Frosty the Rescue Dog

Well, I haven’t got any photographs from today because Fizz forgot to bring an SD card for the camera, so I will tell you about yesterday instead,

Yesterday started off clear and bright with white frost blanketing the fields behind the farm.

A splendid opportunity for a photo shoot with a cold and frosty dog but we had to get out early because the frost wouldn’t last.

It would have worked too if Fizz hadn’t found a Sheep stuck in the Brambles.

By the time we had gone all the way back to the farm to get some cutters to free the stuck Sheep…

She was a very nice Sheep and I am glad that we didn’t just leave her there for the Wolves but by the time we had freed her most of the frost was gone.

So I will introduce you to my Robins instead.

These two birds are not very exciting at the moment but they might be famous in a few months so this is just a sneak preview.

They live just outside of my back door and I am trying to get them eating out of my hand. For a few weeks now I have been putting a few worms down each time I open my door and sitting quietly to watch them. It hasn’t been going very well, they wait for me to go inside before they swoop down and take them but in the last couple of days they have been taking the food while I am still there.

Training my Robins might take a little time but this is the start.

European Robins have a close association with people, they follow gardeners about because they turn the earth and expose worms and other tasty treats. They used to follow Wild Boar for exactly the same reason. They are very intelligent birds and to them a gardener is just a more upright Wild Boar. That’s what I want to be.

It would be lovely to feel their weight, light on my hand.

Flowers now and this one isn’t flowering yet but it is one of the early ones to look forward to.

Caltha palustris, The Marsh Marigold

Also known a Kingcup.

Marsh Marigolds are one of our most ancient flowers, believed to have been growing here since before the last Ice age and to have survived that ice age and flourished in the melting waters. The last Ice age ran from about 110,000 years ago until 12,000 years ago, it was a long winter and this is an old flower.

It is found all over the UK and is native to much of the Northern Hemisphere including North America and Canada. It does well in cold climates.

In the UK it flowers in February and can last until April.

It is a waterside plant, growing in or on the edge of running water, it also grows in the ponds here on the farm and in wet woodland.

This next picture shows the typical habitat, showing young plants growing alongside and through a woodland stream. This picture was taken on the 27th of February 2014.

These flowers were photographed on the same day and in the same location as the previous picture.

Marsh Marigold is a member of the Buttercup family and I have heard it said that it is easily confused with other buttercups and even Lesser Celandine. They are all related and yellow but the Marsh Marigold flower is twice the size of any of the others, about two inches across it has quite dense and luxuriant foliage and it grows in water. There is really nothing that you can confuse it with.

This primitive flower doesn’t have petals, it has bright yellow sepals.

At the bud stage the outside of these sepals can be quite green.

Five sepals is the norm but they can have as many as nine, this next flower has six.

Inside the sepals are multiple stamens and styles.

The leaves are very variable, round to heart shaped, they can be six inches across and the leaf edge varies from smooth to sharply toothed. Generally the foliage is luxuriant.

Note the small sharply toothed leaves in this next photograph.

The stem is hollow.

        Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Ranunculales

Family: Ranunculaceae

Genus: Caltha

Species: Caltha palustris

Wildflowers in winter.

I will leave you with Frosty celebrating the day that she saved a Sheep.