Moths and Stuff - 19th July 2010

Moths

Jim and I have become interested in all the moths that seem to gather either in our porch or on the white wall of the cottage. We have tried hard to identify them but it's quite a difficult task. If anyone out there's an expert and can help - don't keep this information to yourselves!


Now I have blogged some of these before, including the one above, the buff tip moth. It looks just like a twig and is one of my favourites so far.


This is the very pretty Elephant Hawk moth.


Followed by the almost impossible to photograph Humming Bird Hawk moth!


This beauty is called The Drinker moth. Aren't the antennae amazing? It has a little snout rather like a hedgehog.


I think this smaller moth is a four spotted Footman


And this is probably another Footman - maybe the same.

I had to give this up last night as the internet was so slow - probably because of the horrendous rainstorm we had.


This fetching chap is a Burnished Brass. When its wings are open is has shiny brass like wings. It also has that amazing crest on its thorax.


OK, this one's is a little moth eaten (LOL), but you get the idea.


An amazing green moth - aptly called the Large Emerald.


Another aptly named moth - the Large Yellow Underwing.


What a beauty. It goes by the name of a Scalloped Oak.

Today, the incredible moth below was on our window - you have to admire this one even if you don't like moths much:


This is a Poplar Hawk-moth. My mother was terrified of moths and butterflies if in an enclosed area particularly. She'd have hated this blog post!


A Tiger Moth rests on the floor. This was a rather faded specimen. Here is another one with folded wings:



This is an Ermine moth, but we're not sure whether it's a Buff or a White one! Look at those wonderful antennae.


As yet nameless! He has a lovely furry velvety head.

You must be mothed out by now. The others we have photos of are all a little blurred.

Vegetables


What a wonderful haul of food from our allotment. The raspberries seem to have gone on forever and we have frozen some. Today Jim has brought in some broad beans too.

New Camera

I am now the proud owner of a Canon PowerShot SX210 1S. Some of the moth photos were taken with it and all the following. It's really light, fits in my pocket and will be much easier for travelling, plus is has a 14 times zoom and all the other features I need. Hoorah!

Jim took Buster for a walk yesterday and took a few photos.


What a great pom pom of a wild flower.


The macro seems to work quite well.


Buster, minus front feet, on the fishing stand.


Trotting along, nose to the ground as usual, with Flagmount in the background.


Lovely rusty old tools we've found in the garden.


Sandy found a new home! 'Fragile' it says.


He is so cute!

Garden

I've spent the last few days (between showers) re-making the road the other side of our gates. Having removed all the grass and weeds, it seems twice the width now. I had to fill in with stones and clay and top the road off with gravel. It looks very smart now. I finally finished it this afternoon.

I hope everyone is managing to enjoy some sunshine and had a good weekend. It's a long post today but I haven't been blogging for a while!

Water Water Everywhere... 10.7.10

The Rain Pours Down

So we go from weeks without any water or rain to weeks with nothing but! 'Be careful what you wish for' Penny said when I mentioned we needed rain for the garden. How right she was. That rain dance we did was clearly far too effective. While much of the UK basks in the 30s, down it comes.

Oliver, the chap who came to sort the well out, cut the top of it a bit low. Jim went out and the hollow around the well top was full of rainwater, which he bailed out! We don't want it going into the top of the well as it may be contaminated in some way. Off Jim went yesterday to Galway for some shopping.

After a while I thought I'd better go and check the well head - it was again full of water, so I bailed it out. It filled up as I stood there. I then realised the water was running down the trench, under the ground where Jim had filled it in and into the well area! Hmm. It was absolutely tipping it down at that point too.


The old well head with the pipes down to the new one!

I realised that the only thing to do was to dig a trench to let the water out, both from the water filled trench above and the new well head.


The water starts to flow out of the pipe ditch.


The new well head with bowl to cover it until the manhole is fitted. Ditch I dug has effectively cleared out the water.



Down the water goes


Down the yard. I made a way through into the gully the goes along the bottom of the Fairy Hill and away it all went. Phew! I was soaked to the skin by then! I went inside and fetched the camera just as Jim drove into the yard! He said he had been a bit worried about it and was prepared to be trench digging when he came back. It's a good thing I'm a practical woman!

It's clear we are going to have to deepen my trench and lay some proper drainage to remove the water away from the well head. Hey ho!

Other things

Jim and I made a list of the jobs that needed doing in each of our rooms. I put on my facebook profile 'Has anyone got any more paper'!!

I did manage to tick one job off yesterday - clean limescale out of shower head. Not a big job but a necessary one. The jets start flying off in all directions otherwise.

One of Jim's jobs was to cement my new washing line 'rounder rounder' (as my mum used to call them) into the ground. Marvellous, all done. It's rained since of course!!


The rain drops look pretty on it though!


How smart is that? It'll be lovely when I can peg some washing out on it. Anyone want some stone?

The poor cats were fed up and spent much of yesterday sitting on a mat in the porch, looking out. Buster hardly moved all day. In fact since his last 4.30am outing, he's only been into the garden to do what he must, then he's headed straight back in and gone back to sleep. What a crazy dog we have.

Fruit and Veg

We have had loads of raspberries and strawberries and Jim has frozen some of the raspberries. Wow - the rain has stopped for the moment, so he's rushed out to pick the rest of the redcurrants, some peas and lettuce I should think, plus potatoes. Lovely. We also have a cherry tree but it grows those 'cooking' cherries. Last year the birds ate them all but this year:


Don't they look delicious?

Jim de-stoned them and added some apple and made a fabulous crumble. We had half of it and it'll be the rest today. It was delicious with custard.

Jim's just come back with a cabbage, new potatoes and some raspberries and a large bowl of peas! I'm off to pod them now. I've already eaten 2 pods full - I just love fresh raw peas.

Back to the 'list' then to mark off a few more jobs!

Happy Saturday everyone.

Re-reading this its like Jim and I have swapped the 'normal' male and female roles!!