2 GARDEN'S

The Siren's Garden and the Wildlife Garden

The 2 Gardens

Yesterday was good not only was the British weather behaving (in fact it was too hot) but I had the most wonderful surprise in the post. I had swapped a 5x7 art piece on the theme Garden with AMOONSWIRL through Milliande .com and my beautiful gift from her arrived and I am delighted. It is called THE SIREN'S GARDEN with vintage images and mermaids it is just perfect.

Also last year I built a pond /wildlife garden in the farmyard attached to our property. I not only wanted to encourage wildlife but it was also done as our son was having his wedding reception in the paddock.

Well it was a tremendous amount of work to get the land and the pond ready but on the 8th August last year it was all worth it. The sun shone and the very unconventional wedding was a success.

But for all that work there was no sign of wildlife i.e. frogs although we did have a Bee's nest the pond has grown into it's surroundings I do not rush to pull up every weed in fact it looks quite neglected in some ways.

but that must be the answer because yesterday we spotted tadpoles and they were loving the sun . I was almost beside myself with excitement .So perhaps nature knows best and is happy with things a little rough around the edges.

RIP Harry

Yesterday was a very sad day for my son and his girlfriend.at the weekend they had seen their cat Harry jump from the garden fence and land heavily. So when he limped a little there was no major concern, on Tuesday after a trip to the vet nothing was discovered but they thought he might just be bruised.They were asked to return him yesterday for a follow up £££££ .

I took Stephanie in my car after helping to get Harry into the basket (at this point I am thinking of you LINDA C ) he was vocal but well behaved. The surgery is only 10 mins away and is a beautiful Georgian period property with ivy clad walls,and I waited in the car with the sun streaming in ,I could see Harry on the couch being examined through the large windows.

Steph. emerged after about 10 mins and said they were going to do blood tests ££££££ as he had not eaten much since the incident.

But they were both asked to go to the surgery at 6 pm and Harry was put to sleep. It is thought that he had been poisioned possibly with anti freeze which cats find appetizing and he was most likely drunk when he jumped off the fence. This was a shock as he was a delightful cat who had only been with them for about 18mths .Steph spotted him at RSPCA cat& dog home where he was waiting to be put down,and they decided to take him on.

If there is any thing good to come out of this it is that Harry had an extra 18mths of pampering and was well loved.

They bought him home to our house and they have buried him in the corner of the paddock/garden where I have created a little quiet corner for bird watching.

A WARNING

The vet said that even if they had taken him along when they saw him jump he still would have died as Antifreeze is lethal to cats.

And although I hate to bring money into this very sad story the total bill for this was £500 and for a lot of owners this would be to much to afford and all this trauma for what could have been a few licks of antifreeze.

Swaps

I am not sure what I would be doing if it was not for the Milliande network. If I am not taking photos for the lens group I am creating something for a swap.The theme at the moment is orange so every shade of orange is snapped and uploaded. In the art swap group several themed ATCs have been sent worldwide (some have gone missing) .I garden themed assemblage sent to the USA Tags worldwide .I RAAK (random act of kindness) to California VIA Australia and I spirit doll waiting to be allocated a new home. and that in just the last couple of weeks.

What fun