Looking for an Orchid.

For as long as either of us can remember we have always had an interest in our local flora and fauna, flora in particular.

A chimney in the middle of nowhere, there must be a story here.

A trip out will normally end up being a plant spot trip, this has been the case wherever we have lived. We don't normally go out intentionally to find a specific plant but our last two trips were the exception. We were in search of Irish Lady's Tresses, this orchid is considered to be the rarest in Europe, only occurring in Ireland and Scotland,athough I would have thought that the Western Marsh Orchid would have taken the title as it only occurs in Ireland although it is wide spread throughout the Island.

We already knew the area where we would find the Irish Lady's Tresses on the shores of a particular lough not that far from where we used to live, but our first days search proved fruitless,

but it was a lovely trip out with beautiful views.

Natures landscaping.

We had taken a picnic with us and the weather was good, we walked along the shore of Lough Allen

taking in the sluice gates where the lough discharges into the river Shannon and not for the first time wondered why all the power that is lost from these gates is not being harnessed for electricity.

The force as it goes through the gates is tremendous and you can't hear each other speaking. What a waste of potential power.
Two days later we resumed our hunt, we now knew where we would see these elusive orchids, we also knew that it entailed a two mile round trip walk. Due to a very long standing back injury long walks are something which I find very hard to manage nowadays, it's wonderful  how sheer     determination or maybe it is bloody mindedness can push you on. It was a lovely walk and we found the plant.

Irish Lady's Tresses.

Just five plants although there are reportedly more in the area, one of the plants had unfortunately been trampled by a cow.

The perfume from these beautiful orchids is lovely, honey scented with a hint of cloves. There is another plant that grows in this area but we failed to find it, the blue flowered grass, again it is rare, it should be in bloom now so maybe on our next trip out we will find it.

We also found Blue Sow thistle,

Creeping Jenny,

yellow Pimpernel

and of course Himalayan Balsam,

it's such a shame it's so invasive, bees love it and it is such a pretty flower.

Birds foot Trefoil.

Another six pounds of currants.

The last of the redcurrants have now been picked and made in to redcurrant jelly. All the veg are doing well, we are especially pleased with both the peas and French beans, both new varieties for us. 

Hurst Green Shaft peas.

The peas are Hurst Green Shaft, the pods are all around five inches and are full of  perfect sweet peas, the French beans are Cobra, we will definitely  be sticking to these in the future. It's great to have a good selection to eat each day,

Sundays harvest.

this basket full will go nicely

with the Sunday roast a lovely joint of beef from the organic butcher, properly hung for a minimum of three weeks, this animal was hung for twenty five days, as was the beast that provided the T bone steak, only one steak, for me, Simon does not like steak, strange man, still he was a vegetarian for twenty odd years.
We have several areas of garden here, the cottage sits in  two acres, mostly at the front. When we arrived here there was no garden and all around the cottage was covered with large stones, it's taken a while to get the gardens as we basically want them, this included a garden to the side of the house,

A bright garden to wake up to.

this is the garden just outside the utility room, full of colour we can also see it from our bedroom, a lovely  sight to wake up to. There are some plants which are going to have to be moved in all our gardens, some are too big, and some are just in the wrong place, a redesign is called for, hopefully we will get it done during the autumn and winter. The veg garden however is how we want it, just a matter of keeping the weeds at bay.

I love this colour of the Angel fishing rod.