Getting Our Feet Wet

There is Fizz, waiting under my window, keeping an eye on me.

“I will be a little while, I am just running a bath.”

In retrospect I have to ask myself, “Why bathe before you go out with Fizz? It’s not like she’s fussy and you know what is going to happen, don’t you?”

It is a lovely day and I am stepping out with lovely clean feet.
After the snow we had a storm. Yesterday was just horrible with strong wind and icy rain. Today it is a beautiful day to be alive. Blue and still.

We are going up Badger Alley to look for signs of the early Coltsfoot flowers. Primroses grow up here too, I have seen a couple of Primroses in flower in gardens but none in the wild yet.

Following the storm, parts of the track were very wet and this “Selfie” is actually the precise moment when I realised that something had gone badly wrong.

What’s up Doc?

It’s only that my perishing boots have perished!

For the rest of the day I will be sloshing about in a boot full of muddy water.

It’s a good job that we don’t mind getting our feet wet.

It’s too deep. We’ll have to turn back.

Wait! You can’t leave me here.

Unbelievable!

She is like a Cat when it comes to water. She loves mud but she does not swim.

Well the path dried a bit and she had her fun.

This is where we are heading. As the track turns to a gravel road this is where we find the Coltsfoot.

But not today. Not on January the 16th, it is too early. There was no sign of Primrose, not even rosettes and no Coltsfoot.

Nice woods though.

We will just have to slosh our way home again.

I need a carry!

Bad, bad man!

You are so lucky that I was here. You would have lost that ball.

Well that was about all of our fun for today. It didn’t add up to much but it is January still.

The Sheep are all safe and happy at the bottom of the garden. I have been given my own little haystack and instructions to feed them half a bale a day until the farmer returns. That shouldn’t be too difficult 🙂

All that remains to do is to show you today’s wildflower. It is Sticky Mouse Ear.

Cerastium glomeratum, The Sticky Mouse Ear

Sticky Mouse Ear flowers from April to September in fields and meadows. It is often found on farmland.

It is very similar to the closely related Common Mouse Ear, Cerastium fontanum so here are a few differences to look out for.

Sticky Mouse Ear is also known as Clustered Mouse Ear, The flowers  are clustered together in a tight flower head. Common Mouse Ear flowers are more spread out.

The green sepals of Sticky Mouse Ear are sometimes tipped with red. The entire plant is covered with fine hairs and at the tip of each hair is a small gland that secretes a sticky substance that gives the whole plant a slightly sticky feel.

Characteristically the hairs on the sepals extend beyond the tips of the sepals, with Common Mouse Ear they don’t.

The flower of Sticky Mouse Ear has five sepals and five, notched, white petals. It has ten stamens and five styles. It is quite a small flower, each petal being about 4mm long.

The leaves are oval, 10 -20 mm long and grow in opposite pairs. They are hairy on both sides.

       

The plant can reach about 45 cm (18 inches) in height.

The seeds are contained in a papery fruit capsule that is about 10mm long.

As the fruit ripens the end opens to release the seeds. The opening terminates in ten small teeth.

Sticky Mouse Ear is a member of the Pink or Carnation family, a family that also includes the Campions. I can see several similarities between this and the hairy Red Campion. It is native to the UK and Europe but it is present on most continents as an introduced species.

Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Caryophyllales

Family: Caryophyllaceae

Genus: Cerastium

Species: Cerastium glomeratum

Wildflowers in winter.