The Power of Nature

Yesterday I walked round the garden. It's 1.5 acres and fairly overgrown so it's often difficult to appreciate the work I've done this year. I've read so many articles recently on the benefits of being at one with nature and it's true.Whenever I spend time in the garden or go walking in the Lakes I feel so much better and more creative afterwards.

This year I have bought packets of bulbs and seeds when they have passed their planting date and the shops are trying to get rid of them.Not everything has worked but I've taken the view that at the price I've paid for them, it doesn't matter I'll just pop them in and see.

The roses have been fabulous this year.My David Austin old English rose in the front garden, has, for the first time, been covered with flowers.Only yesterday my wild candy stripe rose suddenly came into bloom and a birthday present I bought this year, a pale peach climber  called Wollaton Old Hall Climbing Rose ,has finally come into flower too,

I've had huge successes with Borage .I do so love the piercing blue star like flowers, white phlox, which I bought for mere pennies has provided three small plants, and a pink Astrantia which I bought for £2.00 in a car boot sale looks perfect next to the pink Astilbe outside my kitchen door.

Borage

Wild honeysuckle (or woodbine) is everywhere. I love the smell when I go to feed the hens and I keep  popping strawberries into my mouth as I wander past the rather overgrown strawberry patch which this year has been a mass of fruit.

Wild strawberries

I also have a new lace cap hydrangea for £5, a real bargain! It is huge!I thought it was white but its turned out to be a pale blue, at least at the moment until we see if the soil changes it's shade. It should be fine in the woodland area.But for now it stands proud in its tub waiting for planting.

Lillies in the village

I've learned this year the pleasure of being able to give plants away as gifts so, bulbs have been planted in pots when I buy them and spare ones gave made a very cheap and lovely present.

Wild flowers were planted too.Some in the village and some in the garden and the results bring a huge feeling of satisfaction and a lot of pleasure . I will certainly be planting more next year!

Poppies and chamomile

Marigolds

I appreciate that I am very lucky to live in such a beautiful area where we have wild life and flowers in abundance but if  nature is available to all of us if we search it out.Here is a great place to start from your armchair!  

Where the Wild things are!

Tomorrow marks the start of June and the beginning of my Thirty days wild challenge .I've decided to keep a record on my other blog Rural ramblings of the wild things I do over the next month.Thankfully, living in the country it shouldn't be too hard to find things to do in the wild.Time will tell!

It's not every week you meet your MP!

I'm never happier than when I'm free from the constraints of 'school'. This week has been one of those weeks. My daughter has been doing work experience and my eldest son is in Milton Keynes on a training course. Google meanwhile is happy in his normal routine,away from the unexpected!

Work experience has taken the form of volunteering in one of our very important community hubs Ford Park. My daughter has worked in the cafe,planted in the walled garden with the volunteers (some of whom are unable to work due to mental health problems or learning disabilities) and learned about the benefits of companion planting , sat in on a level 1 Horticultural course, picked fresh vegetables for the kitchen,spruced up the nature walk, met our local labour MP John Woodcock who popped in for a coffee, experienced the anxiety of a staff member who's family live in Katmadu where there was an earth quake on 23rd April.Thankfully news came through that they were OK.

What a vast array of learning and the week isn't even over yet! When I dropped her off this morning,the local yoga class was about to begin and a group of walkers were gathering for the Ulverston Walkfest.It's obvious walking around town that it has been the Flag festival this week too!I managed to take some photos of the Gill on one of the practice walks I've been doing in preparation for the C2B next week.

I finally managed for the first time yesterday to walk up Hoad without stopping! I have been walking in  Newlands Bottom a hidden away spot just outside of town .The bluebells are finally out, and although unfurled this morning, so are the wood anemones! I even spotted two Jays, the first time I've ever seen them in the wild.

What a lovely week! Now that's my sort of Education!

A Black sheep in the family

In the field over the road from our cottage are the newly born lambs.The field is full of jumping, skipping creatures with  frantically wiggling tails as they drink their mothers milk.If you look closely however, you will suddenly see, from amongst the sheep a little black head, followed by a little black body - the cutest little black, indeed the only black lamb in the flock!

Five tarns in Lakeland

The weather has been beautiful over the past few days.Today my daughter was meeting up with scouting friends she'd met  at Winter camp earlier in the year.They were spending the day at Fell Foot so I arranged to leave her and spend a day walking with my friend as part of our practice for the C2B

I found a walk at the south eastern tip of Windermere which I reckoned would be out of the tourist radar.  I was right.Even at 11am there were plenty of parking spaces at Chapel House Wood at Staveley-in -Cartmel.

