Wild Flowers

Wild flowers from Jersey CI
I used two textures by Kim Klassen: Aurora and Dusty Rose.

Hellebore

Various hellebores are blooming in the garden now. One in particular has beautiful markings. I used Kim Klassen's texture: "Warmsun" in this.

Kim Klassen's blog party.

Kim Klassen produces wonderful textures and is generous in offering some of them free. I used "Camomile" to take part in her blog party.   http://www.kimklassencafe.com/
Here it is:

Green Woodpecker

I get great pleasure from watching birds. Today a green woodpecker came to the garden. From time to time it searches in the same small spot for ants, but this morning he was unlucky! It is a scraplift of work by Sailing Sue, who is a real expert on bird photography and has some amazing LOs. Here is her gallery.

Publish Post

Autumn

Welcome to my blog Catherine:)

Most of the trees round here are coniferous, so there isn't much autumn leaf colour, but I did find one tree strutting its stuff:

Beware

When did I first start gathering mushrooms? Probably more than 60 years ago, and so I felt fully confident in identifying an edible one. Yesterday, I found several perfect-looking specimens and until I came to prepare them, I had no doubt that they were edible field mushrooms- the shape, colour, texture, peeling skin, pale pink gills all looked right. Luckily I plunged my nose into the bag to enjoy that evocative earthy smell- but it wasn't there. The smell was strange, rather like strong disinfectant. As I removed the stalks, I notice a rim of bright yellow appearing. This sparked a deeply buried memory "yellow staining mushrooms".  Although not toxic enough to kill, they can cause severe stomach upsets.

Ladybirds

Today I gathered the last of the runner beans from the garden, then sat in the sun. Lots of insects were buzzing around and they started landing on the warm brick wall of our house. They were harlequin ladybirds and I think they were looking for a cosy spot to hibernate. These ladybirds are not native to the UK and are a threat to our native species, but they are attractive none-the-less. I took these photos of their varied forms earlier this year.

Gardening

A cloudless, warm autumn day made the garden the place to be. There are still a few runner beans and tomatoes coming. I pruned out the old raspberry canes and cut back plants which had finished flowering. A gentian is is full bloom and I took some photos of it. It is kept in a pot so that it can enjoy the acid soil it needs.