Monday, 2 November 2020

2nd NOVEMBER 2020

Leaf shadows on trunk of tree in Autumn. 2nd November 2020.
Leaf shadows on trunk of tree in Autumn. 2nd November 2020.
What have I seen today?

That which I enjoyed the most were the shadows of leaves on the trunk of a tree.

When I first moved to Halifax (in West Yorkshire) I found a site where you can type in your post code and it will tell you the air quality. Halifax is a very busy town with lots of lorries and buses and cars. I anticipated the score would be low; a sad contrast, I expected, with the air I was used to in Dorset where I had lived right by the sea. But no. It came out surprisingly high. Pretty healthy stuff. I was pleased; but puzzled.

Autumn  Woods, Mount Pellon, Halifax, West Yorkshire. 2nd November 2020.
Autumn  Woods, Mount Pellon, Halifax, West Yorkshire. 2nd November 2020.

A few days ago I went on a short journey into Lancashire to visit The Forest of Bowland. It isn't a 'forest'  in the usual sense of non-stop trees - but it is very beautiful. On the way home I was entertained to see that the notice which announced I was re-entering Calderdale (this part of West Yorkshire) had a description written on it. Calderdale, it turns out is 'Ruggedly sophisticated'. My new image! The best of all worlds. I really am not sure about the 'sophisticated' bit but 'rugged' it certainly is. So rugged, so up and down, with so many steep drops in inconvenient places - there's plenty of room for trees where houses simply couldn't be. They are frequently in 'cloughs', the local word for a steep sided valley or ravine. Sometimes, often, you don't know they are there but these trees must have a huge impact on our air quality.

Autumn woods, Mount Pellon, Halifax, West Yorkshire. November 2nd 2020.
Autumn woods, Mount Pellon, Halifax, West Yorkshire. November 2nd 2020.



This morning, I was pottering around in the Mount Pellon area of Halifax - and that's where I saw the leaf shadows . . . and lots of autumn trees!

Path in woods under tall railway arch. 2nd November 2020
Path in woods under tall railway arch. 2nd November 2020









I also went under this huge arch belonging to a disused railway line.

Seedling on mossy wall. 2nd November 2020
Seedling on mossy wall. 2nd November 2020









And back up in the light . . . found this seedling growing out of a mossy wall. This seedling is almost as amusing as the 'ruggedly sophisticated' slogan because it has the air of being the kind of seedling that would want to grow into a really large plant if only it weren't sticking out of a wall . . . and if only it were a different time of year . . . and . . . it looks like a squash seedling, though perhaps it's a sunflower. Can anyone say?

Tiny white toadstools. Possibly Ivory Bonnet (Mycena flavoalba). 2nd November 2020

This afternoon I went out to look at a patch of tiny toadstools. They are spread over an area about two foot square, are white and each one is only about a centimetre across. You can see how small they are by comparing them with the size of the sycamore leaf. I put them on iSpot and a couple of people have already suggested they are 'Ivory Bonnet' (Mycena flavoalba). They are probably right - though I thought the tops of 'bonnet' fungi tended to be more pointy than these.

Tiny white toadstools close up. Possible Ivory Bonnet. (Mycena flavoalba) 2nd November 2020
Tiny white toadstools close up. Possible Ivory Bonnet.
(Mycena flavoalba) 2nd November 2020

Well, that was today! I hope you have had a good day too.

Sunday, 1 November 2020

1st NOVEMBER 2020

I don't know how it has come about that it's so long since I last posted. Here we are at the beginning of November and England is about to enter another 'Lockdown'. Not that this will have much of an impact on the way I live. I've continued to live very separately, grateful for the wonderful countryside around and the interesting area of town I live in.

For some reason it seems like the beginning of June - June when I did a post nearly every day. I can't work out exactly why this is but I think in part it's because of the very definite change in season - the winds and the rain are beating the leaves from the trees at a tremendous rate - and partly because the idea of a lockdown makes one more intensely aware of one's immediate surroundings.

So here's a little update on a small part of what's happening in the very tiny area immediately outside my front door. I put it that way because as usual, the smaller the area one examines, the more there is to see.

Harlequin ladybird on flower pot with groundsel. 1st November 2020.
Harlequin ladybird. 1st November 2020.
Let's start with the wildlife. Ladybirds are still moving around. Here a harlequin is exploring a pot containing a groundsel plant that I've been watching over the summer. Groundsel is a very common 'weed' in England; probably familiar to most readers. However, I doubt many have really paid much attention to what it's like, what it does, how an individual plant behaves. I would encourage everyone to put a pot of earth outside their door and see what happens - an empty pot with earth. In England at any rate it's almost inevitable that a seed will land there. Let it grow, see what it is, examine it. If it turns out to be a nettle, you might want to pot it on, let it grow to its full height, watch it flower. Or it might be something you have never come across before.

