Today in our garden I continued tidying up around the compost bin that is made in the shape of a bee hive. Soon after we moved into the house we created a Cadfael garden under the Cherry tree with the pink blossom. The garden had herbs, a Cadfael Rose, a couple of Amphora and, following the same theme, the Bee hive compost bin. The area, and the bin, was covered in Ivy which I am trying to clear. I don’t spend very long working in that part of the garden because it has two bird boxes and one of them, at least, is being used this year.
The larger of the amphora was broken into several pieces that I have now glued back together and it is wrapped around with duct tape as the glue sets. I assume it was freezing water that broke it. The smaller of the amphora was on its side and so had not filled up with water and is still in one piece as shown in the header image.
However it did look as though it was half full of wood shavings and wood splinters. I decided to clean it up a bit so immersed it in a bucket of water. Lots of stuff floated out, including dozens of Cherry pips. When I looked closer at the Cherry pips I noticed little holes in many of them. This photo shows a few of them arranged in half a coconut shell that would have been full of fat and bird seed and suspended from the tree at one time. You can see teeth marks where a little hole has been made so that the seed inside could be eaten. Given that they were inside the amphora, which has quite a narrow neck, along with wood shavings I assume it was the stash and nest of a Mouse rather than a Squirrel.
Almost at the opposite corner to the Cherry tree and the pretend Bee Hive we have a small clump of Bluebells that are in flower.
To finish off with here is another photo of one of the clumps of Lords & Ladies. Because they are opening in the same direction, South, I assume they orient themselves by the direction of the Sun.
This is the index to the Days in our garden series.
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