Sparrows using the pampas plumes

When they cleared my next door neighbour's garden they left a clump of pampas that had encroached into my garden.

I chopped down as much of the leaves as possible - oh so much space it's given me! But I left the plumes as last year the sparrows used them to line their nests.

The weeks passed but no sparrows. I wondered whether it was because of the loss of the bushes in Dorothy's garden. Then on Sunday afternoon just before I finished my session reading in my hammock I saw two sparrows collecting the fluff from the plumes. I saw them again when I opened the curtains on Monday morning.

Not as much activity as last year, but at least they have taken some.

A colleague at work spins, and those birds in her garden who line their nests get bits of alpaca wool!

Pretty salad

Yesterday I made a salad from leaves from my garden:

chives
celery leaf
flat-leaved parsley
3-cornered leek (stalk and flowers)
small swiss chard leaves

Looked very pretty but didn't taste of much

Over-run by violets

I have large patches of violets on the flower beds, in the cracks in the concrete near the house, around the fruit bushes and in between the deep-beds of the vegetable patch.

I regret the need to get rid of them, as they start flowering over the winter and then are in full bloom for the insects in early spring, but I want the space, and some soil for other plants to free-seed. I've had 3 sessions so far pulling up the violets. Some come up easily, some need tugging.

The problem is they take up so much room! I've barely half way through and I have filled up half of last year's dangerous-weed bin*, all of this year's, and the large compost bin my neighbours didn't want.

*I have 3 dustbins with some drainage holes drilled near the bottom. I put in dangerous weeds not fit for the compost (eg couch grass) plus ordinary stuff when the ordinary compost bins are full. Each spring I empty the oldest and use that for that year. Anything dodgy can go into one of the other bins to rot down for another year.

Relaxing earth hour

Yesterday evening I was home AND  I remembered, so I turned off my lights for earth hour. I lit some candles in the sitting room, did some meditation, stoked a cat's tummy, did some yoga.

Then, as the clocks were going forward so it was 10.30 new time, I went to bed.

There would need to be an awful lot of people participating to make earth hour show up as less demand at the power stations, but it would at least show a lot of people cared.

Though more important than this is to be careful with energy use, direct and indirect (so buy less stuff!) every day! Me, I have a way to go but I am getting better at not buying stuff, including being more discerning at what I buy in charity shops.

Tonight I have no heating, but Friday night I had the wood burning stove lit, and yesterday evening I had the stove lit and the central heating on. I have enough off-cuts remaining for an evening's burning.

Mistletoe in the High Road!

Yesterday I saw a football-sized ball of mistletoe in a street tree in Leyton High Road!

I think it was in a rowan tree by the few berries left. Looking in a tree book today at a tiny picture of rowan bark makes me a bit more confident of that, but I have put it in my diary to go and check in a month or so's time.

I might have a go at tying up a sprig of mistletoe on a low branch of the ash tree overhanging my garden in the hope that the birds will spread mistletoe there. Perhaps the Organic Lea/Leytonstone Transition Town stall might have local mistletoe at Christmas.

Quince in flower, fig not dormant

My quince is in flower - so I am not expecting any quinces this year as they are unlikely to be pollinated and frost will kill them if they are!

We've had two heavy frosts this week - and some mild mornings like this morning.

At least I think the little tree is a quince. I always thought it was a medlar until after having it for years it fruited and the fruit definitely wasn't a medlar! I asked my friend Maureen, who gave me the plant she'd grown from seed, what it was, but she said she hadn't given it! So, I compared the one fruit with pictures in books and the liklihood is that it is a quince.

I am supposed to prune my fig when it is dormant in January. Another January and my fig is not dormant!

Frosty cars, frost-free water

This morning there was thick frost on the cars - but no ice at all in the wildlife water bowl.