Snail hibernating in wall in Halifax, West Yorkshire. 1st November 2020.
Snail hibernating in brick wall.
1st November 2020
In the short wall that separates me from my neighbour, a snail has taken up residence for the winter. I was going to move it but it's further in than it looks so I'll let it be. When it comes out of hibernation and begins to wander around, I'll probably relocate it to a distance as I am not tempted by the idea of letting it feed on the vegetable seedlings I will put outside my door in spring. I say 'to a distance' because snails have an annoying homing instinct. One year I painted numbers on the snails that I removed from my garden - on their shells with typewriter correction fluid. They kept coming back. Each time I removed them further away until I found the distance from which they would not return. Number "2" was specially persistent.

Harts Tongue Fern in wall in Halifax, West Yorkshire. 1st November 2020.
Hart's Tongue Ferns in brick wall.
1st November 2020

The hart's tongue ferns in the wall are thriving. I still feed them every so often with the fluid from the Hozelock Bokashi digester which arrived via Karen. I've lost count of how many there are now. I've also poked leaves from other kinds of ferns in some of the cracks - waited till the spores on their backs were ripe and in they went. Whether they will grow or not . . . that will be another adventure. (Incidentally, a couple of leaves have appeared all by themselves which I think are probably of an ivy leaved toad flax. I hope so. I like that. Unfortunately they are on the most shady part of the wall so may not thrive.)

Pink geranium in pot and lemon balm in pot on doorstep. Halifax. West Yorkshire. 1st November 2020.
Lemon Balm and Pink Geranium in pots on steps.
1st November 2020.



On the steps to my door I have four pots. Here are two - the lower step has lemon balm, the upper one a geranium. They are getting bedraggled - but it is November!

Pot marigold heads after flowering. 1st November 2020.
The demise of pot marigold flowers and beginnings of some seeds.
1st November 2020.















On the other side of the step from the geranium is a pot marigold from Mike. I had hoped it would produce seeds but it isn't doing too well on that front. On the other hand, a couple of seeds which I planted in another pot at the same time but which didn't immediately germinate have now come up and look quite sturdy so I am hoping they will over winter well and flower early next year - the Sofa-Flying Calendula connection will continue!

Bulbs in pot under earth, hidden by sycamore leaves to keep them warm. 1st November 2020.
Pot with bulbs under earth concealed by fallen sycamore leaves.
1st November 2020.
Also in pots, ready for next year, I have alliums, tulips and daffodils. I can't remember which are in which pot but never mind. It will be fun to see what happens. I have been piling sycamore leaves on them to keep them warm when frosts come. Sycamore leaves take ages to get soggy and flat and keep blowing away - but the moment will no doubt come when rain will win and turn them into a soggy blanket for the bulbs which are not really as deeply beneath the surface of the soil as they would probably like to be.

Seedlings in earth. 1st November 2020.
Seeds coming up in earth.
1st November 2020.

There are similar bulbs in the tiny patch of earth outside my house. I sowed some nigella (Love in the Mist) and cornflower seeds to see if they would come up with a head start and keep the marigolds company over-wintering. Some seeds are germinating. Whether they are seeds I've sown or more petty spurge I don't know! I've scattered fox gloves (I don't think they are fox gloves) and aquilegea there too . . . we will see . . . or perhaps not see if they get eaten or drowned or frosted . . . ! ! !

Cyclamen seedling. 1st November 2020.
Cyclamen seedling.
1st November 2020

Back to pots; a couple of years ago I bought red and white and pink cyclamen from a garden centre and put them in my window boxes. Only one has survived. However, they dropped seeds which grew and I have transplanted the results into pots. This is the most advanced of them.

Common Orange Lichen on small twig. 1st November 2020.
Twig with common orange lichen.
1st November 2020






And finally - look what the wind blew in. Here's a little twig with common orange lichen on it (Xanthoria parietina). It landed behind one of the pots on the door step and I placed it on the wall between me and the street to take its photo. The little metal lumps are the remains of railings. I expect they were sawn off during the second world war. The government collected up railings from the fronts of people's houses to melt down and use as part of the 'war effort'. I don't think many, if any, were actually used. Maybe it helped people feel involved. I don't know. I wasn't there. But all over England there are these sad little stumps, constant reminders of futility.

The lichen's lovely though, isn't it?

Link

"So What Really Happened to Our Railings?"  On London Gardens Trust website.


Connecting with Nature Notes on Rambling Woods.