Willows, Meteors and Strange Lights in the Sky

I'd like to begin by apologising for the strange indent here on the left. Formatting in Blogger can be a nightmare, particularly placing pictures. When I move them, they often leave this odd little remnant which seems virtually impossible to delete!

As I write this we have finally had some April showers, just in time before May arrives. It has been the sunniest April on record. Whilst we all undoubtedly enjoy the sunshine and it has been a godsend in these difficult times, I don't regard this as a good sign in the long term. We seem these days to get extended periods of weather extremes. Don't forget that before the sunniest April on record we were bemoaning months of wet weather which went as far back as preventing the farmers getting in their winter wheat and left fields flooded over winter.

It's been a tricky time in the garden as it's been too dry to transplant seedlings.

Once the whole plot is covered in compost this will help, but I don't want to cover dry earth with compost mulch as it will just keep the moisture out.

I did manage to get some red cabbage seedlings in but they have required more aftercare than usual.

Instead, I have turned my attention to my various willow structures and coppice. Ideally this is a job for the winter, but I think there's enough time left in the year for them to regrow. They grow at an astonishing rate. The fedge I planted about three years ago around the back of the pond has about 12 foot of new growth. The poles I cut from this will make ideal material for constructing bean supports.









I select the poles I want to use and throw them in with the sheep who make short work of the leaves and side shoots and quickly begin stripping the bark which stops the willow regrowing when it is pushed into the ground.










Any excess willow gets shredded for the compost, although at the moment I am using it as a mulch for the raspberries.

I also pulled a whole load of old teasel stems from a wildlife patch. It stands majestic in the winter, a goldfinch restaurant, but is starting to look a bit messy now.
There was a surprisingly big pile when I had finished. We harvested some of the seed heads for a friend who does flower arranging and then the rest went through the shredder. It dispatches these in no time.






When I'm not at work, I always drift towards being a bit of a night owl. Nocmig (birdwatching in the dark!) has gone quiet so I have taken up astronomy - well, not exactly, it's as much as I can manage to find the North star. But Elon Musk's space junk, eventually to be thousands of satellites, for the moment at least provides the novel sight of strings of satellites passing overhead.
Combine this with the Lyrid meteor shower and you have instant and free entertainment to replace the soaps on TV.

One feature of April 2020's fine weather has been a remarkable series of night skies. Venus has shone brilliant and a crescent moon has made the stars shine even brighter.

In my time I have been fortunate enough to experience some amazing night skies on my travels to far flung and remote places. Most memorable was a night in the open in Egypt's White Desert during a particularly active Perseid meteor shower.

The Lyrid meteors weren't quite so spectacular, but still worth the effort as these experiences in life are few and far between. I got lucky and the first meteor I saw was incredible, a true fireball across the sky. 

There's been something else to look for in the night sky too. A few weeks back social media suddenly started mentioning strange strings of lights travelling across the sky. Fortunately this was not aliens taking advantage of humankind's current difficulties. They were instead trains of satellites launched by Elon Musk.

The geese doing a fairly rubbish impression of  the SpaceX satellite train

I don't particularly welcome this, as it seems like humankind has just found another place to litter and their use seems slightly sinister. There are going to be thousands of them orbiting our planet.

But for now they make quite a unique sight as strings of pearls travel across the sky. Fortunately their initial brightness is short-lived as they move into higher orbit and separate.

The most spectacular thing I saw was one of the SpaceX rockets passing over just 20 minutes after its launch from Cape Canaveral. Though I espouse a relatively simple life, you have to wonder.

Today's swarm of bees, in the same place as the last one

Back down to Earth now and May is upon us. The first day of May has given us another swarm of bees on the smallholding but more spectacular, maybe even than the stars, is the mayflower blossom.

Let's see what this coming month brings us. Right now it seems like absolutely anything could happen.