Leics Round 11 - Launde to Hallaton via Belton in Rutland and Allexton

With Marta. Fine, cloudy, pleasant. Dry underfoot. A couple of dry ploughed fields - hard work. Rolling. 663 ft of climbing. just over 8 miles.


We walk briefly along the Withcote Road from Launde Abbey, before taking the signposted footpath off to the right, behind the chapel and the gardens. It leads uphill, through fields with sheep, to the corner of Launde Park Wood. Here the path should cut downhill diagonally across a field, but the way is impassable, so we stick to the field edges.

Some rapeseed or similar is still blooming here - at least it brightens the grey day

When we reach the far corner we find a gate whose fastening is impossible to open, and have to climb over it. Grid ref - SK 809045 (I think).

The path continues east, crossing the river Chater, and turning into a wider track, and heads south to a ridge with a fine view.

We are overtaken by a horse-rider up here. The map shows a trig point just off to our right (west), but we can't find it. Instead we take an early break and admire the view over to Eyebrook reservoir in the distance.

We follow the hedge for a while then the path goes towards the bottom left corner of the field. We keep the hedge on our left until we reach the road near Brickle Farm. A lot of free range hens are in a field nearby. The road takes us into Belton.



We walk through the village and down to the A47, which we cross to reach the Allexton Road. We cross the bridge over the Eye Brook, and follow the Main Street, past the church, which is now redundant and looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust.











It's open and worth looking inside.



We carry on along the No Through Road, to the footpath past Manor Farm. This leads behind Allexton Hall, which lies to our right. we can't easily follow the line of the path here, and again walk up beside a hedge until we meet the waymarker. The fields here have been ploughed, and are very dry. It's almost like walking on concrete chunks.

Not my favourite walking surface.

Then it's alongside a small wood, and turn left to go past Alexton Lodge. Here we turn right once more and along a field edge. We're at the edge of the ridge here, and there's a memorial seat looking southwest towards Fearn Farm. Beautifully placed.

We walk down then up to Fearn Farm with its Zollgrenze sign - Leics-Rutland border??

We turn left to pass the farm, and then right on to the footpath

- it's marked clearly from here to the dismantled railway - we cross by the overgown bridge and then follow the good clear path through the fields. We come out at the junction of Allexton Road and East Norton Road and walk into Hallaton past the Fox pub and duck pond.

Nothing Could Be Finer Than...

The out-of-state kids arrived safely from 3 states, but they didn’t fly to Texas. These seashells, farmstand tomatoes & Carolina peaches are souvenirs we brought back from a combined family reunion, vacation & anniversary celebration held on the Carolina Coast.
Philo & I drove east on Interstate 10 to meet with our four children and their families at a town where we’ve stayed 8 times over the past 30 years. We were last there in 1994 - it was always a magical place, and thank heavens, things have not changed much!
While our family jumped in the surf, made sandcastles, played beach volleyball, watched pelicans and dolphins, enjoyed seafood dinners and witnessed hatchling Loggerhead turtles make their way to the ocean, back in Austin our wonderful friends, neighbors and Divas watered our plants & kept our containers, young trees, shrubs and perennials alive.
Since we came home, instead of leaning over to pick up seashells on the beach, I’ve been picking up pecans by the bucketful from the ground under the pecan trees. Some nuts were undeveloped, shed by the trees in response to the drought, some were bitten, half-eaten and thrown around by the squirrels. I don’t think the trees themselves are in danger, since the leaves are green. These trees did the same thing last September - in the middle of the night we were wakened over and over by a hearing a thunk on the roof, followed by a rolling sound, then a thud as the nut hit the ground. It was unnerving at first, but it eventually became one of those comfortable, usual, recognizable sounds – your brain just says, ‘Pecan falling’ and lets you stay sleep.
One very nice and totally unexpected surprise was that this crinum-type lily put up a flower stalk which is just starting to show pink buds. It might be Amarcrinum 'Fred Howard' bought in March .. from Plant Delights Nursery, or it might be an unnamed crinum bought at an Austin Men's Garden Club sale in Spring ... Both lilies grew for years in large deck pots, where they developed into multiple bulbs. Once we moved here, the bulbs were planted in the ground, but the tags were lost and the individual bulbs were mixed up. Whatever the name, I'm thrilled to see it bloom!

A Secret Place...

