nature notes

I have seen fake grass covered in weeds, dandelions seem to have no trouble with it, and also slimy fungus and moss just love it when it is really wet, and if you do get weeds in a lawn at least they are green and you can mow it.
 
Marigold said:
Back to artificial grass - it’s hard to sympathise ……
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19445600/life-savings-fake-grass-weeds-garden/
Click to expand...

Quite agree Marigold. If she's a "keen gardener she should know that Mare's Tail is one of the weeds that are extremely difficult to eradicate.
 
Was just reading that this morning. Ridiculous. She'd have been better paving the garden, it wouldn't have looked any worse than plastic grass! I think "low maintenance " is a term often misunderstood to mean you can just ignore it and it'll be fine.

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I’m keeping a very wary eye on the tinder-dry wild field behind our house, which has huge hedges, seedling trees and shoulder-high vegetation, perfect conditions for a fire to envelop our huge trees and our house. Next fields along are barley, still uncut though ready for at least two weeks. Scary.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/11/firefighters-completely-unprepared-for-high-fire-risk-in-uk-warns-union
 
Same here. My own wild areas, and trees. Everything is so very dry, and a lit of the trees are losing their leaves early. And I certainly don't want to use the petrol mower or strimmer out there at the moment.
This summer has decided me though. I have some gorse out in the wild areas - I adore gorse! But it's dangerous stuff when it's so dry. So I'm going to try and dig it out in the Autumn/Winter. Or at least, cut it to the ground.

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Vehicular access to this field, and a larger park area with skateboard and cycle tracks for the kids, is via a locked gate. The other access is via a gap leading to the adjacent housing estate, which used to be left open, but was blocked off by HCC with permanently sunken solid wooden bollards. Both barriers are to deter travellers and teenage joy riders. Unfortunately of course, they would be an obstacle to any emergency services that needed access. I’ve written to our town council asking them if there’s an emergency plan in place, or at least if they can check with the fire service about whether they realise they would need a key to get into the fields in case of fire, but the town clerk is a most unhelpful woman who just replied that, as the field belongs to Basingstoke Council it’s not her responsibility to make enquiries.
And daughter moving house today, in 35C temperature.
 
Yet another reason to ban fake grass.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk-news/vet-warning-dogs-artificial-grass-24729839?fbclid=IwAR2tcxb5UdzDsKDJPcHhbMbFdYaUE-vUYmkUY4asSruoE8yYeeqtzciUOi0
 
Why are humans so stupid and uncaring? I read earlier this week that the walrus was showing signs of stress because she wasn't being left alone and wasn't allowed to rest.

Poor innocent animal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62539485
 
I hope every sightseer is thoroughly ashamed, and feeling very guilty!

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This article kind of echoes my own feelings recently about garden machinery. I do occasionally use a strimmer, but I just take the long grass about halfway down, leaving a good 6 to 8 inches of growth. And I don't go in under hedges etc. in case of hedgehogs. But I have been thinking about getting scythes, and persevering in using them. My strimmer is large and heavy, and I know that I don't have full control of it. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2022/08/18/michael-harding-i-dropped-the-chainsaw-to-my-side-with-the-blade-still-running-and-it-caught-my-trousers-i-felt-the-teeth-of-the-saw-on-my-skin/
 
As you might expect, a few people still use scythes here, but the vast majority of us use strimmers, although OH does use a scythe on a bank of long tough grasses, we have grapes planted there too and its easier for him to avoid accidentally cutting them. He likes it for this specific job, but the rest of the land would be too much to keep under some sort of control without a strimmer. I bought a sickle in UK, which I used from time to time but it was hard work (obviously it is not as tall as a scythe) and there is a real knack to getting it to work. If you can't get the trick of it (like me) then it just ended up as a very annoying tool creating more work than it solved, I am not good with the scythe either.
 
There must have been something very wrong with the chap's chainsaw if the chain kept moving when he dropped it. Even if the carburettor was misadjusted the chain shouldn't have moved enough to do any harm...
 
That's a whole lot less depressing when read from the bottom upwards...
 
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