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Monday 9 October 2017

After a blustery week....



Last weekend we had several days of high winds.  Nothing out of the ordinary for the time of year but the first windy days of Autumn tend to wreck the garden and blow debris around.  No damage to the house or livestock, but the poor garden took a battering.  Still some flowers bravely - er - flowering.  But there have been some moody skies too with dark clouds and misty rain.  As most followers of my blog know I am a Spring/Summer person, so I do not relish Autumn.  However I'm getting there.  Here are some photos from the weekend when the weather was mild with NO wind and little rain....  Above Sandside and Hoy High light, and it's raining over Orphir on the Orkney Mainland. Photo taken from the "main road" on Graemsay.  Below, bit of a closer view.  Tide was just coming in... I think....


Button and I took a walk down to the coral beach....... we disturbed a grey seal that has been having a rest on a rock...


And there were more moody skies....


Hoy was getting a bit of "weather" in this one...


Button likes to walk on the wild side.....



And she likes to scare me......



We then took a turn round the garden to see what had survived the winds.... The geraniums are hardy brave souls.....



Hypericum (St John's Wort) produces lots of berries for the birds, and still has some flower producing nectar for the bees.


This new bed took a battering. Hopefully everything will come again next year....


The rowan tree had all it's leaves blackened and no berries on it now.... The lovage also broke in half, though I had cut some of it back in preparation for the gales.


But other things survived because they were sheltered by the stone dyke, like this borage. The bees love it, and the flowers are great in gin... apparently.



The hebe did OK too.  Again the insects love this.


This is a lovely scabious. It's supposed to be on a tall stem but was hiding nearer the ground. Sensible flower!


And the sea holly gave up trying to remain vertical and draped itself delicately over the hypericum!



Before the high winds you couldn't see this bird feeder for leaves.... not so now!


So as you see we don't really get "Autumn" like in the highlands of Scotland where the trees turn beautiful shades of orange, red and brown.  Our trees go from green to black in a day....sigh.

The hens meanwhile fared well.  Their hen house is reasonably sheltered and they can make a run for the shrubbery - though sometimes it's not in a straight line!

Here they are rootling about the garden.  Some are still in moult - poor black Pecky Hen is having a terrible moult this year.  She looks really motheaten!  She's fine - just looks awful!  When they are at the worst of their moult they have the sense to remain in the hen house when it's wet etc....




I give them a supplement in their food and water when it is the moulting season, hopefully it helps them!


The insects struggle in the high winds and rains as you would expect.  They were fairly making up for lost time at the weekend when the weather was calmer.  But I  came across this Bumble Bee struggling on a flower.  It had no energy to fly or do anything and I don't think there was much for it in the flower.  So I rushed indoors for some sugary syrup to feed it.  I then spent a delightful few minutes watching it drink.  I had to stand guard to keep a curious cat and eagle eyed hens away from it till it recovered enough to buzz off a few minutes later!

This was it at the beginning....


Then it REALLY went for it, extending his/her tongue!


And here is a short video of it drinking. You can see the syrup being sucked up! The noise in the background is one of the hens....


After all that excitement Button returned home for a snooze..... This is where she rides out most storms!


5 comments:

  1. I'm not an autumn person, but yesterday, when out walking both my husband and eldest son love it and waxed lyrically about the scent of autumn, the crunch of the leaves, the smell of wood smoke, the damp soil and the golden colours. So, I stopped grumbling about the demise of summer and listened to them. They were right, it was beautiful .... but I still would like it to be warmer and drier!

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  2. It is looking quite stark here due to the lack of trees but it brings an amazing array of autumnal colours across the moors. It is certainly an ever changing landscape.

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  3. Just to be different.... it's in the mid twenties here and everything is lush and green with new growth. Only a few flowers so far but all the hydrangeas are budding nicely. You can have spring by proxy, if it would help! :-) Just to prove that humans are never satisfied, I am actually a big fan of autumn ... perhaps because I was born in it? After a hot Sydney summer, I relish the cooler weather and the approach to winter. Hope you are keeping cosy and warm, if you follow Button's example you won't go too far wrong!! Cats are very wise.

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  4. I meant to say how interesting the bee video was. I really enjoyed it.

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  5. But a few minutes before sinking into the feathers you made me smile. Thank you.

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