My bird nesting feeder is now up in the tree, having been finished off with a bag full of hair from Lexi. It seems like it has been disturbed a couple of times, but I’ve not seen any birds on it yet.

Storm Isha blew through last night and unsurprisingly blew Debbie’s shed over. I think it only had polythene windows, so it didn’t stand a chance. Everything was fine in the plot, just rather wet. I picked up more elder twigs and added them to the pile around the tree. It’s going to be interesting to see how the dead nettle comes up through it.

I did a tour of the rec and picked up some good post-storm fallen pieces. A number of branches and what looks like it might be an old piece of ivy, which will make a lovely hidey hole somewhere.

In order to keep the possible fox visitor at bay, I’ve put down coffee grounds around the boundary. A fair amount of the coconut had gone overnight and the nursery pots were a bit knocked again, so I wonder if it has found that too. I tried to avoid the pond with the coffee, but of course the grounds blew straight onto the water 🙁 As much as I don’t want more rain making the plot wetter, I wouldn’t mind some directly onto the pond to wash it out again.

After some investigation it turned out that the pesky heavy fence post from the back plot was what was knocking my back fence over. The posts are rotten, but they stand up when the weight is taken off them. I need to find a better prop, but for now a cane has taken the weight and has solved the problem.

After reading that lacewings like to hibernate in wood wool, I took some sodden wood fibre from the pile of logs by the stream, broke it up and dried it out. I then split it into much smaller pieces to make my own wood wool. I spent a while pushing some into the bottom of the bug hotel. I’ll do the same to the new one between unpacking it and hanging it.

The apple tree is in need of its annual haircut. I’m hoping for a fairly easy job, taking off all the wrong bits, half the water shoots – and then halving the remaining water shoots.

One of the smaller branches has canker, probably from the cut it’s next to. I’ll most likely take it off back to the trunk.

Today was Log Day, but the first job at the plot turned out to be putting the pond back together. It seems like something big had been cavorting around and had knocked down the back ledge poles on the pond, upturned the plastic on Bed 1 and rooted around, and knocked over some pots in the nursery. A bunch of pebbles have fallen off the side, but there’s no hope of seeing those again until the water clears a bit more. We reconstructed the poles and I’ve put the Sweet Flag straight at last. I covered some of the bare soil and plant roots with new pieces of bark. The thyme has now has a couple of roots in the water.

I’ve added new bark and wood to the flower bed, so the toad house is surrounded by great hidey holes and there’s also a stepping stone for taking a photo too. There’s also another vertical branch for perching, be it a little bird or a dragonfly.

All the big logs I’ve been collecting from the rec and from the pile dredged from the stream have now been laid around the perimeter. I don’t need many more before the edging is all done. Some will have to come up again when I do the weeding of the bits I didn’t do in the autumn.

I’ve rearranged the bark a little under the apple tree, adding a bendy log to the corner and building a little tunnel by putting the bark pieces on top of a couple of upturned coconut halves.

My project for digging up the mint by the elder is underway in that I have three lungwort plants at home, which I will let grow a bit bigger before planting out in a few months. The digging will have to wait a little and will probably be harder work than I’m thinking. I’ll move the grape hyacinth bulbs, probably to Bed 3. I don’t mind a bit of mint either edge of the strip, so I’ll find something (edging or wood) to sink into the ground and try and stop it spreading.

One of the Russian Sages is showing the first signs of growth, but it’s nowhere near needing its spring trim. There are all kinds of little seedlings popping up in the boundaries, but I have no idea yet what I’ll keep and what will be dug up.

The allotment is sure to still to be under water, so I didn’t worry about going down there. But it was a nice day at last, so I went foraging for logs in the rec. I came back with a boot full of logs and branches, as well as a great big piece of bark. If I’m luck there will be a piece of wood that can cover the pond liner behind the sweet flag.

I went up to the Glebe too and picked up some sheep’s wool in the graveyard to add to my nesting material feeder along with some more moss.