Monday 6th May 2019

Nature at its wildest today, as swathes of thick dark clouds fill the sky and thunder echoes up the valley. Poor Alfie dog hates noises of any kind, and as soon as the thunder starts he heads down to a corner at the bottom of the garden and curls up there. I don't know why he does this as he has a kennel inside a barn, and other open barn areas he could run to, but for some reason he feels safer down there. The trouble is he ends up drenched, and today there were even some hefty hailstones, so in between storms I went down and made a bit of a cover over the area to hopefully keep him dry. It will be interesting to see if he still goes down there after my modifications, or finds yet another spot to get wet in!

Luckily the storms had been forecast, so yesterday I spent a couple of hours moving plants to more sheltered locations and putting anti-hail netting across the seedlings in the raised beds, just to stop them getting too bashed.

This year, for the first time, I'm trying veggie planting by a lunar calendar. It's quite fun to follow even if I don't end up with very different results. I must admit I've not followed it one hundred percent, as some days things are just ready for potting up, regardless of what day it is. Take today for instance. I'd already sown two batches of parsnip seeds this year but  so far very few had germinated. So I decided to try and give them a push by sandwiching a bunch between two wet paper towels and putting them into a plastic bag. Well it worked a treat! When I checked today there were dozens of sprouted ones with nice long roots, and a couple already putting out shoots, so, even though it's not a root veg day according to the calendar, I just had to get them into their little card tubes of soil.

Lots of other plants are already transplanted into the veggie patch, and this year I've dedicated an entire bed just for the cabbagey type of plants.

Yes it's the one completely sealed inside those huge net curtains. Every year my cabbages get savaged by caterpillars and flea beetles, so this year I'm determined to block out the beasties from the get go. I've also invested in some neem oil which will hopefully deal with anything already in the soil. So far I've got purple cabbage, purple sprouting brocolli, savoy cabbage, ordinary brocolli and spinach in there. I've just started some cauliflower seeds in trays, and later in the summer I'll add kale too. That should give me plenty of variety for fresh veg through winter. I do hope the brocolli takes off as that's one of my favourite veggies and it would be brilliant to have a good supply through winter.

It's not just the plants which are flourishing at the moment, but various kinds of wildlife are too. I was very excited to see that some of my little frogs which hatched from the pond last year, have returned to the garden and are chirruping away every night. There's no sign of any spawn as yet, and unfortunately the cats are intrigued by the croaking and go and sit down by the pond hoping to catch the source of the noise. Naturally the clever frogs become silent at that point, so we'll have to see if they're granted a window of mating opportunity free from unwanted feline attention.

I still haven't gotten around to putting the fly screens back up at the windows and doors yet, and the other day an enormous bumble bee drifted into the house and ended up hammering against the kitchen window. Unfortunately this is the only window with a permanently fixed fly screen on the other side, so I couldn't even open it to let the bee out. What to do? I tried wafting it away from the window with a sheet of paper, hoping it would spot the open door, but it was determined that the window was its best escape route, so then I thought about getting it trapped in an empty plastic bottle so I could carry it outside. I found a big empty milk bottle which has quite a wide neck, and in the split second the bee was relatively still I managed to clamp the neck over the beastie without trapping any of his legs. He wasn't happy about this and buzzed furiously (it was really weird feeling the vibrations all up the bottle) whilst still bashing at the window. Now, my kitchen window is rather small but set in an alcove about a foot deep above the sink, so I was at full stretch trying to hold the bottle over the bee. I now needed him to fly to the far end of the bottle so I would have a few seconds to take it away from the glass and seal the end. The little creature wouldn't do this though and we were stuck in an endless stalemate situation. In the same window area I have a couple of decorative pots and a little pottery candle stick holder on which I always perch a decorated easter egg for the year. The egg from last easter (back in 2018) was still there - a lovely hardboiled beauty, dyed maroon and with an ornate gold cross painted on it - but as my arm tired, I had a brief wobbly moment and caught the unfortunate egg with my elbow. Smash! Down it came off the candle holder and cracked open inside a dish. The instant stink bomb smell was abominable, but there was nothing I could do as I was still busy pinning the bee against the glass. Awful! Maybe the bee caught a wiff of the appalling odour too as he suddenly flew up the bottle, and instantly I flipped it so the neck end was now against the tiled surface of the window sill. Now it was an easy matter to slide a piece of paper under the open end of the bottle and take the whole thing outside where Mr Bumble was finally released. Then it was back inside to get rid of the stinky egg! The kitchen stank for ages though.

A much nicer flying visitor has been the pair of storks which are nesting in the village this year. They often fly down to feed on the stadium field just below my house, so I get a beautiful view of them coming in low as they cross the garden.

They didn't even seem to mind when a bunch of people were playing rounders the other week, and just carried on pecking away up the far end. Hopefully they'll manage to hatch their chicks and will want to return here every year.

Quick aside - we've just had an almighty downpour of rain, and areas of my veggie patch are now just big puddles of water, particularly the sweetcorn area where I can see rows of shoots poking up through muddy water. That's one of the problems with clay soil, it quickly becomes waterlogged. Hopefully it will drain away once the storms pass and the roots won't be ruined.

Back to the nature trail. I was checking on my flower seedlings last week when I suddenly spotted this little creature curled up sunbathing right on top of them.

It was a bit of a shock to say the least, especially as I was very close before I noticed him. He seems to have a little den somewhere in the stone wall nearby, as just behind the lavender bush there's an entrance to a hole, and once, when I made a bit too much noise, he suddenly uncoiled and shot off down there. He's been spotted a couple of times in the same area, just laying there enjoying the sun, though today he chose a different spot, closer to the lawn, and I only noticed him when my hand was two inches away reaching for a couple of snails. That's not the agreement, Mr Snake! You're supposed to keep to a designated known area, not go venturing further afield.

At first I thought it might be an adder, but after putting a picture on Facebook I was told by several Bulgarians that it is in fact a horned viper, and one of the more poisonous native snakes. Uh oh.

You can see the little 'horn' on his nose quite clearly in this shot. And his rather angry expression...

I've since read that they only tend to be aggressive as a last resort, and will instead prefer to remain motionless or beat a hasty retreat. What worries me though are my three cats and their penchant for pouncing on any wriggling creature as a potential toy. So on Wednesday a friend is coming over for operation snake relocation. As yet I have absolutely no idea how this will be carried out, but I very much doubt an empty milk bottle will be the answer this time.