In a bid to reduce how much time I spend on social media and
my laptop in general (it is slow and old and frustrating to use), I haven’t
been doing my usual regular updates for #30DaysWild. I was planning to do weekly
updates, but that hasn’t happened either, so here is my
end-of-the-month-roundup!
Day One: went barefoot on the lawn with Taffy-cat for
company. I like not wearing shoes as often as I can, and ‘grounding’ may be
beneficial to mental health.
Day Two: admired the clematis in the back garden. This was
my Nanny Whitlocks plant and it now in Momma P’s garden. The floral display
this year has been absolutely gorgeous!
Day Three: my new book arrived; Wonderland. I am trying to
read one day at a time, so I started the book on June 3rd and was
reading it daily, though I am now reading it every three days instead as I
don’t like reading for such a short time scale.
Day Four: spied this wee bee in my bee house!
Day Five: today I got very excited by the wee babby courgettes
on Momma P’s plot. They look like little bananas.
Day Six: bought some napkins purely for decoupage art
reasons. No idea what I’m going to do yet, but it is going to have a bee theme!
Day Seven: picked a wee bee up off the path at work and put
her on some flowers for breakfast.
Day Eight: identified a seven-spot ladybird larvae
Day Nine: taught my regular volunteers how to weave a hazel
fence to act as a windbreak
Day Ten: counted the common spotted orchids at the Lickey
Hills. I do this every June – so far this year I have counted 184. (End of June total was 235!)
Day Eleven: sat out on the back step in the sunshine,
listening to the birds, talking to Taffy-cat, whilst waiting for the tea to
brew. I really enjoy this little routine of ours.
Day Twelve: saw the first peas on the allotment!
Day Thirteen: went to Ironbridge and admired a large swathe
of wildflowers
Day Fourteen: saw the allotment fox! She is poorly so I put
her some food out. She let me get quite close and she spent the day snoozing on
the black plastic.
Day Fifteen: watched a honeybee hatch!! So fascinating. I
love watching bees.
Day Sixteen: worked at Gardeners World Live. Found a bee on
the floor, picked her up, she walked up my arm, across my shoulders and onto my
head! A colleague had to untangle her.
Day Seventeen: pulled my first onion!
Day Eighteen: added another little solitary bee house to the
allotment collection. This one is just bamboo canes bundled up with string.
Day Nineteen: my compost bin trough planter is growing! This
has been seeded with mesembryanthemum, nasturtium, and tagetes.
Day Twenty: saw five types of butterfly, not bad for the so
called ‘June Gap’.
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| Small Tortoiseshells |
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| Mint Moth |
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| Speckled Wood |
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| Comma |
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| Painted Lady |
Day Twenty One: dug a
pond with some volunteers!
Day Twenty Two: undertook a Lantra tree training course and
learnt about basic tree inspection techniques
Day Twenty Three: sowed some parsnip seed tape – my last
ditch attempt to get some parsnips this year!
Day Twenty Four: spied some harlequin ladybirds beginning
their pupation
Day Twenty Five: watched the swallows at work before my
volunteers arrived. They are SO hard to photograph!
Day Twenty Six: spied my first ever asparagus stalk poking
through the compost
Day Twenty Seven: ordered ‘The Bumblebee Flies Anyway’ by
Kate Bradbury
Day Twenty Eight: counted four swifts flying over the garden
– we only had three last month
Day Twenty Nine: started a new gouache painting with a plan
for flower-themed inkings
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| The lack of ability to rotate photos is incredibly annoying!! |
Day Thirty: had a day at work and admired a different
allotment site in Birmingham. They had so many huge poppies in flower, blowing
around in the breeze.
It’s a funny one this as I think I have a pretty good
outdoorsy type life and job anyway, but I do sometimes find this month a
challenge to do something out of the norm.
