25.5.10

lifting bricks


There's nothing like a spell of hot weather to get you out into the garden - it's about the only time we venture out anyway. But when we do get out there, we try and fit in two season's worth of work to make up for our absence. And it's amazing how quickly the results do show.


Over the weekend I 'watched' my beloved toil away, scraping weeds from between the paving stones in our patio area, brushing the dust and general muck into a nice neat pile for the dustpan ... contributing the odd bit of advice by calling out every so often, as you do. Always a good idea to have one person do the work while the other acts as overseer, don't you think?


We've had a mini pile of bricks stacked against a wall in the patio ever since we moved in a couple of years ago, ahem. Don't ask me why but they were never moved on but this weekend, oh yes, it finally did happen. And who needs ponds to dip into when there are bricks to be moved, because look what we found hiding in between ...


Well, the excitement was almost too much for one member of our family. The nature mad one who ranks newts and snails among her most favourite creatures. And as luck would have it she was given a pond dipping kit for her birthday party earlier this month from a friend at school and has been begging to go in search of ponds ever since. Easier said than done in London, but out it came and poor surprised "Cutie Newty" was duly plopped into some (probably not too welcome) clean water. They're strangely fascinating little things and I love the way the plastic distorts the image, making them seem even more prehistoric.


Work recommenced until, lo and behold, a second was found and so "Cutie" met "Beauty" and all was well with the world.


Fear not though, because their life expectancy was indeed higher than the average beast that's been picked up around here and loved just that little too much - they were let back into the wilderness that is our garden and I swear they moved faster than I ever imagined a newt capable of!!


Do you have any critters lurking at the bottom of your garden?

11 comments:

  1. We had one of those family gardening session last weekend - MrVV discovered our patio again ;)

    No newts though. Was carefully in one bed as I know its popular with toads - this time I didn't find any.

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  2. It must have been a newt finding weekend because my OH and I also found a newt on Sunday. He/she was swimming around in our pond that we created last autumn. We were so excited as the pond has also attracted 2 frogs and lots of brightly coloured dragonflies.
    Viv
    xxx

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  3. We did find a frog once lurking behind a flower pot. I think I screamed for England when it jumped out!
    x

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  4. Wow! I've never seen a newt before. It looks rather like the gecko lizards that are in plague proportions here in Summer.
    Cheers
    Helen

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  5. Great stuff - I'm a lover of all things creepy crawly - well, some from a distance. We have plenty of frogs and alien mid-wife toads which peep all night and keeo us awake!!

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  6. I'm so glad Cutie Newtie has been joined by Beauty - there may be lots of Baby Newtie's soon!!

    Lovely post Kate - it's great to get children involved with wildlife (by the sound of it some little girl needs no encouragement tho')!

    We hear all manner of strange noises, shuffling and cries in the night and we definitely have a hedgehog or two.

    In answer to your question Kate I'm not using any nematodes at the moment but its certainly something I intend to look into doing. Everything is up for grabs at the moment so need to do something!

    Jeanne
    x

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  7. We always find a frog or too in our garden every Summer, but there they come from......nobody knows.

    Nina x

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  8. I'm quite fond of newts - when I was little I used to spend hours fishing them out of an old water tank with my best friend on her farm.
    We get frogs in our garden, although we haven't got a pond.

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  9. I so wish I had a garden. :(

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  10. oh my god that interesting!
    they're going to be a pet?
    kiss
    Xime

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  11. Perhaps you should make my dustbin lid pond (one of my previous posts) I'm desperate for inhabitants. xxx

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