Despite the fact that I blatantly display pictures of me swimming around here, I have been unable to find a DOCK from which to practice something I learned to chatter my jaw about last summer: Splashdoggin', Dock Diving... you name it... I absolutely "hearted" jumping off a "cliff" to dive in deep waters to chase my kong!

I'm very excited to be entered into a Splash Dogs event about an hour north of us in a week, but I needed a place to practice. Mom scoped out a place a couple of months ago and finally... me and Shanti (who's also entered) went to check it out!!!

Okayokayokayokay.... when do I get to go?????? NOW, Sammie! Here's a little show of Shanti and me (mostly Shanti, cause Mom was trying to hold Avalon, while tossing me my kong and take pictures at the same time heheh!) Enjoy!

We can't wait for da real thing! Shanti and I think Avalon should enter... whaddya think of our little idea?

Lessons For A Good Life

1.  Do not complain about your life.2.  Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself.3.  Be content with who you are and where you are.4.  Do whatever you can to bring to others such contentment, joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.

Aurora Storm!

With all the buzz about the possibility of strong auroras on the night of August 5th/6th, I was disappointed as sunset rolled around to see our sky filled with clouds. I am always optimistic, however, and as the evening progressed I made 2 to 3 checks every hour to see if the sky was clearing. Sure enough, just before midnight, I noticed a break in the clouds and in that break I saw some nice auroras! I went out the door and headed to my favorite spot to photograph the display. For an hour and a half the sky was filled with dancing lights, some of the best I've ever seen in Northern Minnesota!



Above: Here is a view that shows just how strong this geomagnetic storm was. This vantage point of the Spirit Tree is actually looking East/Southeast. Most of the time when shooting the Northern lights at the tree I have to shoot the other profile of it, which is looking to the North. I've always wanted to get a nice strong aurora so I could photograph them behind the tree from this other angle, which is a more Southeasterly direction. Well, on August 6th, I got my wish!

Hydrangeas Turning Green

With a slight pink tint.

If I Knew What They Looked Like...

I could have such fun.





Alas I don't know what The Artic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Funeral for A Friend, Paul Weller, or Skint and Demoralised look like...





We live in deepest Lincolnshire, right on the edge of nowhere. A neighbouring village has two recording studios which are used by lots of groups and singers...

It is so successful that they are building a large new accommodation block.

Shirley Bassey, Wet, Wet, Wet, and Barbara Dickson, OMD, Ocean Colour Scene, The Propellerheads, The Damned...

have all enjoyed the facilities in this lovely, leafy part of Lincolnshire.

Sometimes what gives them away is using an entirely unsuitable vehicle for narrow, muddy, country roads. Sometimes it is the appearance of hoodie-wearing young men who dash around as though being pursued. Ha! They should be so lucky!





The neighbours are quiet, the village peaceful. No shop, no pub, no school.

Just lovely Lincolnshire - and a great recording studio.

The Old Dogs Learn Something New

This post, "The Old Dogs Learn Something New", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Philo and I were invited to a pig roast on Saturday afternoon. As I gathered ingredients for corn bread and some Meyer's Lemon/Cranberry relish that morning, Tom Spencer's garden radio show played in the background. Tom's answer to one caller sent me running down the hall to the office - Philo had to hear about this! A woman wondered whether she should put the shells from her pecans into the compost or use them as mulch - and she was told it might not be such a good idea... while pecans are not as allelopathic [not alleopathic*] as Genie's infamous Black Walnut, they do contain juglone, a substance that can prevent the healthy growth of certain other plants.