If we had had more time I would have liked to take a short walk round Staveley, a small but very pretty hamlet famed for it's house with a miniature railway running through the garden which is often opened to raise money for charity.

Our walk took us up a forest road and across boardwalks onto woodland paths.Through the trees to the right we could see the glimmer of water which turned out to be Simpson Ground resevoir where we stopped for a moment to take in the view and the silence.

After a slight unintenioned detour we found ourselves back on our intended path in synch with our walking book and carried on through the wood to a wall where we walked out of  woodland into the open countryside with clear blue skies and green fields broken by rocky outcrops and ant hills dotted here and there so your line of sight ahead was broken until you walked round each one.

 .We could see the limestone escarpment known as Whitbarrow scar on the skyline and, as we walked over the open fields  we  rounded a rocky knoll to see Sow How farm beyond which was  a second tarn with  two swans swimming on it and a solitary boathouse at one end.

From there we crossed sloping fields into deciduous woodland and found yet other tarn, this time it was cool and still.We could see the reflection of the  reeds on its still surface. This tarn differed from Sow How Tarn.It was enclosed by woodland and surrounded by rhododendron bushes  which had yet to come into flower and felt as though it was the relic of some wealthy estate.

We walked down past an old barn (which I later learned was called Heights) which had apparently been a Quaker meeting house until the 1920's (and which we commented would have made a good walkers accommodation in its isolation) and then down through more woodland and on to open countryside where we ascended to the cairn at Ravensbarrow.

 The cairn was in fact a seat and we sat whilst I  ate my sandwiches and surveyed the valley below us. The only evidence of people in the valley was a farmer on his tractor feeding his sheep and a couple of walkers ahead of us below. 

We descended towards the road but took a path to the right before reaching a stile over a dry stone wall and into deciduous woodland.It was lovely to see the odd wild daffodil here and there and some primroses on a grassy bank although I was surprised there were not more as the daffodils are in full flower now. After the wood we passed through agate onto a country road and turned left to a crossroads,never seeing a car as we sauntered along the route.We then turned left to a crossroad and right to The Ashes. Passing the farm and a chap doing a fine job of landscaping the garden with a fine slate wall, we walked down a farm track, over a little bridge spanning a stream and right onto a footpath over fields again which passed a typical lakeland cottage to our left with a red telephone box in the garden.

Over a stile into more woodland and past a converted barn which is now used as a holiday let onto the road where   Thorphinsty hall, a very fine house, lay ahead of us.

We passed the hall discussing the likely pronunciation of its name and up the road to a path on the leftt which took us through woodland up the hillside through recently planted plantations to the road further along.By this time the sun was hot and it was heavy going.Our hearts sank at the next path which rose steeply up a slope to a telephone mast. We scrambled up (me a bit at a time) and stopped to catch our breath at the top) Once there it was much easier. We followed the pylon lines onto moorland, over a couple of stiles and through a gate which had no bars allowing the sheep and lambs to move freely from one field to another.A lone lamb was calling to its mother having obviously gone in search of some adventure. Passing into newly planted woodland we followed a well worn path  until it reached a forest track. From there we walked parallel with the track until we reached the car.

It was a lovely and varied walk and there are  several things I would like to go back and investigate such as St Anthonys church on Cartmel fell and the  church at Staveley.

Banishhead - the day of the partial Eclipse

I'm catching up, not having immediate access to a computer means that down loading photos can be a pain at the moment.I continue to take them and then have a mountain of photos to download.But a blog wouldn't be a blog without some photos so I've saved this one till now.

I've been meaning to walk up to Banishead quarry for a while now. I saw a photo of it on a favourite facebook page of mine called "I love the Lake District" last year and it was added to my bucket list.

It was the day of the partial eclipse, a grey and dreary day,but I had to take my daughter to the optician and return her to school in Coniston mid morning so I figured that I'd stop off in Torver on my return. The signs weren't good,drizzle, cloud,not good for the photography at all.

Anyway I have a C2B to practice for so I parked the car next to Torver church,dropped a donation in the honesty box and set off along the road and across to a bend from where a track took me up the hill side, past a farm and several holiday cottages and small caravan sites and then up a walled track into open woodland.

As I came out of the trees the sun began to shine and I was alone ,not a person in sight!

I could see old slate quarries ahead and I walked along the well made track towards them, taking photos as I went.

As I reached the banks of slate a rough path took me up between them

and this was my reward.Totally out the blue!  A deep  quarry surrounded by fencing and a still deep pool below, It made up totally for the failure of the eclipse to appear in our darkened skies!

