I fully understand that "greeting" on return from holidays
Over here, August is usually the month when things leap out of the ground. This year is different - its rained a lot this past few months and I'm battling to keep up with the growth of things I don't want and encouraging the things I do want
. Mostly I think nature is winning
Odhran (pronounced Orin - rhymes with foreign) is an Irish name Toby, and new to our family.
Hes No 3 grandchild and very like his Father when he was that age. I used to sit with Simon on my knee and watch the muppets. He knew them so well I turned the tape recorder on (an old reel to reel job!) and taped our conversation asking him who each of the muppets were - that's Animal Daddy etc etc. I'd been "training" him to say what age he was and in the same session, I asked him to tell me - A year and three quarters Daddy. Later, Simon took the tape and saved it for posterity onto another more modern medium. Odhran was showing promise at talking early so I teased his Dad to teach him to say "I'm a year and 8 months Daddy". I think he didn't want to be upstaged
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email with a video attached.
What age are you Odhran? One and three quarters
I had to laugh
As for bugs, no, not yet, but his big 6yo cousin likes to explore the wealth of species in my wilderness
On Saturday, we had a double birthday party, barbeque etc (1st grandson Jordan now 19
and Tara my daughter). The oldies sat and chatted while James and other visitors children played and explored the garden. We discovered that 9yo Amy was fanatical about wildlife. She found a frog, and the hunt started for more. Unfortunately, its abode was in the Rhubarb patch. It was rather flattened next day
This evening, I was spreading a bag of very well rotted shreddings (lovely compost!!) around my small Rhodos, and I spotted something moving when I spread a spade full. It was a Newt (I think).
Unfortunately, James had gone home so he missed that excitement. I cant remember seeing one in the garden before. Perhaps Laurie can advise more on what it might have been and its natural habitat, preferred delicacies etc. The chippings had been allowed to rot in a large commercial compost bag. In the various bags I used up, there were quite a lot of other creepy crawlies in there! Wood lice, ants, snails, snails eggs. I'm now feeling a bit guilty - an awful lot of creatures were made homeless.