Last week I spent some time propping up the branches of the plum tree that were touching the ground under the weight of the plums.
As I was working away amongst the windfalls I saw something move in the grass. I couldn't believe my eyes when I realised it was a 'snake'. I emptied the bucket I had been using to collect the windfalls and coaxed and prodded the little copper and black 5 inch long reptile into it. I was 99% sure it was a slow worm but I still wasn't about to pick it up, just in case it wasn't.
When I finished lifting the branches I fetched my camera and then letting the tiny creature go I snapped a series of photos of it.
Later when I returned to the garage I noticed that the funny smell I had detected when I first went in there had got stronger and as a result of my leaving the door open there was now a large number of bluebottles buzzing around something on the floor. When I looked closer I realised it was a very dead, very flat, rat. I must have trod on it the first time I went into the garage, but judging by the state of decomposition and number of maggots it had been dead for sometime before that. I managed to get what remained of it and most of its disgusting contents into a plastic bag which I tied up and put in another bag in the dustbin. Unfortunately the bin men weren't due for another 4 days, so there was a very unpleasant pong at the end of the drive for sometime. Somehow I managed to avoid the temptation to take a photograph of the rat! What was a bit of a worry is that I believe things like rats, mice or other vermin come in pairs or even larger numbers and never singly. As the garage was full of bags of oak leaves not only from last autumn but the one before, all awaiting a trip to the dump, I was sure I had a rats kingdom somewhere in amongst them.
Trying not to think about that I turned my attention to the tiny garden pond we have in the shade of our oak tree. It had a lot of old leaves and acorns in it but despite that was looking healthy with plenty of plants growing in it and fairly clear water.
The 3 remaining goldfish out of the six we bought 4 years ago were flourishing and have grown to about 4 inches long. Anyway I decided it was time to do some weeding around the pond to get rid of the encroaching ivy and brambles. In the process I discovered that not only did the pond contain 3 gold fish it had 4 frogs and several large water snails. I had put half a dozen water snails in the pond about 3 years ago. When they went in they were the size of a fingernail, and now the were the size of a crown coin and were doing a good impression of an ammonite. I gave one to Janet's sister Kate as the fish had eaten the water snail she had bought for her fish tank, there was no chance of that with the blighter I gave her, vice versa was more likely. She was surprised that the snail laid about 30 eggs the first night it was in the tank. It was obviously either feeling lonely or had decided to feed the fish itself. I managed to clear the jungle around and in the pond pulling several bucketfuls of black smelly mud from the pond by hand in the process.
The next day Janet suggested that it was time to clean out the garage of all the bags of leaves and other detritus that had been building up in there for the last 18 months. I decided not to tell her my suspicions about the rat colony and started loading sack after sack into the back of her estate car. You may wonder why I hadn’t taken these down to the dump when I collected them. But the problem is that the leaves fall in the autumn when it gets dark really quite early and our oak tree is really quite huge.
I usually take 20 to 30 sacks (each weighing around 10kg) off the lawn and I always finish in the dark totally exhausted with only enough strength to dump the bags in the garage. And once the bags are out of sight there they remain, forgotten.
As soon as I started moving the bags I noticed quite a few of them had large holes gnawed in the bottom of them. Obviously the rats or whatever had got into the bags looking for the acorns and then gnawed their way out, and judging by the size of the holes these were not small creatures… Each bag had its own population of woodlice, worms, spiders, slugs and centipedes but it wasn’t until almost the last bag that I saw anything with 4 legs and fur. It leapt out of a bag and ran up some poles I had propped against the wall. I leapt in the opposite direction and then realised it was ‘only’ a mouse. No sign of the rats, thank goodness!
(not my photo)Mice are a big problem around the house. These aren’t the common house grey mouse, but its charming country cousin the brown and white Wood Mouse (see Wild Life Britain), but all the same when they get into the house they are a great nuisance gnawing everything and pissing everywhere. We had them in the attic for several years until I worked out they were getting in there somehow via an old drain in the garden. When I blocked that they stopped materialising in the attic but then started finding their way into the kitchen. Within a week of my return from the Alsace I noticed a ‘funny’ smell in the kitchen – Janet and I looked in all the usual places like behind and under the fitted cupboards but no sign of any corpses (we have to put down poison) and then as the smell got really bad Janet finally found the body of yet another very dead mouse under the cooker!
The next day I found an old mouse nest in the little shed where we keep the barbecue and the cushion covers for the garden chairs. The mice had used an old jay cloth and a polythene bag to create a cosy corner for themselves. They had moved out sometime before I found their home, but they had left their smelly calling cards all over the cushions.
Another pest, particularly at this time of the year, are Grey Squirrels. There is a very large hazel tree in the garden (on the left above the green car) and it is covered at this time of
year with nuts and as a result, squirrels. I don't mind the squirrels having a good feed, but I do wish they would leave a few nuts for me and, more importantly, wouldn't leave the empty nutshells all over the lawn.
I have trained the squirrels, not to clean up the shells unfortunately, but to be terrified of clapping. All I have to do now to empty the garden of squirrels is to stand at the top of the steps by the house and clap my hands. As soon as I do that the half dozen squirrels in the hazel tree throw themselves out of the tree, hurtle down the lawn to the oak tree which they rocket up and from there they leap from tree to tree to escape the terrifying sound of applause! Unfortunately they soon come back and as a result the lawn is covered in gnawed shells.
The other creature that enjoys the hazels is the Nuthatch. I often hear the 'tap tap tap' of a Nuthatch (see www.english-country-garden.com ) living up to its name pecking a hole in a hazel nut, hatching it.
(not my photo)They wedge the nut in a crevice in a branch and tap away at it.
There are lots of other residents and visitors to the garden, including foxes, deer, toads and a wide range of birds including the occasional pheasant. Every morning at the moment I am wakened by the shriek of a Green Woodpecker that flies past my window at about 6am.
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