The plan for this weekend was to get the hedge cut, it is a job that both Sue and I detest but we only do it once (sometimes twice) a year. The reason for this is that we don't want to disturb and nesting animals, well that's my excuse!
I went out to the car at about 9:30 on Saturday morning, came back indoors and begged Sue to let us leave it until Sunday. It was bitterly cold and the wind was whipping down the garden, well being about as sympathetic as my mum was when I used to want a day off school she said "You'll soon warm up once you start working". So off we went.
Here it is, planted in 1989 this part is about 50 foot long. We added a further 70 feet last year. this should start to look like a hedge in a couple of years time. The picture is being taken from the area of the pond and the log pile is where many frogs and newts hibernate.
All the hedge cuttings are shredded and added to one of our three compost bins. The cuttings take about a year to break down but the compost turns out excellent and saves us having to buy fertilizer fro the main garden.
At about 1 o'clock on Sunday morning I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and was greeted by the the sight of snow, so as a dedicated website producer I walked up to the end of the garden to take a picture for you all.
On Sunday, I decided to attempt something that I wasn't entirely happy about. Ever since we started the garden I had wanted moving water, a stream maybe, but always felt that it may be a bit tacky. I had quite a bit of liner left and so thought I would do some experiments. I felt it came out quite well, still undecided though! Any thoughts.
Basically I just dug out a channel and laid the liner into it, used a pump to recirculate water. By the end of the day I had tidied it up a little and will decide over the next week whether to keep it. I was unable to take a photgraph of it's current state due to light conditions and non-functioning hands
Birds spotted this week-end were:
Robins, Blue Tits, House Sparrows, Blackbirds, Starlings, Collared Dove, Wood Pidgeon.
But the most unusual was a solitary Wren which passed through the garden. It is a very small bird, it had the colouring similar to a sparrow but it's little tail sticks up almost perpendicular to it's body.