Fuchsia hanging around

The colours of autumn are starting to appear in the garden. The greens of August are giving way to the burnt shades of yellow and orange that make September special. Our favourite maple tree is just starting to show red on the top and the alder is going a beautiful golden colour. Berries are appearing in all the right places to feed the birds when the insects stop being plentiful.

The sunshine gives a particularly nice light at this time of year. The flower garden has lost a bit of its vibrancy but some of the hardier flowers will continue until the first frosts, (see the fuchsia on the right). The flowers that have kept going all summer are starting to run out of steam. We have kept dead-heading them but the cooler temperatures do not help them re-generate in quite the same way.

My greenhouse has been a real success and produced many fruits this year with a regular supply of cucumbers and tomatoes.  I have also succeeded in growing basil properly for the first time. Sadly, my supply of fresh strawberries has dwindled and there is no longer one ready each day to tickle my taste-buds. It has been my best year for strawberries grown in the greenhouse and something I hope to repeat next year.

A cacophony of owls

Last week I mentioned a collection of owls hooting at each other one night. Well this has intensified this week. Twice, what I can only describe as an owl choir has taken residence in the garden.

On Wednesday evening my wife and I lay in bed with the window open being serenaded by a whole choir including males, females and probably junior owls. I guess that some were junior owls as there were a few who were just a bit rubbish at hooting and screeching but joined in anyway.

I did look out of the window to see if I could see them, but the leaves are mostly still on the trees so it is hard to spot them at this time of year unless they are flying. Once Winter comes they really do make a lot of noise and you can see them sitting in the trees with no cover.

Slugs patrols continue to prove necessary

The slugs have been out in full force though and this week I have picked several of them from my prized tomato bushes. I don’t know how they get in as it is supposed to be a relatively sealed environment but they do. They seem to get bigger each week. Whilst the tomatoes are slowing down, I still don’t want the slugs to eat them before we do.

Two of the slugs were at least eight inches long and two inches wide, (bear in mind this is a male view of the world). You could practically hear them munching the plants from my bedroom. They also have super suction pads and are quite difficult to pull off. My favourite pliers soon detached them from their quarry and had them lying in the middle of the lawn for the birds to eat.

Slugs lay 100’s of eggs at a time and most of them survive. They kept breeding all through the winter, which is unusual, and meant that there were many more of them ready to munch at the start of the growing season.

There is no magic way to get rid of them but I have found that beer in jars is just too much of a temptation for them to resist. They soon drown in the beer, but they also leave a horrible cocktail to be cleared up afterwards. It is effective but very smelly, so my plier removal technique has been my chosen tactic.

Crazy cats

The weather has made the cats less enthusiastic to stay out. The trouble is they quickly get bored and become destructive. The cooler evenings have also encouraged them to sleep together more.

Their recent trend of sleeping on our laps has been broken with both of them deciding that they need to sleep together on me. Whilst this is quite sweet for my wife to look at from the other side of the lounge, they are both beefing up for winter and the weight of them is actually quite overwhelming. No amount of separating them out and putting them on other chairs will persuade them not to come back. Once they are determined they will stop at nothing to get their own way.

Although they are brothers, they are also pretty jealous of each other. If one cat thinks that the other one has a better position, then he will quickly go and sit on top of his brother or bite him when he is asleep. We try to be even handed with them, but they obviously don’t believe we are fair enough.

Good morning, I have another present for you

Twice this week I have awoken to the sound of crunching in the bedroom, (and it has not been my wife putting her teeth in). A poor vole is having its head crunched by one of the cats. Thankfully they have yet to present it to me in the bed, and in both cases it was on the floor next to the bed.

I discovered why cats feel the need to eat mice and voles so regularly.  Cats can’t produce their own taurine (an amino acid) which is essential to make their body function properly. Taurine is present in muscle tissue and therefore cats are very much carnivores and naturally eat anything that contains it. Feeding them cat food does not overcome their instinct to find it themselves. Without it they go blind and their teeth fall out, amongst other things. Humans can survive without it – hence a vegetarian diet is ok for us.

Our cats do typically leave a part of voles though. We regularly find a small internal organ left over. According to the internet experts, this is often the case but not necessary. The reason is one of taste. Cats just don’t like the taste of some parts of the animals and therefore leave them.

On that tasty note, have a nice weekend and delicious Sunday roast. Remember, taurine is necessary for us too! 🙂

I am going to taste my courgette chutney and damson jam for the first time to find out if it is as tasty as usual.

Picture Quiz

There are another six pictures below of things found in the garden. I think I may have made some of the pictures a little too hard last week so I have included a couple of easier ones this week – (well I thought they were easier).

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