a cold day in the garden

A flock of female pheasants has taken up residence in the garden.  I wish they hadn't, since they eat the flowers of crocus and fritillaries, though not snowdrops, for some reason.  They were rootling in the far rose bed when I looked out of the bathroom window first thing this morning, but when I clapped my hands to scare them away they merely scuttled into the shelter of the rose bank.  Later on I startled them in the gravel, and they took to the air, but when I went upstairs to wash and change after gardening, there they were again in the back garden, processing down from the upper to the lower lawn.

It was not truly a very nice day for gardening.  It remained dry, after a brief spit of rain while I was having my breakfast, but grey and windy, and not the weather to experiment with the new pole mounted chainsaw, which had been the plan.  The Systems Administrator elected to stay indoors in the warm, and even the chickens didn't look overly keen on coming out.

I went on weeding the gravel, but only because I am miles behind with everything, and am fanatical about gardening.  The SA gave me a narrow trowel for Christmas, which I think the manufacturers intended for planting bulbs, since the blade is marked with inches to measure the depth of the hole, but turns out to be just the thing for extracting fennel roots.  I grow bronze fennel in the long bed, which is a handsome plant, much of its beauty being in the flowers and then the seed heads, but it does seed itself like crazy.  Having established a bridgehead in the middle of the turning circle a couple of years ago it is trying to colonise.

The narrow trowel was also good at grubbing unwanted seedlings out of the wider gaps between paving slabs, and with that and the hook-like tool we got at Chelsea specifically for that task, I made quite good progress with the paved area by the formal pond.  Give it a few more weeks and it will be time to get the cafe table and chairs out again.  They are going rather rusty, but it is a chic sort of rust.

The black cat came and sat with me briefly, then decided it was too cold and windy and retreated to his basket, and Our Ginger came outside after lunch, but didn't stay long.  The next time I saw them all three male cats were curled up in their baskets in the hall.  There is no fourth basket, but the fat indignant tabby doesn't use baskets anyway.  Instead she has a cardboard box, which is somewhat in the way just inside the front door, but neither of us dare move it.  I sometimes fall over it while she is in it, and have to apologise profusely.  One should not overstate the intelligence of cats, but I think they judge us by our intentions as well as our actions.  They can be remarkably forgiving when they get kicked or trodden by accident.