After a long, hot spell we’ve had, at last, a few days of sensible rain and both the garden and the Forest seem to have come to life overnight. The rain sodden branches of the oak and beech have drooped under their new-found burden and revealed the embryonic promise of a good, autumnal harvest of acorns and mast which, in turn, will encourage the grey hordes of wood pigeons to descend on the Forest, as they have done in previous years. Similarly, hazel nuts are well advanced and the apple and blackberry crops look very promising. In the kitchen garden the rain has revitalised flagging plants and everything is standing upright and to attention except for, that is, my two rows of peas which have toppled over under the thrashing from the recent downpours. Never mind, a few canes will put them right and the skinny pods will soon fatten now they’ve had a good drenching. By the way, talking of peas, I have to say that I’ve never before had any success, up here, with this crop. Once sown, the seedling peas have always been devoured by the local mouse population -- until this year, that is, when I have a crop that would give Birdseye cause for concern -- and the secret? I’ll tell you. I took some advice from an old and wise gardener and soaked the peas overnight in paraffin; another equally old but perhaps not so wise gardener pooh-poohed the idea and told me they’d never germinate. How wrong he was, the results speak for themselves and the Mice? Well they won’t starve but I do seem to have lost a bottle of mouthwash!
Many of you kind people have asked after the well-being of my new cohabiters -- the swallows. In the July edition I reported that Mrs Swallow had layed two eggs and these were very soon joined by two more which eventually hatched into four chicks. Then, one day soon after their arrival, my mirror on a stick revealed only two remaining chicks. I searched the bare concrete floor below the nest and could find no sign of the missing birds so it seems that their demise will remain a mystery. Unlike the wagtails and blackbirds who have broods close by and who slave from dawn to dusk with beakfulls of food for the gaping maws of their offspring, my two swallows seem to spend most of the day at the beach; for hours they are nowhere to be seen and then suddenly they reappear and flit around with no apparent urgency to visit their young and scolding anyone who might be in the vicinity of their stable. Despite their seemingly negligent parents the two chicks are growing rapidly and appear to contentedly replete and sleepy whenever I look in, I hope they make it.
The great spotted woodpeckers have had a successful breeding season and by the numbers visiting the nut feeders several broods have been hatched in the surrounding woodland. A few days ago I witnessed from my study window four young woodpeckers and one parent bird on or around one cage of peanuts. It was a delight to watch the fraught parent as it tried to wrestle food through the wire to feed its clamouring entourage. These young wood peckers are aggressive hooligans and with their bright red, punk haircuts they wreak havoc on the other residents in the garden and will readily chase off any one who dares to investigate one of their feeders, but they are a delight to watch.
We had some excitement here last night. A very presentable young man risked life and limb by coming unannounced through my front gate. My dogs were not impressed by his sudden intrusion and it took some persuasion from me to get them to settle. When he eventually managed to get a word in he explained that he was a London based school teacher who was looking four six girls who had failed to arrive at the final rendezvous of a Duke of Edinburgh navigation course. Fortunately they did have a mobile phone and had been able to tell him, with the aid of their map, that they were not far from my house and so he had come to find them. He rang them once again in my presence and after directing several questions to them we were able to establish that they were within sight of the A 31 and that they were on a ‘white gravel track with grass growing on it’. I decided that this might be Sandy Ridge so with final instructions from their teacher to put on their hats and coats to keep warm we set-of in the Land Rover and drove through the fading light in, hopefully, the right direction. No, they weren’t on Sandy Ridge but as I sat close to the A31 with the teacher next to me trying, once again, to make phone contact it suddenly occurred to me that their previous description of their location would also fit the redundant track behind Old House. So off we went and there in the middle of the track with a mist starting to fall were the six relieved young ladies. It was a tight squeeze to fit them all in the rear of the Land Rover but they were finally dropped back to their waiting minibus and their relieved school chums. Thank goodness they were equipped with a mobile phone.
Finally, my mushroom mentor has beaten me to it again and has already collected some tasty Chanterelles. This warm and moist weather will make many different species pop-up so with the mushroom pickers’ code in mind take up your baskets and go hunting.
I like my mushrooming companion, in fact he’s a fungi but there’s not mushroom in this Forest for both of us!
Ian Thew
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