Even though we are in lockdown, it could be worse! The weather is fantastic! The sun and warmth maybe shining in through the windows, or you have the opportunity to sit outside ….. it could be worse ….. it could be raining!
This morning we sat outside and had a lovely breakfast with homemade jam made with homegrown fruit!
The mornings over the past few days have been crisp, bright and warm!
Letting the animals out is even more of a joy when the weather is so gorgeous. You forget what is going on in the world.
After all, they don’t have a clue and every new day is another adventure.
We have had so much rain in the UK, but North Devon, although wet, seems to have got off lighter than some parts of the country!
In the dryer, warmer spells, the bees have managed to get out and collect pollen. They are returning to the hive with their pollen baskets loaded up with mainly orange and yellow pollen at the moment.
If anyone is interested, I have written a small guide on the colour of pollen and the flowers the bees have been visiting in North Devon. See: https://chilcotts.farm/bees/local-pollen-guide/
Well wouldn’t you bee unhappy too if your house has been blown over, and you are exposed to all the elements?
I can see the hives from the house and am always keeping an eye on the them checking all is well.
Everyone had been warning us about #StormCiara, but for some reason I didn’t think about the hives. This morning when I got up, the hives were fine, but the wind was gusting. The BBC website said gusts up to 70 miles per hour.
Mid morning, one of the hives blew over! Spotted as it happened, I shot out to pick the hive up to protect the poor bees from the wind and rain. As I upped the hive and went to get some blocks and straps to to put on the roof and hold it down, it blew over again!
Angry, unhappy bees is an understatement! Poor things. Anyway, I managed to up the hive again (Four stings later – four little bees obviously managed to get into my bee jacket) I weighed it down with bricks and strapped it together. I then strapped all the other hives down too.
Fingers crossed the queen has not been damaged, and all the girls will support her as she starts to lay in the coming weeks.
Quite beautiful this morning. Everything covered in frost glinting in the early morning sunlight. This Witch Hazel looked like a little glimmering jewel.
While landscaping our gardens we have dug up many things including old tools, farm implements, water pumps, tyres, bones and scrap metal.
However, one of the most delicate and lovely things we have found are antique bottles.
Varied and obviously old, quite often the writing on them tells a story.
One bottle reads:
WHEELER
LONDON
TRADE MARK
SOFT WHITE HANDS
Another reads:
MRS WIINSLOW’S
SOOTHING SYRUP
CURTIS & PERKINS
PROPRIETORS
My favourite is:
SAMPLE BOTTLE
DR.KILMER’S
SWAMP ROOT
KIDNEY CURE
LONDON.E.C
Described as a Wolf Moon, the moon certainly had a presence this evening! I don’t think the picture does it justice.
I look out on the beehives every day, but make an effort at least once a week to do a quick walk around and check there are no issues.
Most of the time, they seem quiet with nothing happening. They might as well be empty boxes. However, today one of the hives had this big pile of dead bees outside.
Bees keep there hives clean and tidy and this one had just had a big clean-up pushing out all the bees that had died.
It appears alarming to see this small handful of bees on the ground, but this can be quite usual. As the bees born in the summer die they fall to the bottom of the hive.
As part of housekeeping, the overwintering bees will cast all the bodies out of the hive entrance.
This happened to bee a bright warmish day, and later on bees could be seen flying from all the hives, including this one.
Wow! The colours of the medlar in autumn is incredible!
I have never eaten the fruit. Each year I store it, ready to eat, and never get around to it.
I am not sure if it is the fact that you have to let it get to the point of rotting before you eat it that puts me off?
However, I wait until the spring and the big flowers probably make up for what I may have missed.
I checked the walnut trees a week ago to see if the nuts were ready.
The tree still showed the green fruit intact with no signs of releasing its nut from the fruit.
I checked again yesterday, and within just one week, the tree had started to drop its fruit. The green fruit had split open, and some of the nuts were lying on the ground. Others were just about to fall.
I quickly gathered and picked all the nuts before an opportunist squirrel or mouse had the opportunity.
They are now all drying in the warmth of the utility room, to be eventually stored in our outside store, ready for eating at Christmas!
