This was the scene on getting up this morning! Taken through window.
Percy and one of his lady friends decided to make their way to the back for food! Also taken through window.
Later on in the morning. Nice to look at but not at the end of April! Taken from front door.
Thats all for now.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
How picturesque your garden looks covered in snow Catlady, lovely update and glad you are getting plenty of finches and other birds, it's gone very cold here with tiny grains of hail but nothing more than that. I actually sat out today with two fleeces on but the light was pretty poor. Plenty of hungry birds and the cock pheasant was back again, now a daily visitor and sometimes two of them.
Thanks for this lovely photos and post Catlady always nice to hear your updates.
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Regards, Hazel
The things you learn on this site, I must admit to believing that the Haggis was a mammal, specially adapted with one pair of front & rear legs being slightly shorter than the other so they can run around mountains with no difficulty. Ian
Thanks Hazel and Iain, yes Ian you are quite correct, but this is the nearly extinct species!
Only found in the north of Scotland I assume, Ian
A very pretty winter wonderland. No snow down here in the south but a bitingly cold wind.
Looking at the BBC weather forecast it looks as though you might be in for more snow tonight/tomorrow. Brrrrr.
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
Hi TJ, thanks, I think the central belt is going to be worse first thing and by afternoon, more snow for us. Happy days.
It looks nice ... unless you have to venture out into the travel chaos it so often creates. At least there won't be much to do in the garden at the moment under that blanket. So far, it's been hail here, but it looks like it's just changing to proper snow ...
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Nige Flickr
That's a big expanse to see covered with snow and maybe more to come Catlady, glad your bulbs are pushing through, they make 'em tough up there so they should be fine. 50 Finches, what a lovely sight with all their colour. Thanks for letting us see your patch again, and keep warm.
Lot to learn
Here are two photos as a reminder of what the top end of the garden looked like, facing south to the fields beyond.
Okay, why these you may ask, well storm Deirdrie had other things in mind yesterday and last night, and this is what we woke to this morning!!
Yes, it is all down. In January when we had storm Caroline some of the middle sections started to slowly give, but held up well enough until last week, when they started moving back and forth, that is the two orange tapes that you can see. They are on ratchet type pullies and were only put on during the week, even yesterday morning things looked okay, but at peak we had gusting winds of over 60mph, and the poor fence came partly down, the rest at bedtime! We are on very sandy soil, so the posts are 1meter apart instead of the normal 2 meters and are embeded in 3 feet of concrete. Only last week we had someone in to look at it and decided we would take it down and build a block wall, with coping and get it harrled, that way no maintenance needed. We have treated the fence 3 times in the 16 years it was up and it took around 20 x 5L tins of wood preserve, weeks of work and elbow grease! There is another section around 30 feet between us and next door, and it still standing, it is east facing and more sheltered, so hopefully it will stay up!!
This is the only part of the fence, facing south to the fields that has sayed up, I think it must be because of the shelter from the house? That can stay until the spring and then be replaced with the wall.
Hubby and I were out for 2.5 hours this afternoon and managed to get one side all stripped, took longer that we thought. Only a couple of years ago the nails were giving way and planks were coming off so he spent weeks putting in new screws, that was all very well then, but today they all had to come out first and then crowbar and hammer needed to prise the planks off. Phew, feeling it now, never mind the rest tomorrow and we will have lovely views until springtime, we will only put up a 5 feet wall so we can still enjoy looking over to the fields and hills beyond. Our neighbour is going to make use of the wood to build a new shed, so our fence will not be that far away!
Sorry if longwined but thought I would share it with you. Thanks for reading.
I hadn't realised it was that bad - we had nothing like that. Typical it was after you put the screws in so it took longer to dismantle! I don't suppose it is much of a positive but at least you had already decided to replace it - it just leaves the garden a bit open plan for a while! Still your neighbour should be able to build quite a big shed by the looks of it!!