Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Davesnave

Farway said:

I read on FB there was thunderstorm went through here overnight night, like a Typhoon. I

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but when Pete was turning the hay here last week we had a mini tornado. It took some hay way over the power lines and across the road. There re videos of this sort of thing happening, so i knew he hadn't been on the cider.

Sadly, I missed it, but I could see some hay still draped on the lines.

phoebe1989seb

Lovely pics, Poppy 😄 That beach looks wonderful and those sand martin holes definitely could be an archaeological site, lol! Reminds me of our nearest beach....and the fact we've not visited for ages - really need to make an effort to tear ourselves away from building work 🙄 

We had distant rumblings of thunder yesterday afternoon - and DH said it was closer where he was about five miles east of here - but still no rain. However, overnight it began to fall, lightly but fairly constantly and it's showery this morning. Not the heavy downpour the garden could do with though. Friends in London texted pics of water knee-deep just around the corner from them - don't want that much here, just enough to save me having to hose everywhere 😉

Davesnave

Sorry RAS, I was a bit harsh about the Tatton Park weed garden report yesterday. I'm afraid the idea of 're-branding'  ragwort really got to me because of its ability to poison stock. It was such a BBCish slant on what was a good and well-executed idea.

RAS

No apology needed Dave. I thought it a bit ironic that it looked more like a Devon field I know than a garden.

At the risk of causing controversy, what I have read about ragwort suggests it can cause problems but livestock will only eat it if the alternative is starvation, and the original research was very poorly done.

Basically they mailed out thousands of vets asking if they'd ever seen poisoning, got back a few replies, and amongst the small number of replies, a high percentage had seen poisoning.  They had no idea whether the vast majority who didn't reply had ever seen poisoning, but wrote it up as if that percentage of ALL vets had reported problems, which was not the case. Absolutely no-one knows if the results produced by the self selected sample can be extrapolated.

 

Davesnave

RAS said:

No apology needed Dave. I thought it a bit ironic that it looked more like a Devon field I know than a garden.

At the risk of causing controversy, what I have read about ragwort suggests it can cause problems but livestock will only eat it if the alternative is starvation, and the original research was very poorly done.

Basically they mailed out thousands of vets asking if they'd ever seen poisoning, got back a few replies, and amongst the small number of replies, a high percentage had seen poisoning.  They had no idea whether the vast majority who didn't reply had ever seen poisoning, but wrote it up as if that percentage of ALL vets had reported problems, which was not the case. Absolutely no-one knows if the results produced by the self selected sample can be extrapolated.

  Well, that research certainly put the wind up a lot of people. Half way through cutting the top field, Pete's tractor came to an abrupt halt and I saw him grab a single ragwort plant I'd missed and hurl it over the road hedge!

Obviously more scientific enquiry needed. Perhaps a $600k payment to a lab somewhere in industrial China might be enough.....? Oh, hang on, silly me,  those are 2014 prices!

RAS

Yep.... 

Personally, I wouldn't worry about a few plants per acre in hay, but I would be making detour if there was a large patch, just in case a single animal ate the whole lot.

phoebe1989seb

Well, the rain has come - properly now, yay ☔ - but not before I managed to get into the garden to take a few pics....



Btw, on the subject of radishes, ours have bolted. Not sure why DH bothered growing them (other than the fact the seeds were free!) as he's the only one who eats them and there's no way he could eat so many 🙄

pink_poppy

Lovely pics, phoebe, although I’m clueless as to what plants they are 😳

Another walk, another photo opportunity. Can anyone identify this butterfly?? It looked all black when it was fluttering around (farmland) and it was only when it stopped to pose for a photo that we saw the markings.

RAS

Brown Argus?

Davesnave

pink_poppy said:

Lovely pics, phoebe, although I’m clueless as to what plants they are 😳

Telekia speciosa

Macleaya cordata

Persicaria amplexicaulis  but I don't know the varieties.

My Telekia speciosa by the stream has just fallen over thanks to lack of light, I banished the Macleaya because it took over the border and the Persicaria is doing a grand job filling up its own big space at the front entrance.

Think RAS is right about your butterfly. There are 'local' versions of that one.