Early Morning Baby Buzzard

    Good morning all !
 I was out the front cutting the grass and the hedge and generally having a bit  of a tidy up with my garden sheers , about half an hour ago . When I noticed  I was being watched from above in a tree ....I couldn't believe my eyes ! A baby buzzard !  He caught sight of a butterfly and tried to get it unsuccessfully , lol ! 
 Well he's been flying around screaming as they do for some time now , the nest is quite near by , a bit further  down the lane .
     I asked him if he wouldn't mind waiting there while I went in to fetch  my camera  , but he flew off up the lane .   Sigh !   I went  indoors and got my camera  and  hung it on the gate .
 I could hear it still screaming away  somewhere near by .
I carried on with my snip , snip , snipping and once again , I felt I was being watched . I turned around and there he was again sitting on the ground in the middle of the lane !
  Well , we had another chat , me and young Buzzard that is , all the while walking up to him , very slowly and cautiously , snapping away with my camera  , until he finally spread out his beautiful wings and took off .

                  He then flew towards me and off and away over my head !
 He was then too close for my camera to focus on and I was trembling with the wonder of it all !
 

Trimming the Phoenix canariensis

I took this photo back in 2006. I had worked hard transforming what was a paddock into our vegetable garden . I wish that I had known about the "no-dig" method back then !  I carefully marked out and dug out these vegetable beds .
 I dug and dug and dug and weeded and pulled out great clumps of grass and earth .
   Bent double I threw out rocks and stones into my wheelbarrow and heaved it all to one far off corner of the garden , clods of grass thrown off from my big old fork on to the surrounding Cornish hedges with a thud ! ...and a groan !
   Don't get me wrong , at the time I was a whole lot younger and fitter and I was loving it and the satisfaction from seeing it all come together and getting lovely fresh home grown vegetables too .
 I,m more of a "No-dig "kind of a gardener these days !
  I planned these four vegetable beds to be in the shape of a Celtic Cross and we bought a Phoenix canariensis and planted it into the middle .
You see what I had in my mind was this ......

                                                Today 2020
It has become more and more fabulous as the years have rolled on by ! It can be seen from the top of our lane . Like a gorgeous green fountain !

So every year after the Winter storms and gales, I give it a bit of a tidy up by taking off a couple of the lower leaves , pulling out any weeds , sharpening up the edge of the grass and putting a fresh mulch of  wood chippings around the base .
 It is beginning to get a nice shape to it and I am trying to cut it to give it that nice pineapple look  .
  The best way is with a chain saw ...  I think I,ll pass on that !  So a few at a time , I,m cutting them with my big ratchet loppers .

Starting from the lowest leaves and being very careful of the horrible sharp spines , which like narrow fencing swords , can run you through !
  A few years ago , I had to have antibiotics after a particularly painful stab became infected .  Nothing so bad this time , but it did get me three times , once in my thigh and a couple of stabs in my hand .
  I,ll be fine !
   I am patched up with couple of plasters and smell of TCP !

 

      The most evil sharp spines are at the bottom of the leaf fronds , so I am very careful to carry the palm leaves towards the upper middle part of the leaf .

                                             Once bitten , twice shy !

Looking a whole lot smarter now .
    Next job is cutting the grass around the vegetable garden . So please excuse me , I can't sit here chatting to you all morning ....I,m off to pull out the lawn mower ! lol !
    Bye for now ! x