Definitely worth the walk and next time I will be venturing further to Coniston

My dad says he used to fish up there as I child. I don't think this was written by him but you never know!

http://www.torver.org/torver-history/banishead-quarry

Lords and Ladies

Did you know it's illegal to die in the houses of Parliament? Neither did I till yesterday. My daughter has been on a school trip to London this week to see The Lion King and the group were taken on a tour of the houses of Parliament. It's a very different world from the one we live here but I think that .as with everything. you learn more when it's something you don't do every day! It's always lovely to come home though!

She is currently sitting round a camp fire up at Torver on a dark and rainy night tucking into her tea ,having walked from Lowick this afternoon as part of a survivorship expedition. Her text message to me (warm and cosy in our cottage on a cold ,wet Saturday night) sounded upbeat and cheerful- she's pretty hardy my daughter!

Meanwhile at home I've been watching a Fieldfare as it has been building its nest in our pear tree. I thought it was a cuckoo at first.Its light markings made it very obvious as it flew backwards and forwards across the garden. You can see its nest, in the forked branch of a tree, exposed as the tree has not yet come into leaf although it won't be long as the buds will be in flower in the next few days!

I love this time of year. The clocks move forward tonight and we will have light evenings once more.My vases are full of daffodils,catkins and pussy willows and I've been planting up floral mugs with pansies and primroses to sell at our National Autistic society coffee morning next week.

I also have to visit our village churchyard. I'm told it hosts the dogtooth violet I was really surprised when I saw it's picture as I normally pride myself on my knowledge of wild flowers. This time though I was wrong. What I thought was the dog tooth violet is actually the sweet or common violet . You live and learn!

Donkeys ,Woodpeckers and Rhubarb jam

It's the time of year when I'm out walking the foot paths and fells in training for the C2B walk on 11th May. This year I'm practising with a friend who's going to join me and the conversation makes the miles go faster.

I've discovered she is a whizz with the ordnance survey map whilst I just make it up as I go along. She has a very precise weather app too. I now know exactly when and where a rain drop is going to fall on my head whereas before I would turn my eyes to the heavens and ask myself whether it was going to rain and whether to take sunglasses or wellies!

My friend told me that we had a chance of showers this morning. I replied that there would be no little black cloud over my head, although I took my waterproof trousers just in case.
We set off up the Woodland valley from Broughton up the disused railway line which used to go to Coniston and into a wood.It was too early for bluebells but we came across my neighbour coppicing wood for forest school and an instructor and student being assessed for tree surgery.We offered to give him points out of ten but he preferred a donation in his hat on the ground!

Once through the wood we came onto the road and ambled down the middle (there's not a vehicle to be seen out there) and I stopped at High Rosthwaite farm to buy some home made jam. I have a penchant for blackberry jam but 'spicy blackberry' didn't really appeal. (They don't come spiced from the bushes in our village) so I chose rhubarb instead.This time I had learned to be prepared and had brought my rucksack to carry it in.

At woodland rooms (no more than a little green corrugated shack which serves as a place for locals from miles around to congregate) we turned right into a farm yard and stopped to speak to a lady farmer who pointed us on her way.Her farm was a characteristic lakeland farmhouse,  reminiscent of the farm used to film Beatrix Potter .We followed a little 'green lane' between dry stone walls into a field.Here the path somewhat disappeared amoungst hedges but as we made our way in roughly the right direction we stumbled across a big brown horse with its back to us, staring into a pond, and a scruffy old donkey which obviously decided that we were the most exciting thing to happen all day so it ambled over and looked through the other side of my camera lense as I tried to take its photo! It then decided to follow us part of the way and I had visions of me sprawled in the mud as it nudged my bottom as we walked along the path like Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem.
It gave up at the deer fence and we found our selves in decidous woodland which hasn't yet quite come into bud.Following the path down the valley we came out into a wide expanse of rough farmland covered in reeds and separated by a meandering river which on the map seemed to disappear into nowhere then into the sea. We crossed a little wooden bridge then followed the path through fields and over a stile to the road where we then followed a track through woods up to Wall end near Broughton and I was back on the path I'd taken in the other direction several weeks ago but been stopped due to a very muddy stretch of path which had been unnavigable then. We saw our first wild daffodils and then my friend pointed out the sound of a woodpecker . It sounded like someone banging on large bamboo canes and once I'd heard it would be easy to recognise again.
We were soon back in Broughton and reckoned we had walked about 5-6 miles, and I was right, there wasn't a raindrop in sight!

Little Bo Peep and Education about Sheep!

