Reasons to be cheerful

[MrsBiscuit]

Alongside our lovely photo thread I thought I'd start a thread of happy things we might have all been doing/seeing/hearing to cheer ourselves up. We live in a remote hamlet, so not much happens at the best of times, but things which have brought a smile to my face in the last 24 hours include:

a) discovering some excellent gardening blogs and spending hours reading them, including gardeners in Portugal
b) playing with the cat and next door's dog
c) doing a tour of the garden since we have been away for 4 days. In that time various plants are either in fat bud or actual bloom, including lilac, the very first jasmine, iris and masses of marigolds in various hybridised permutations of orange and yellow, plus osteospermums
d) the broad beans I planted in the autumn have got little pods on them already. Give it a couple of weeks!
e) but the best thing was seeing a couple of swifts yesterday swooping over a large puddle in the garden, it was so unexpected

 

[Marigold]

Agree with you totally. Went out round the estate today with Poppy as it is drizzling and it was just so very quiet. Normally you can hear the distant hum of the A34 across the valley but today it's like Christmas Day. Robin is building in the pyracantha and blackbird in the viburnum tinus. We have put up our new mason bee box and are checking daily for occupants.

I just loved this one! Sounds as if light is slowly dawning in his tiny brain.

 

[bigyetiman]

Watching the Barn owls last night, that silent, ghostly flight is amazing and when one flew by close, you looked into the eyes and entered another world.
Two Wood Mice feeding happily in the bird feeder, they run up a hawthorn branch and into the feeder.

 

[Tweetypie]

Daffodils! There's a long private drive up to the woods where I walk to the forest and the whole side of the road is covered in daffodils. Not only that, it is also lined with linden trees (lime). In June, the aroma is magnificent, you can also hear the bees buzzing from more than quarter mile away. Each and every day I walk, I never tire of the scenery.

Right in the middle of the woods, someone has had a bench fixed at the bottom of a hill. That person who passed must have loved it there. Every Fathers Day, Birthday, Christmas, there's always a wreath put on the bench and removed a few weeks later. Had to post it, my eyes well up every time I see it.

Enscribed: "Softly the leaves of memories fall, sit for a while and gather them all"

 

[MrsBiscuit]

Its things like this that make you stop and think. We may not all be here at the end of this.

Do you have a pic with the daffs? Today is my wedding anniversary, and being of Welsh descent my bouquet was made up of daffs.

Lime blossom is probably my favourite smell in the whole world.

 

[LadyA]

It's neither windy nor raining here (at the moment)! So, I'm off for a walk, before the hordes come out.

 

[Icemaiden]

I had the opportunity to go for a kayak paddle on the river this morning. It was a beautiful crisp & sunny morning. Just what I needed.

Now for a bit of variety I need to get the chainsaw out & take down a dead tree before anything starts nesting in the surrounding leylandii.

 

[Marigold]

Poppy sitting in our little Spring meadow this morning.

 

[MrsBiscuit]

That's so pretty, and it looks so right with the mature planting as a backdrop. Make sure she doesn't sit on the fritillary!

 

[Tweetypie]

Marigold, I just love those blue flowers, what are they? I need some of those. Your garden looks beautiful. My lithodora has flowered all year round, even in winter Ive had 5 or 6 flowers, incredible! Wallflowers have been in flower for a month or so now. I love flowers.

Mrs Biscuit, I found an old pic I took of the daffodils 2 years ago and an old pic I took of the same spot at the top of the hill. Its always deserted so I can capture a new pic tomorrow as the daffs look gorgeous...

 

[MrsBiscuit]

That is kind of you, thank you. The outline of the trees is pretty amazing too, you do have beautiful scenery around you!

 

[Marigold]

Marigold, I just love those blue flowers, what are they? I need some of those. Your garden looks beautiful. My lithodora has flowered all year round, even in winter Ive had 5 or 6 flowers, incredible! Wallflowers have been in flower for a month or so now. I love flowers.

