Years ago, I used to play the guitar, not very well I may add, and in those pre internet days, one went to a music shop and bought music to play in books. I had a book from something called the Newport Folk Festival and it was full of unfamiliar songs from over the Atlantic, a mix of folk and protest songs that were new to me. Continue reading
It is the time of year when many beautiful and naughty insects fly into the garden. This one is a particularly glamorous yet evil little beastie. The red lily beetle, flies around like a ladybird, but has a very good playing dead pose balanced on its back with its feet and antennae tucked in.
If you disturb the lily beetle at work; munching foliage, mating, or laying eggs , which are its main pastimes, it drops to the soil and is surprisingly hard to spot as it lies on its back.
An early morning rain brings life to the garden and it has been very dry lately. We heard the frogs two nights ago, canoodling in next door’s goldfish pond so the weather has warmed up enough for them to start moving back to the ponds and waterways they were born in. I love their soft voices, these frogs are only small and you have to strain a little to hear their low croaks. We had some in the long grass one year* and occasionally I startle one clearing away rotting leaves away from new shoots. We leave quite a lot of the leaves and debris lying around during the winter in the beds and round the shrubs to provide a little shelter for them but at some point we have to start clearing it so that we can weed, take out plants that haven’t made it through the winter, and so on. Continue reading
Zeb Bakes 