The Bullfinch...The Goosegrass....The Moles...and No Two Journeys....

Hooray - my first Bullfinch!

 This evening I was chopping vegetables to add to a big pot of Tuscan bean soup  when something peachy pink 

caught my eye through the kitchen window...for a second I thought it was another poppy that had come out...

but it was this beautiful bird perched on an allium in the grass...

the highlight of my day. 

My big sister tells me about a  "Spring Watch" programme on BCC 2 next week when you can take part by watching/recording the birds that visit  your garden. Sounds like something I could do.

I've been in the garden most of the day...while my gardener mows the lawns,

 I pull up handfuls of cleavers/goosegrass which climb ten feet high...

 throwing a web of sticky stems over everything in their path....  in the borders and the hedges and the banks of the stream...

unlike brambles you can yank them up easily ...and I'm left with huge heaps of them to throw on the compost heap...and a rash of nettle stings on my forearms. 

Like dandelion leaves and chickweed, goosegrass is edible and very good for you....but best in a green smoothie  I think....no chewing involved.

Before he leaves,  my gardener tells me I have a serious mole problem which is spreading from the very far end of the garden...the telltale lines of holes in the grass - their tunnels just below the surface of the soil - have already reached the willow tree.

He says I need to find a mole catcher .... .but I'm not sure I can bear to.

And a few quotes I read today, which speak to me, to share with you.

" In every moment the Universe is listening to you."

Denise Linn.

" When we do the best we can we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another".

Helen Keller.

" In a forest of a hundred thousand trees no two leaves are alike.

And no two journeys along the same path are alike".

Paul Coelho.