The year's first scything

Tootling down our steep garden with my scythe over my shoulder and a rake in my other hand, I was pleased to see that crocuses are actually opening a bit. They had stayed shut until today's wee bit of sunshine. Primroses are getting under way. By early to mid April there should be well over a thousand in flower: on 12 April 2012 I counted 685, and on 11 April 2014, 1254.

I was going to scythe the patches of boggy front lawn where I had not mowed last year since spring because I was letting Wild Angelica and Black Knapweed set seed. There is another patch to do another day where the main group of Devil's-bit Scabious grows. Pignut leaves are showing up everywhere as usual and so are the leaves of Lesser Celandines.

Young Pignut leaves

The pond is full after some heavy rains and on its lower edge where it sometimes spills over there is a 'lawn' of Opposite-leaved Golden-saxifrage that is beginning to flower. The pond is about half full of frogspawn. I usually find frogs everwhere except near the pond but a heron comes to hunt there quite often so I guess they are there sometimes.

frogspawn

There were sheep in the field for a few weeks over mid-winter. They departed a couple of weeks ago and since then we have been having regular visits from roe deer. They have begun their chomping of monbretia leaves. I shall have to keep my tulips well-protected. Lovely big, colourful flowers like that are like cake to roe deer–a real treat after winter hard rations!

Miss Cutey Deer and the Irrepressible Rose

Okay, Miss Cutey Doe, Miss ButterWouldn'tMelt, this means war!

She has been making herself so comfortably at home that she even reached round onto the porch to eat the single porch rose that bloomed despite earlier deer depradations on the plant!

My guiding of the shoots as they recovered behind the porch trellis clearly wasn't enough to keep deer off these tasty morsels.

yesterday

and, below, today:

I've been meaning to do a proper tidy up there. I've forgotten why the shells and wee stones are there. From now on Irrepressible Rose is getting industrial strength protection.

Growl. Snarl.

Well, a sigh anyway.

Letting the light in

My view to the north from up in the top south corner, sipping tea before I started my bonfire a couple of days ago. I'm making the most of a spell of dry weather. Stuff in the house has to wait at times like this. Dry weather spells here remind me of having a baby in the house. Other than keeping the kitchen and bathroom hygienic and  feeding everybody, housework becomes even less important than usual while you drop everything and attend to baby needs. Tending to the Boggy Brae garden works a bit like that too.

Same principle as making hay while the sun shines, I guess.

It used to be very dark under the big cypress up there and if you weren't a chicken, it was difficult to get into the space underneath its low branches. When two of its several trunks began to keel over a couple of years ago some light got into the dark spaces. I decided to let in some more. Some of the low branches have been sending roots down. I don't really want any more of these trees so I'm cutting back the smaller low branches, burning the dead (and some not dead) foliage, and making a wood pile. Any excuse for a bonfire? Well, maybe ;)

Dead bracken stalks make good fire starters.

After I'd put away tools yesterday, tramping up and down between the shed, the house and up top, I spotted this drowsy deer just a few yards from the back door. I think she might be quite a young one. She seemed unconcerned by my presence.

More roe rose nibblings

The rose-nibbling deer have visited again. On Saturday this part of the Den Rose had several flower buds. The blighters left one.

Something tells me I'm not going to have to prune this much this year.

They also munched the front porch rose, "Irrepressible", again.

They munched on the fern nearby as well. They can eat as much fern as they like!

Fortunately the Den Rose, being a rambler, has rambled along the side of the den and I've propped up some of the shoots, hopefully keeping some buds out of deer reach.

Den rose against the den

In the garden today

I protected the Sedum telephium from gobbling deer so they ate the Sedum rosea instead, all of it except one flower in a different place from the two main clumps.

Apple blossom has shown up on the old, old apple tree. If it fruits at all, the local jays come and eat the small apples complete with the wee beasties inside them. The branch that's propping the tree up (and has probably rooted where it is) has blossom on it only about 30-40cm above the ground.

Geraniums and Welsh poppies are flowering, and there is more Germander Speedwell than in previous years. I'm happy about that. My Welsh poppies are all orange. All the other (very many!) Welsh poppies that grow on the peninsula where I live are yellow, and those growing from seed I sent to a friend last year are growing yellow too! She wants some orange ones and I want some yellow ones.

The last primroses are in a shady corner, London Pride has begun to flower, there are buds on the heavily pruned Woodshed Rose, and Fringe Cups (Tellima grandiflora) that is growing out of a wall is flowering.

Aquilegia has begun to flower and I'm still trying for the perfect "I walk on daisies as I step out .the door" shot.

Time for tea and some nutty, seedy flapjack that I made this morning, I think.

Red Campion versus roe deer

A couple of days ago I spotted the first Boggy Brae Red Campion flower. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you'll see that there are bitten off stalks. This is why the flowering is so late compared with other places.

This morning, when I went to the wash-house for milk from the fridge there, I spotted a roe doe chomping away at the fresh Red Campion leaves. I took a photo through the spider silky window and then opened the door so that she trotted away.

I really like a good display of Red Campion so it's irritating to have it so chomped. A couple of years ago it flowered abundantly near where the doe is standing from April right through to the end of October. Last year and this year no chance! I guess the deer population is at a high point and I need to get out more chicken wire.

British Deer Survey

I recently came across this link to the British Deer Survey for 2016. As well as sending them some Boggy Brae sightings I thought I would collate a few of my old pictures of roe deer encounters.

The first summer we were here, while the garden was still very overgrown, I took this pic of a roe deer buck under what I call the umbrella tree. The branches would reach the ground in weeping willow fashion if roe deer didn't keep them cropped to just above their nibbling height.

The umbrella tree hasn't change much over the years apart from being a little bigger, but the pieris to the right of it nad hardly visible in this photo now look like this:

A couple of years later, during the time when we had geese, a white roe buck appeared one morning. He seemed unconcerned by my cautious approach with the camera.

Bertie, the gander, first hissed at the deer and then looked snootily away. The deer was unimpressed.

One of the best encounters was when I saw a doe and fawn from bedroom windows. The doe was chewing cud and the fawn was exploring. It came round to the north-west side of the house (and I shifted rooms),

The fawn looked right at me in the
upstairs window

then it looked back at mum, began to return to her, and looked back at me before going behind the bank again. Clikc on the pics to enlarge them.

In September 2014 these two heard the camera shutter click and spotted me at the landing window. More pics from that encounter here.

And I have watched roe deer sunbathing in the copse beside the garden.