As I walked down the track with the dogs yesterday I rounded the corner and noticed three sheep ahead.Having lived in the country for about ten years now I've become proud of my shepherding skills and my ability to identify which sheep belongs to which farmer.In this case it was the shaggy curly haired sheep that gave them away.It was Blossom, a rare breed sheep that lives with one of my neighbours and which could only really be described as a pet.

On further inspection I discovered that there were in fact , five sheep, closely followed by my neighbour, her husband, daughter and pet labradoodle. They were , explained my neighbour matter of factly, going for a walk as she had run out of hay and was taking the sheep along the track so they could graze on the grass verges.

As the dogs and I looked on, the motley crew ambled past, taking no more than a cursory glance at the dogs as they strained on their leads to get a better look. You see some very strange sights in the country!

It's been a funny sheep week generally.These sheep  followed my friend and I through a field last week and one even came for a pat! I think they must have thought we must have looked like  dinner ladies!

Then yesterday there was a knock on the door. Our neighbouring farmer sent a message to say that one of his ewes was lambing if

 we wanted to run down to the farm.We were lucky. It was late on a sunny afternoon rather than a cold wet night in the lambing shed!

The ewe (a mule) which is a cross between a texel and a fell sheep for hardiness (they require strong teeth to graze the sea washed turf on the estuary) was lying in the field.Her waters had broken and Paul told us that it was often quite quick although one sheep had take forty minutes the previous day. The field was full of sheep having triplets. The mule would strain and lift her head upwards, then would get up and wander around eating grass.

This went on for quite some time and after about half an hour she seemed to be starting to tire. After 45 minutes, we novices were quite concerned, she didn't look well at all but then neither would we if we were giving birth to three babies. Paul came out and said it was taking longer than it should and decided to intervene.He invited us to watch as he put his hand into the Ewe's uterus and pulled out one very yellow lamb.The second to come out was lodged in a difficult position and wasn't breathing so Paul shook it and cleaned the mucus from its nose with straw.It was very small and weak and didn't look fit and healthy like its brother.Paul said only time would tell.He would leave it in the field for half an hour then bring it into the barn under a heat light over night.The final lamb popped out fit and healthy and, within minutes ,mum was licking both healthy lambs and they were up on their feet feeding from her colostrum. 

The weaker lamb was still on its side and hadn't tried to stand.Sadly we learned the next day that it hadn't made it.Perhaps nature knew it would have struggled to survive. Nature can be cruel sometimes.

Feeling Sheepish in the Lake District!

There is the sound of a whirring sewing machine in the kitchen as my daughter starts her first attempt at dressmaking. We discovered a newly opened scrap store yesterday and came home armed with material, stamps, paint, magazines, wool and ribbons- heaven! Half term has been a haze of sewing, crocheting, planting and creativity. In fact my daughter has said she would like to have a go at making her own clothes, so having managed a cowl with material from the scrap store and mastered how to thread the machine she is ready for trying something simple.I will post the results when we've made something!

It's half term but ,as with any home educating family , the learning always continues. We received a text from my daughter's ELBS (enviromental and landbased science) teacher this week to say her lambs had been born and did she want to see them? We didn't need to be asked again.They were born right on cue on Pancake day.Two tup lambs.

Weighing the lambs

At Boon Cragg national trust farm in Coniston lambing normally takes place in April where there are two lots of around 400 lambs born every year. The students' sheep, of which there are eleven , were sponged to time the birth for February so they could get individual attention as the students have to weigh them and monitor their health. First the lambs were weighed, then their sex was checked to see whether they were gimmers or tups.

Practising with the spray paint







Then after a practice with the spray canister, they were each numbered.The sheep in the barn were Charollais and there were several Tup lambs.The farmer normally prefers the gimmers (female sheep) but this time he was pleased as he wanted to sell them for breeding as the Charolais will be shown at Westmorland show.They weren't particularly attractive sheep like the Herdwicks, having rather square faces and being all white (at least these were) but they make a good price. One of the ewes had given birth to three lambs but had sufficient milk to feed all three.Another sheep lambed after her with a singleton lamb. If she had lambed first then one of the three would have been passed to her to feed to make it easier.

Numbering the lambs

My daughter's lambs on the other hand are Texels . There were outside when we saw them but would be brought in at night.It took us a while to get them to pose for their pictures!

My daughter's lambs with their mum!




And all the time we were up the farm we were surrounded by the sights and sounds of spring. The snowdrops are out and the primroses and crocuses and the daffodils are just about to open ready for a new half term of planting and growing in the new school greenhouse!

Spring is here again!

Texels