hours there was respite and time to work outside and to walk. Out in the rain soaked garden, mild air has brought small, early flowers into bloom. Primroses shine out from the bank of a flooded pond.

Yellow stars of winter jasmine dot straight and leafless stalks beneath a window.

First daffodils spear through a bed of fallen leaves.

Clusters of young celandine leaves ........

.....and a first, pink pulmonaria blooms.......

........while snowdrop buds show a faint, pointed white among their fine, green shoots.

The field at the bottom of the slope has flooded once again.

Bare lime tree branches flicker their reflection in the pond........

....and the hole in the cherry tree, where the hornet wasps` nest has all but gone, seems deeper. The wood is wetter and more rotten than before.

Pale pinkish-purple flowers on a dead nettle in the cherry leaves.......

....and thick stems of angelica are bursting into leaf.

Out in the lane, small torrents speed heathland water downwards, running over ditch banks and washing the flinted gravel clean.

Bright yellow-orange fungus, wet like melting jelly, grows on dead branches of gorse.

A strange, contorted birch stem seems to cast a sad and upturned eye towards the clouds.

Up in the gorse thickets, first flowers cheer the dull , spiky greens with a flash of gold.

There is a country tale that gorse is never without a flower, but that is not true of the gorse on Forest heathlands. Through the deep winter, the flowers do not show. To see the beginnings of gorse bloom on a January day is enough to lift the gloomiest of moods.

Down beside a stream, is a moss encircled rabbit hole in the bank, just higher than the water ever flows.

A Tangle of Tabbies

Forest Cat finds a patch of sunlight and rolls into the warmth.

There is a kitten cry from the window, as Lucy twitches whiskers and crouches, watching the garden birds outside.

Forest Cat gets up and smells Trouble.

He finds her watching birds.........

A sideways wriggle, and she pounces on the older cat. A twisting , rolling, playing heap of tabby fur rolls across the room.......

.....until they both have had enough.

Lucy rolls on her back, submitting. Forest Cat washes her ears and then stalks away, his dignity intact.

Lucy bathes in the wintery sun........

.....until she hears Old Dog claw-step across a wooden floor. Time to find someone else to play with!

European Hornets in a Cherry Tree Nest

In late summer, our garden is a feasting place for birds and insects. The ripening fruit attracts butterflies, fruit flies and wasps that suck the sweet juices from apples, pears and the wild elderberries and brambles. It was small wonder that a colony of European Hornet wasps decided to nest in the hollow branch of the old cherry tree beside the pond.

These photographs show the intricate and beautiful nest that they made. A better camera than mine would be needed for detailed photos of the insects themselves, but there are good images of the European Hornet, Vespa crabro, if you search online.

The European Hornet is the largest of the Vespidea, or wasp family, that nests in Britain. The individuals can be around three cm long and they have brown and yellow stripes, instead of the black and yellow stripes of the smaller and more aggressive Common Wasp.

Theses hornets make their nests by fashioning them out of paper, which they make from chewed wood. They prefer to nest in hollow trees or in old chimneys. By choosing the hole at the base of a partially rotten branch of the cherry tree, they would have found shelter and a ready supply of soft and rotting wood. The nest faced north, away from the prevailing south westerly winds that can whip across the fields, and away harsh rays of a hot, mid summer sun.

We watched from a respectful distance as the hornets built their nest. They seemed to ignore our presence, so we decided to tolerate theirs.

Underneath the cherry tree is one of our raised beds for growing vegetables. If we gardened quietly, or if I walked past silently with a wheelbarrow full of hay for the animals, the wasps would carry on about their business.

The finished nest was a fine and delicate structure. We would watch the hornet workers flying in and out through the bottom of the nest, taking in food for the larvae inside.

Summer came to an end. The hornets grew slow and dozy as temperatures fell. With the first frosts, the colony died and the nest began to fall apart and rot away. Somewhere, a hornet queen will be hibernating, but all her workers would have died before the snows arrived.

As the nest disintegrated, distinct layers of nest cells could be seen, like the storeys in a tall building. Ants, flies and blue tits picked away at the nest and wet weather seemed to melt its structure away.

Exposed to the air, the beautiful papery hexagons inside.

Some hexagons still had traces of the lining in which young larvae would have grown

In the worst weather, the remnants of the nest were covered by icy snow. After the thaw, nothing remains but a deeper, darker hole in the cherry tree, just underneath a lower branch. Now we are wondering if the branch will survive another spring, or if the hornet queen will return to begin another colony next summer.

Feeling the Worse for Wear.......

New Forest ponies do not choose to live in a stable. They are born and raised in the wild Forest heath and woodlands, so are happiest outside. Tonight, Woody is sleeping inside. He has not had a good day. The photo shows him looking drunkenly out over the stable door as he recovered from his sedation by the vet. He has an infection in his , err...."Boys Bits", and has been feeling sore and very sorry for himself. His owner noticed that all was not well yesterday, and when I checked this morning, there was heat, pain and swelling, so the vet was summoned.

Although he is a friendly and co operative pony, Woody was sedated so that the vet could examine and treat him safely and effectively. He has started a course of antibiotics and painkillers, so now we just have to wait. Hopefully, we have caught the infection before it could travel up his urinary tract and cause serious problems.

Woody is not the only one "in the wars" this New Year. After a very stressful New Year`s Eve, when new neighbours, without warning us, let off an extremely noisy firework display, Old Dog was terrified. He shook and trembled for a long time afterwards. By the morning, he had a very upset stomach and was not at all well. Thankfully, he seems to have recovered now, but we were worried. He will be on his rice and fish diet for a few more days.

Just before Christmas, one of the heavy gate posts snapped through, rotten at its base. Over the past few days, my OH has been replacing the two posts with new oak posts. After he had finished , everything was carefully examined by the Inspector of Works (AKA The Lion Pony), who had been watching him and trying his best to help all morning!

Inside the house, Lucy keeps on growing..........

......while the buds of Cornish daffodils have opened in the warmth. They have a faint , sweet scent of spring and have cheered us when we come in from the cold, grey , outside world, where snow is threatening again.

Wishing everyone who reads my blog a very happy and healthy year in 2011.

Mist and Thaw

Monday night, and the rain arrived. Warmer , wet Atlantic air came, pushing the freezing east winds backwards and bringing us a thaw.

Still icy fields had lost their shield of snow and the trees dripped. Mists rose from the wet land and the sun hardly showed its face all day, so dark it seemed after the white snow brightness of the days at Christmas.

In the lane, puddles appeared , yet shaded corners still held on to sheet ice and small heaps of melting snow.

Damp coated ponies watched out of the mist.

The trees on Stonechat Hill blurred, almost invisible, into fog and sky.

On the high heath, puddles stayed frozen.......

but lichen, young heather and moss shone out; green survivors from underneath the snow.

Down the puddled lane.....

...feather on a twig......

and a field submerged in mist.

An eye in the lens.....

......... raindrops.......

....and through a window, a lone, hungry rabbit ventured out to feed on soaking grass.