The butterfly effect and other things,

Mmmmm well its ten days since my last post so firstly please accept my humblest apologies for my neglect in this matter. Secondly if you were expecting an update upon the progress of Carpe Diem then I must confess that this too has been the subject of some neglect these past few days with other items taking priority. Although some progress has been made with the supports now nearly completed (yes I know that they should have already been done!) but unfortunately there is little else to report on.

Basically the undoing of my good intentions has been a combination of the mild and dry weather we’ve been experiencing in recent days (or weeks for that matter), and what my neighbour, Irish Pete, has come to term “the butterfly effect”. This infliction happens when you start one job and then before any reasonable progress is made another job catches your eye so you flit to this job and so on. Before you know where you are you have ‘started’ several tasks without actually making progress upon any which in turn leads to an amazing sense of frustration and confusion, especially when Clare, upon coming home from a bugger of a day in work, asks me what have I done today and my reply can only be: - “er, well, mmm, er nothing actually, er cup of tea dear?”.

But why also blame the clement weather? Fair point, but this window of mild weather has enabled me to enjoy several walks on the Clwydian range and the fact that its allowed us to undertake the autumnal clear up of the garden, well I say garden but it’s more of a back yard about 25 yards square.

Nonetheless even a small suburban area such as this can attract a host of wildlife if you are willing to plant and feed sympathetically. For instance we’ve been feeding the local bird population with a combination of peanuts, sunflower seed hearts, niger seed (also known as thistle), fat balls and mixed finch seed throughout the year. This has lead to some spectacular displays and also quite rare sightings for a built up area. Visitors within this small area this year have included nuthatch, blackcap, and gold crest amongst the usually finches, tit mouse, wren, starling and black birds. At the moment we’re playing host to up to 40 gold finches in the early hours and a rather cheeky wood mouse through the day! We are also getting the occasional visit from sparrow hawks and earlier in the year I was fortunate enough to witness a peregrine falcon take a wood pigeon from the top of the boundary fencing, a sight that many outdoors men will probably never see even in the most isolated areas of Britain. As well as the feeding there is water in the form of a 6’ by 7’ pond which provides bathing and drinking water via its waterfall. This weeks tidy up also involved the cutting of a small leafed privet hedge to a height of a couple of inches over a distance of about 12’. Although the privet provided some cover I felt that it could be improved to attract more insect life to the garden. With this in mind the hedge has now been supplemented with hawthorn, broom, holly, cotoneaster and hardy fuchsia amongst others. So hopefully with some careful management over the next few years this length of hedge will be attracting a whole host of new insects to the garden which in turn will attract further wildlife. It is surprising what can be achieved in a small area with some effort and a little knowledge.

Also this week I picked up my old BSA meteor MK V air rifle from my parents attic (and yes I mean old – over 30 years old!), which I’ve started to strip down with the intention of returning it to a passable rabbiting tool once more. Ah you can see how the butterfly effect starts to take shape? The only concern that I have at this moment in time is a lack of finance that’s going to be needed for me to keep these mounting projects on the go. With this in mind it looks like that I shall have to resurrect my dreaded E bay account and start fleecing Joe public, I mean providing quality merchandise at a reasonable cost, to make ends meet!

Well that’s about it for now I’ll try to concentrate on one task at a time and keep you all updated a little more frequently, now that looks interesting, I’ll just start by taking the……