As the forecast was for another scorcher of a day it seemed the ideal time for a trimming session or two. The first was my head. Since I first trimmed my hair to 3mm a few years ago I try to keep it that way with a monthly going over. This morning was perfect for that as when I trim it in cold weather the back of my neck always feels freezing when we go walk-about.
Early on there was some cloud cover though it didn't prevent the temperature from gradually rising. When the Sun finally broke through then things really hotted up for the end of March. Maximum recorded here being 24.4C.
As the lawn was dry and in need of a trim the afternoon task was to get that over and done with.
Time to absorb a bit of that Sunlight and boost the natural vitamin D production.
Had a very pleasant surprise to see a hedgehog had visited the back garden recently:
There was a time, some years ago, I would have two or three visiting every night throughout the Summer. I hope this one becomes a regular. To give it a bit of encouragement I have moved the old hedgehog house near to where it was seen so I could put some food inside, safe from cats, pigeons and Penny:
I also crushed some of the birds' peanuts to place in the hedgehog house.
Remember, don't use peanuts sold for human consumption as they may be salty which could kill a hedgehog.
This is the trail camera which has captured the video clips of fox and hedgehog night visitations:
The shelf above the camera is to give a bit of extra protection when we have heavy rainfall. The camera body is weather proof but a bit of extra protection against the elements never goes amiss.
Yesterday I had to collect Penny's repeat medication from the vets. Lots of lovely yellow daffodils were brightening up the grass verges on the way. I think this in Alvingham, Lincolnshire, was the best display.
The bit of video taken from the car doesn't really do the scene justice.
Quite a decent day yesterday, for the time of year. The lawn dried out sufficiently for me to give it a first trim of the year before the grass got too long. Spring bulbs are showing and my favourite are some double flowered miniature daffodils I planted last Autumn.
To end the day a colourful Sunset:
Next I will have to think about trimming back some Ivy along the side of the garden.
On Saturday I felt in need of a change of scene Ham radio wise. I had been working on VHF and above for quite a while and decided to go back to HF working. Looking at activity reports on the 'net it was obvious VHF conditions were poor but HF was alive with contacts. I retrieved my HF transmitter from its resting place in the utility room. I really must get my aerial cables identified as to which goes to what aerial. It took at least an hour to find the correct one. The transmitter is the bottom one in this photo.
There should have been lots of activity on the 10 metre band but I was receiving a fat zero so I changed to 30m - the magic band. Lots of signals received and plenty of contacts made using the digital mode FT8. I even managed to contact a country I had never worked before. I had received signals from an operator in China but initially couldn't make contact. About half an hour after that he called me and a two way contact was made. That made my day.
I use a web site (pskreporter) to see who is receiving my signals and my 70-75 Watts of RF seemed to be travelling well.
At one stage a Radio Amateur in Ghana reported receiving my signals but so far that is another country I have yet to make a two way contact with.
I felt just in the right mood to take a few macro shots this morning. First I chose the subject - a small flowering cactus plant:
Found a space to set up my home brew set-up for taking a series of focus stacked photos:
The Canon M5 fitted with Canon 18-150mm zoom lens and added a Raynox DCR-150 macro lens. Each stacked macro photo is made from 40 - 50 individual shots and processed in Helicon Focus software. The results ....
A second area of the pond is now filled with frog spawn. Most of the frogs dive under water when I go near but one was brave enough to stay put while I took a photo:
A frog he would a-wooing go,
Heigh ho! says Rowley,
A frog he would a-wooing go,
Whether his mother would let him or no.
With a rowley, powley, gammon, and spinach,
Heigh ho! says Anthony Rowley.
After hearing some croaking from the pond this morning I could see that the local frogs had definitely gone a-wooing.
I had the trail camera set to take three stills and video. It would appear the video starts after the photos have been taken so any visiting wildlife tends to be well away from the camera in any video shots. Now I have it set to take only video so maybe next time Foxy visits we may actually see it move.
One Sunny afternoon recently we went for a wander down the track between two fields. Something caught my attention. Can you see what I saw?
Apparently fluttering freely in the sky. A bird?
No.
The latest addition to the local farmer's bird scarers. A still doesn't do it justice. It soared around just like a bird of prey. Made of thin, lightweight material its fluttering wings made it look even more realistic. One thing was for sure. There were no birds on the ground anywhere near it. I couldn't see with the naked eye but a very close crop showed it attached to the ground by a very thin, virtually invisible, cord.
When I read a short while ago that Ragged Robin
had installed a trail camera it reminded me to put a new set of
batteries in mine and fix it up again. Going through the few captures it
made this week I see that we had a night visitor a couple of times.
Most of the captures are of Penny watering the garden or local cats so it was great to see some real wild life visit. Unfortunately the camera was only set to take still photos. I have now altered the settings so it will take short video clips as well as stills.
I had changed ready to climb in a nice warm, cosy bed last night. As I opened the curtains and peeked outside I could see it was looking foggy and the Moon had a halo surrounding it. Even though it had turned frosty in what turned out be be freezing fog I put on a coat, grabbed a camera and nipped outside to take a coupe of photos:
It was too cold to clat about with a tripod so those were hand held with the camera resting on some fencing to help steady it a bit.
