Cleaning a drain

This picture of a hill seepage drain that carries water round our house was taken at the end of July. Between then and now it had got more overgrown. It was time to do a bit of clearing.

So I went at it and got to this.


I had to pull moss and liverworts from underneath the grating. You can watch the constant trickle of water that seeps under our back terrace from the hill above even in dry(ish) weather as we've been having.

And the birds sing along...

When I moved a flat stone from near one corner of the grating, a little frog jumped out. It went under an old door that is leaning against wood in the woodshed (to keep some of the rain off the wood) so I could safely carry on strimming.

 

Found what I think is a Wild Radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) plant in the undergrowth I was strimming. There is masses of this all along the sea wall down the hill.









And so the drain is ready for winter. The chicken wire is to keep leaves out.

In search of filberts

After breakfast this hazy morning, I set off in search of filberts: a hazy hazel morning then.

Down the deer path of mosses misted with spider silk.

The hazel trees are <<that way but I decided to follow the deer path a bit further in the opposite direction.

deer path in the woods

Every few steps it seemed there was another fungus.

I wondered if I could get down this way:

Mixed woodland

I could and did and saw more fungi but I will spare you more pics. Of filberts there were very few though there were still unripe catkins.

Alongside some hedging

Yesterday was a lovely warm but breezy autumn day so I took the opportunity to do some hedge-cutting. The Boggy Brae 'north-west passage' between the birch bank and the rhododendron hedge needed widened again. The photo to the right shows the widest bit. It gets narrower as you progress south-eastwards:

You have to negotiate that bit with one foot on the 'path' and one on the steep bank to the right. In a couple of spots right next to the path, heather (Ling/Calluna vulgaris) has established itself. I want that to spread. There's also a tiny rowan tree. I haven't decided whether to let that stay there yet. I do like rowan trees.

Between blasts at the hedge with the hedge-cutter and while raking up the cuttings, I found several toadstools. I don't know their names yet.

I think this one is a milkcap (Lactarius). It best fits the description of L. azonites rather than Birch Milkcap (L. tabidus) or Grey Milkcap (L. vietus). None of them are edible.

Also down there at the bottom of the bank is my latest bryophytic find, the liverwort Greater Featherwort (Plagiochila asplenioides).







And the autumnal dying back of Self-heal is lovely to watch:

Today is dreich and the hills have put on their invisibility cloak so the other side of the hedge will have to wait.

Digging out pampas grass

Recently I lit a bonfire in the large (one and a half metres across) clump of pampas grass down by the boat bog and thought it was burnt to within an inch of its life so would take time to recover. That was the plan. If grass can laugh I bet it did. A few days later this burnt and hacked to within an inch of its life plant was sending up fresh green shoots.

Humph! I decided to dig some of it out. In the wheelbarrow are two clumps. They've been transferred to the Rattletrap and tied securely in ready to be taken to the dump.

pampas grass root ball

This is a job to be done in stages.

The knitters and natterers

As well as blankets, the Knitters and Natterers group at the Oasis in Garelochhead have made a couple of sensory bands. These give people who have dementia or Alzheimer's something to do with their hands and this apparently has a calming effect. To the right is the second one we have finished, showing the outside.

As the name 'band' suggests, the item is a cylinder.

Inside various objects with different textures are attached. Such as:

a piece of sponge

a couple of beads on a keyring

a couple of shells with no sharp edges

a piece of soft leather

a short chain of keyrings
and toothbrush markers
attached by one end

A green and yellow one was completed as well but I didn't get any photographs of that.
Next up will be a flat sensory mat so it can be visual at as well as tactile. I'm collecting bits of textured fabrics – plastic pan scrubbing cloths, faux fur, velvet or corduroy, etc.