A cracker of a morning

I watched the sun appear over the horizon from among the whins and brambles at the top of the field. It's going to be a cracker of a day!

In the shelter of the whins, brambles are still flowering, and in among the brambles the gorse flowers too.

Early morning light on brambles

and on a non-native oak leaf

                                                      Most of the dock looks like this >

< But some of it looks like this

And the bracken looks like this in the morning light. It is the golding glory of the hills in autumn and their greening glory in spring.

<< here I'm back at the south-east border of the Boggy Brae garden looking down towards the loch and I look back east to the rising sun >>>








before I scissor-step over the fence.

On my wander down the Boggy Brae, I notice a new crop of Glistening Inkcap mushrooms on the old rowan,

rain pock-marked wood ash from some garden bonfires,



and the crack patterns on an old birch stump at the same bonfire site.

I will take care with the secateurs today. Yesterday, while snipping rhododendron to feed to a small bonfire, my left hand got in the way and got slightly snipped. It's a very neat V-shaped cut. It'll be fine–one of those serves me right injuries!

Now I'm off out to begin my "dead hedge" building. More of that anon.

Have good day! It's a cracker of a day here.

The first of the autumn welly wanders

in my PJs and dressing-gown, while Toad and Toadlet snore on.

The irrepressible rose flowers on

The perennial sweet peas flower a second time

The polopody ferns on the dry stone wall make spores

Some less ripe ones

Then I looked over the wall and saw the meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale) in flower

Its neighbouring bolete

I counted six boletes this morning

Some self-seeded ling also on the front bank under the downy birch

And more fungi various: 

a Russula, I think

a second Coprinopsis lagopus

These on an old log

Seems the roe deer are still munching on the rosebay willowherb,
preventing it from flowering

the early autumn state of some roseroot

Lungwort leaves looking good

Azalea leaves; I almost like these better than the flowers
whose scent makes me sneeze

This, of wild angelica seed, is specially for DivingDaghter

Can you see the wolf?

The lovely morning light

It is spring. I know this because of the state of the plants. I also know it because I consider, these days, taking a child's Thermarest mattress out with me on my PJ wanders so that I've something to put between me and the boggy brae to take shots from the ground, looking up

like this

or getting down to eye level with the grass and tiny plant regeneration

like this

and, of course, just to enjoy the morning light through leaves

I can look up while standing too

and today I was enjoying the shadows as much as the light, getting close and personal with a rhodie blossom

not forgetting the fallen.

Buds on the bird cherry tree that blew over in a December gale. There's life in the old gean yet.

Flowering currant

Old leaves of a young oak. Its new leaf buds have not burst open yet. And under the biggest rhododendron, by the field fence, small shoots of Japanese Knotweed. It is not defeated yet. I feel kind of sad, sometimes, that we have to discourage it, remembering how bright and impressive the fully grown stands of it at the end of the loch look in midwinter, leafless and brave in the winter light.

Snow and Sunrise

A little bit of snow

And sun rising in a blaze of glory