I have never, ever, ever (not to labour the point but..) EVER, NEVER seen so many Ladybirds in my life before as I have seen this year in our garden.
The word would be a plague if it was any other beetle but this creature is too beautiful and far too friendly to be considered a pest. They seem just to want to be attached to you and frequently over the last month one or another of us has had to point out to the other person "you have a Ladybird on your leg", arm, bum or wherever! I could guarantee that I could find a Ladybird within 60 seconds if required. I mowed the lawn a few days back and I must have stopped 4-5 times to rescue one in my mowers path. At one point I noticed a Ladybird was up side down on top of the mower, which is problematic enough for the little beasts, and the vibrations of the mower were sending the poor little blighter all over the machine. I soon rescued it, but it must have been so disorientated. Why did God design it to be non-self righting ? It seems such a cruel thing to do, I mean it's quite an advantage if it should fall into a river, a buoyant little boat on your back and all, BUT falling into the river cannot be the only hazard they are likely to encounter and quite possibly one of the lesser ones I should think.
As we separated the Hazel nuts from the casings Ladybirds would drop out left, right and centre and if we were working on one of the round Cafe style tables on the patio they would start out on an epic journey. We have discovered (through very little research) that Ladybirds do NOT have any understanding of the concept of circular. They immediately start off on a hike along the edge of the table, which is round, and it is not long before they come right past where they had set out from only minutes earlier, clearly believing that they have made great inroads in their quest to get away. It's all rather pathetic so we invariably break the golden rule of nature and interfere squashing them to a pulp with the palm of our hand.! No, no, just kiddin' you see the thing with Ladybirds is everyone loves them, they are just so endearing so we rescue them, carefully letting them walk onto our fingers (which they do so obligingly) then ever so gently cajoling them onto a leaf in the herbaceous border.
When does anyone ever do that with the big black beetles or even a spider?
No, the Ladybird can plague my garden anytime.
THE BEES
A good year for the Bee this, and hence pollination was good too. My apple trees are a glowing sign of this as we have pointed out on previous blogs the branches are literally weighed down to the ground with fruit. I'm not really sure if my tomatoes rely on bees to pollinate them (I really should know this as I've been growing toms for over 25 years) but if so then they have done a Stirling job because I have had a ton of fruit. The only problem now is that the plants are beginning to die off and the boughs are totally full of tomatoes. Green tomato chutney seems likely to be on the cards, may be my guests would like some with their breakfast.THE SPIDERS
A few weeks back I wrote about the day we 'foraged' for plums. Well on the way back we had earwigs, spiders and beetles clambering out of the bags full of fruit. My car was busier than the London Zoo insect house. Now it came to pass that as I drove home I had an itch, on my chest. It was nothing major, just a simple irritating itch, which I assumed was as a result of a scratch by a thorn or an insect bite. However, as the weeks went on this itch didn't go away and during this week it became such a problem that the surrounding muscles started to ache when I moved my arm. So my daughter, sick of listening to me whine, blackmailed me into booking a doctors appointment by refusing to make me any cups of tea until I did so. She really knows where to hit a fellow! Now I didn't fancy going to the Doctor because it all seems so petty as there is nothing to see, just a small lump and I elected to visit the nurse instead, after all they would be far more gentle..... Not so, she took a ruddy big needle and noticing that the skin was unbroken, she set out wholeheartedly remedy that situation, stabbing the needle into my lilly-white, alabaster, beautiful skin and slightly hairy chest. "Ooouch"! I expressed my discomfort in my manly way. Well there's definitely something in there she reassured me. Yes your bloody great needle I muttered to myself.... "Arrrghhh", I continued to give her valuable feed back as she wiggled the needle around like she was trying to pluck out a winkle from it's shell. I seem to attract the more rigorous of nurses, the ones that have had their own flinching reflexes by passed and in this lady I felt their was a determination that came from deep inside- that's deep inside of me! I gasped loudly as she must have hit the hidden foe and with this she withdrew the BP oil well drilling mission, simply stating that quite a lot of pus has come out. Pus! That's not pus, that was my very soul oozing out. So she stuck a sticky thing on the wound that apparently "draws things out", what like your bloody needle, I thought. So now where I had skin, I have a hole, and blood, and pain.... but luckily I'm not one of those guys that makes a drama out of it. You may wonder what this has to do with spiders, well nothing really, I just thought that I had been lacking in photos on the site recently and it was a good photo of a spider. Actually, no. Now I remember... Horse chestnuts!
Apparently Horse Chestnuts, conkers to you and me, keep spiders at bay, so Claire says and so she has hidden conkers all around the house. The first I know about it is whilst hoovering the hoover will suddenly make a sound as if it was about to launch into orbit and I find I have a conker stuck up my nozzle. AND BELIEVE ME YOU DO NOT WANT A CONKER UP YOUR NOZZLE!
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| Another Bee photo because I like it. |
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