Did We Find Treasure?

Did we find treasure?............. Unfortunately not.

Archaeologist son thought he would bring his metal detector and swish it over the meadow before I moved away, don't know why we'd not thought of doing it before, but he had been looking at "finds" maps of the fields around about and discovered that a few treasures had been found not far away.

So we all dressed up in our warm clothes (the forecast for a mild weekend forgot about Saturday's chilly wind blowing across the Suffolk fields) and stood around while he waved the detector backwards and forwards waiting for bleeps.

The first bleep found a ring-pull, next bleeps found a teeny piece of lead and an equally tiny bit of copper.

Then a lump of old iron. By which time I'd decided that I would never have the patience to be a metal detectorist!

Wiggly worms were found, I held one on my hand and Youngest Granddaughter asked "does it tickle?" But when I put the wiggly worm on her hand so she could see how tickley it was - she soon shrieked. Youngest Grandson was watching all this well wrapped in his pushchair.

More bleeps and  a large "find" was a Stanley knife, clogged with mud and lost by someone years ago and then finally, before we gave up and went in for a warming cuppa he found a couple of points from archery arrows.....not ever so old but a little bit interesting.

Who had used the meadow for archery? we wondered...... maybe the son of the previous owner.

One thing I learned about digging for treasure is how cruel it is for earthworms. I'm sure a few were inadvertently chopped in half!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

I Think They're Inedible

 And  I'm not going to try them!

I could see these fungi growing on a Willow from yards away. Such a bright orange - more orange in real life than the photo...........and more orange the day before it rained all day too.

I had a closer look - not so attractive - looking very sticky on top. 

We don't get a huge amount of fungi in this part of  Suffolk - edible or otherwise - I think it's mainly too dry and we don't have the Beech woods or forests that many edible varieties prefer. At the smallholding we had some edible Field Mushrooms - until we rotated chickens around around the meadow, then they were never seen again. We also had Yellow Staining Mushrooms - slightly poisonous - and easy to tell  what they were as any touching of the cap turned it yellow.

I had no idea of the name of these that had appeared on the  Willow so looked in a book and I think they might be Golden Scalycap.

In many parts of the world foraging for edible mushrooms is a way of life - but I was very put off after a professionally led Fungi Foray on the heathlands near the smallholding, when we were told of all the  Fungi experts who had died after making a mistake and eating the wrong ones!

What I'd love to find would be a nice white Puffball - no mistaking them for anything else.

(Thank you for all the advice yesterday - there's no chance of me drinking all 4 cans. When you don't drink at all even half a glass of 5% cider is pretty potent! and just in case you thought I was being serious, I didn't really end up flat out on the floor!)

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Monday

 Winter is coming!    

As well as the Hawthorn being covered in Haws, the Holly trees a mile away are also loaded with berries.

I cycled the 6 mile loop  round all the bits of the village last Friday stopping on the way to take this photo and a couple of other tree photos for the Ogham Tree Alphabet blog posts (which got completely forgotten this month). I hadn't been out on my bike at all since getting back to swimming, had to pump up the tyres before I could get going.

Brother-in-Law came yesterday with his old tractor and topper to sort the meadow, it's done and looking tidy with brambles gone from as much as possible. If there are no orchids next year I know I've done the wrong thing but hopefully the seeds should still be there.

He started off by saying that he would cut down everything but I managed to persuade him to leave a bit of the wildness down the bottom end on the right, leaving seed heads and undergrowth for a few creatures.

Mrs F. who we bought the house from, used to keep the whole meadow cut short all the time but I've got better things to do. The compromise is to keep the footpath cut and leave the rest and then every few years have a big tidy as above......that's my theory anyway.

A huge bonfire heap on the left waiting for November 5th . There are still a few rockets in the cupboard  from my first ever bonfire/fireworks party last year - hope at least a few people will be allowed to come and share fireworks and hot dogs. It's 7 weeks away and heavens know what restrictions will be happening by then.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

A Good Week

I hadn't though about trying a different font until Deborah in Wales mentioned it, there are dozens, and I mean DOZENS available to choose from with new blogger .....this one is called COURGETTE .......seems apt! I think it's too hard to read  easily so it will be a one off. I scrolled down and down the fonts available without ever getting to the end but didn't find Comic Sans which is what I always use when typing on Word.

Maybe I'll try a different font everyday!

Beautiful sunny days here for most of the week and when the patio out the back of the house was in shade I scraped out the moss, soil and weeds from between lots of the slabs and pavers. Amazing what will grow when there doesn't even seem room for a seed to get started. It's not the look of the patio full of weeds that's the problem but rather a clump of weeds collects more dust and dirt around it - then rain water won't run away which  breaks the concrete joints and eventually loosens the slab. It was getting really messy and needed doing before we get too much rain to make bits slimey and slippery.

There was lots of this.......

Yellow Oxalis, Sleeping Beauty (Oxalis corniculata)

"A fairly common garden weed that ought to be welcome for its ability to cover the ground in interesting reddish leaves and bright yellow trumpet flowers. Spreads rapidly, grows anywhere. Very difficult to get rid of, with tiny tubers and lots of seeds."

Also during the week when  the full water butt was in shade I washed all the flower pots that had been used this year - and I reckon some from last year too. Job done.

Just one swim during the week, but only two people booked in for the slow half so we were able to go up and down, rather than round and round. (Last Saturday I had half the pool to myself!) I keep hoping it's not going to get much busier and so far so good, although that's not much help for the finances of Everyone Active - the company who run the pool and the job security of the staff.

 This week I'm grateful for 

• Sunny September days
• The letter from the NHS saying no problems seen on the mammogram
  

 

Tomorrow BiL Andrew is coming with tractor and topper/mower to cut down some of the very weedy bits of the meadow. Don't believe everything you read about the new buzz word............Re-Wilding! What actually happens when you leave a plot to "go back to nature" is that after a few years you get brambles.........not wonderful wild flowers and Silver Birch trees which is what is supposed to happen. It's true we had orchids here that have never been seen here before, but they too are soon crowded out by bigger, hardier stuff. It needs a bit of management. 

 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I hope to make the most of the sunny weather as the forecast for the end of next week isn't too good. 

 

P.S Forgot to reply to comments yesterday. I turned off the laptop early and never went back. A Peahen is a female Peacock and no, there are no wildlife parks anywhere and yes they are noisy. Not seen her now for several days so maybe she's moved on.

 

Back Monday

Sue