They're anemone blanda https://www.rhsplants.co.uk/plants/_/anemone-blanda/classid.2000002719/?gclid=CjwKCAjw3-bzBRBhEiwAgnnLCgoJg_Gi7MNm-MuN5SRv9AsIRw3uo3fgsmsEUu5gpaX5A37J0enE7BoCCu4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

On sale now in pots OK if you can go to a garden centre (!) but the best way is to wait until the autumn and buy a packet or two of bulbs. You'll get more for your money and can just pop 3-4 tiny bulbs into pockets on your rockery or plant just below the surface of the lawn (in a chicken-free area!) They quickly naturalise and spread by seeding and the leaves are indented and also very pretty after flowering and before dieback. The carpet of blue in the pic has been spreading for several years from one packet and they also migrate to other places.
They also come in various colours. We have a lot of white ones as well which are taller and flower a bit later. Some packs are of mixed colours blue white and various shades of mauve but I prefer the plain blue ones followed by the whites.

 

[Tweetypie]

Ohhh thank you, they look spectacular. I don't have my chickens roaming anymore because of the damage they did, so safe to plant things now. I'll be doing quite a bit of gardening now I am in lockdown from work...until they find a loophole to make us go in.

 

[bigyetiman]

Oh just helped neighbour deliver three larger than normal triplets (so they tell me), one had it's feet around another.
Just to see mum after all that travail immediately clean them and the lambs suckle, 3rd one got a bottle. Gives you hope, plus the older lambs jumping around as they were let out into the fields today

 

[Margaid]

Oh just helped neighbour deliver three larger than normal triplets (so they tell me), one had it's feet around another.
Just to see mum after all that travail immediately clean them and the lambs suckle, 3rd one got a bottle. Gives you hope, plus the older lambs jumping around as they were let out into the fields today

The lambs playing are one of the things I really miss having moved home. I lost count of the times I had to rescue the one that got left behind - 10 crawl under the fence, rush up and down and then 9 crawl back. So then there are 9 rushing up and down once side of the fence and one bleating loudly, rushing up and down on the other, not able to find the gap! Then there was the "posse" where a dozen or so would race along the fence and round the corner and stop, waiting, until one would suddenley start the stampede back in the other direction. Then there's the stiff, four-legged leap sideways ...

 

[Marigold]

Poppy and I we're having our daily viewing of YouTube and we came across this classic clip from Walt Disney's Silly Symphony. Proper hand-drawn cartoon not like the modern computerised rubbish. As it's poultry related I hoped it would be cheering for us all on here.

https://youtu.be/UrHr5ykvE_o

 

[Tweetypie]

Im just enjoying watching The Yorkshire Vet on TV tonight. Cow with a prolapsed womb, Tup with poorly eyes, pony with laminitis...getting used to the blood and gore I could not previously watch.

Marigold - ordered the anemones. Again. Its funny because I checked my previous ebay purchases..only to find I had already bought some back in January and planted them in my rockery. I must have seen a pic of them, not knowing what they were. Now I have ordered another 25 bulbs, so they can go in my borders.

Mrs Biscuit, after much gardening today, I went for my usual walk with the OH. Sooo peaceful. Only saw 2 cyclists in the forest. Anyway, the linden tree and daffodil lined private drive up to the woods is here:

 

[dianefairhall]

Lambs won't be born here for about another 6 weeks but I'll post some pics when they get here.

 

[MrsBiscuit]

Beautiful shot of the flowers. You must get the heavenly scent as well in the summer from the limes, how wonderful.

Margaid - thats very evocative! They sound just as intelligent as chickens when faced with a fence and a large space for the gate. I remember as a girl guide, about 100 years ago, we were on some sort of walk and came across a lamb stuck in barbed wire. I don't remember exactly what we did, but we got it free. Just a shame there wasn't a 'rescuing wildlife' badge! The day before yesterday we rescued a female blackbird from the jaws of the cat, the bird flew off, hopefully unharmed.

 

[Hen-Gen]

I was going to snap my lambs when they come in 3weeks but if I use my iPad then I can’t post them on here. I’ve tried the method recommended but I can’t make it work.
Anyone who knows how to do it prepared to receive the pic as an email then post it for me?