Tuesday 9 December 2008

After the snow.


Here is a photograph of the farmer feeding the ram and his entourage of twenty ewes.
(so far nine of them have red bottoms!! will keep you posted on that.) You can see that we had quite a lot of snow last week - around eight inches in fact.
It has all disappeared now although the lane is very icy morning and evening.
This afternoon I went round my garden looking at the plants, many of them laying flat after the snow. But surprise! surprise! Here is a list of the flowers that are in bloom:-

Roses - 1 bud on Dark Lady, 2 fully out on Peace and several buds on Gertrude Jekyll.
Herbaceous geraniums - eight buds just bursting into flower on Dalmaticum.
Helebores - Christmas roses in bud; argutifolius in full flower.
Cyclamen - very tattered little clump of cyclamen coum.
Winter jasmine - of course.
Aubretia - one or two purple flowers here and there.
Perennial alyssum - two sprigs of rather battered bright yellow flowers.
Winter viburnum - plenty of buds ready to burst.
As I predicted all the holly berries have gone to redwings (you can still see the berries on my header - I would love to get it in a narrow strip across the top of my blog but I cannot see how to do it. Anybody out there to help???)
Cotoneaster horizontalis - still covered in tiny bead-like berries.

Isn't nature wonderful!!

15 comments:

Red Clover said...

Wow! I am excited that you A) have snow B) Have so many flowers that are still in bloom! C) That you know all the names of these flowers and sound so impressive! It looks like I have a lot to study up on during the winter, flower names being on of those things. D) That you have a ram, and refrain from calling him Rambo (that was an assumption.) and E) That so many of them have red bottoms!...and I have no idea if that's a good thing or a bad thing...what in the world does it mean?

Gigi Ann said...

Lovely winter photo. We are having nasty weather today. Glad to here the snow has since melted.

Heather said...

Good Boy Rambo! Keep up the good work. Isn't it lovely when you see a tiny touch of colour in mid winter and find a little flower in among the dead leaves? I have winter jasmine which I love, and polyanthus here and there but my hellebores come later. There were violets not long ago but I haven't looked recently.

Tess Kincaid said...

Wonderful snowy photo.

Yes, do explain to this city girl about the ewe bottoms!

Liz said...

Hi Weaver,

Great photo and I love the header as well. Wonderful to know life is still in the garden. Mine ended up being drowned by flooding last winter and the cows have finished it off. Back to starting all over again.
Hope the ram is doing what he needs to. With the marks on the ewes I'd think so.

Take care Great post.

Liz

Raph G. Neckmann said...

Love the poem about the light in your earlier post. Reading about your plants in your garden at this time of year, I think of how the low light shines dramatically through foliage and glances off twigs. I have wonderful red-stemmed cornus, and a Phormium tenax 'Sundowner' which look ethereal in these conditions.
My front steps look like cheese-cake base today - must have overdone the grit!

The Weaver of Grass said...

First - Major thanks to Dominic Rivron for sorting out my holly header!! I could not see how to get it into a long narrow shape and he has done it for me - Thank you Dom.

The Weaver of Grass said...
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The Weaver of Grass said...

Red Bottoms!! The ram has a harness fitted to him with a box of red reddle marker attached, so that when he mounts a ewe he leaves a red mark on her bottom and the farmer knows she should be in lamb. The marker is changed for another colour every fortnight and then the farmer knows lambing dates. Clever eh?

The Weaver of Grass said...
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Lane Mathias said...

The header looks great!

Love that photo:-)

Frances said...

Thanks for your visit.

Let's see, where have I visited ... London, of course, and lots of Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, bit of Somerset, then up through Yorkshire and on to Scotland.

So far, I have never gotten to Cornwall or Wales, so many dreams yet to be fulfilled.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Raph - I love the idea of the path looking like a cheese-cake base - I have been out and about today and each time I have seen gritting I have thought of your simile - love it! Thanks for visiting - am off to visit you now.

Teresa said...

Love your snowy, sheepy pic! Something about sheep that always pulls my attention. Glad you explained the red bottom thing - I'm learning something new all the time!

Tammie Lee said...

wonderful photo!