With that large canopy of pecan trees hanging over our garden and the ground covered with husks and shells discarded by the squirrels, how concerned should we be? Was this the reason our tomato plants grew well the first summer, but seemed progressively more spindly the last two seasons?
We'd heard for decades that some plants, including tomatoes, wouldn't grow under Black Walnut trees- friends in Illinois had that experience - but we hadn't realized Pecans also had some juglone. The two of us started searching and reading, finding references to Black Walnuts, Pecans, Allelopathy and juglone in many articles, advice columns, forums, sites from universities and extension sites. As always, clip-and-paste ran rampant, with many sites using exactly the same wording and the authors disagreeing completely on the toxicity.
The conflicting articles stated that the leaves had juglone but the shells did not; that the juglone was concentrated in shells and bark; that it could persist for a long time or that a few weeks of composting eliminated it; that there was enough juglone in pecans to stop the growth of tomatoes or that the amount was so minimal it didn't count. Whether the soil was sandy or clay seemed to make a difference, as did the amount of moisture. Some sources recommended that adding lots of compost and improving drainage could remedy an area with high amounts of juglone. We read that juglone from black walnuts is used in traditional medicine to heal ringworm in humans and also read that allelopathy* swings both ways - the Department of Horticulture at Oklahoma State in Stillwater found that bermuda grass may inhibit the growth of pecan trees.
When I browsed a Project Gutenberg book called Growing Nuts in the North by Carl Weschke, one chapter told of the author's experiments in the early 1920's. It was pretty funny to hear him call the pesky squirrels "bushy-tailed rats" - that was definitely a bonding moment with someone from the past.
Our tentative conclusion after a couple of hours research was that for most areas of the garden, any juglone found in the pecan tree did not seem to have done any harm. On the other hand, it had probably been a mistake to incorporate such large amounts of pecan leaves into the tomato & pepper garden over the last 3 years and the waterlogged conditions of early summer may have intensified the effect.
Although our conclusions are tentative, we've noticed that several other plants in the nightshade family declined when in the root zone of the pecans - the Brugmansia got smaller instead of larger and only grew when moved to the far side of the garden. So to be on the safe side, we'll keep the pecan leaves, twigs and hulls out of the vegetable garden and not use them anywhere unless they've composted for a year. We'll add different compost to the tomato bed in spring, perhaps treating it with liquid compost now. A few weeks ago I transplanted that Solanum in the photo above to the triangle bed. It's one of the ornamental potato flowers but it wasn't growing or flowering. Now I realize this member of the nightshade family was also under the drip line of the pecan. Was that a factor in its failure to thrive?
This is more than you wanted to know about juglone, isn't it! If a pecan appears here again, I promise it will be in a pie! Let's move on to flower photos.

There were a few openings since the blooms were posted on the 15th - here's the peach iris unfolded. It sure looks odd backed by blue Plumbago, lemons, a 9-foot Brugmansia and the pink cuphea in bloom!
The Sasanqua camellia 'Shishi Gashira' opened a few flowers yesterday, but a fast moving gust of rain and wind shattered the flowers. More buds await their turn.
The next flower is difficult to photograph - a polaroid filter held over the lens helped a little.
That white line is the odd flower of a plant called Hoja santa, or Piper auritum, with large aromatic leaves that are used in Central Mexican cuisine. We once tried them parboiled and cut into squares, then filled with a chicken, pepper and rice mixture before folding into packets and baking.
Austin garden photographer Valerie was the person who first introduced me to Hoja santa - she has more information on the plant.
A cold front with rain is expected tomorrow evening followed by a weekend of cold, wet weather with highs in the fifties and lows in the upper-thirties. [from 10 degrees down to 2 degrees for you who use Celsius].
But today I can still admire a gulf fritillary on the pink cuphea.
Today I can enjoy the red berries on the Yaupon holly as it arches across from the left side of the path to the gate, mingling with the sharp and pointed leaves of the holly tree growing next to the garage.
This post, "The Old Dogs Learn Something New", was written for a blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Philo and Annie in our garden in Austin, Texas.

*Edited Nov 26 - my son pointed out that the words are allelopathic not alleopathic, and allelopathy not alleopathy. Thanks, kiddo - still learning .... Arf, arf.

Identifying Things With Wings

Many of the birds that come to the birdbath fountain are common ones, not mysterious: the Blue Jays in my blog header, pairs of nesting Cardinals, omnipresent Mockingbirds, the English Sparrows who have taken over neighbors' Purple Martin houses, hoards of White-winged Doves, noisy Grackles and the most welcome Chickadees.
Robins were my companions when I gardened in Illinois, waiting for me to throw a grub their way, but we went a decade after moving to Texas without seeing a single one. What a thrill when they began to visit our Austin garden:
House finches flew in-and-out of a huge blue spruce at my friend Ruth's house near Chicago, but they didn't come to our Illinois houses. They're regular visitors at this house.
We saw waxwings 30-years ago at house #2 in Illinois - that house had a berry-covered Mountain Ash tree and a row of large, berry-covered junipers. Cedar waxwings began to stop here a couple of years ago.
Goldfinches (think it's lesser goldfinch?) didn't come to our previous Austin house, but they come here. Titmice and hummingbirds come here too, but are usually too fast for my camera.
Local birder Mikael Behrens has a wonderful website- Birding on Broadmeade. The people who go with him on birdwalks find themselves checking many species off their lists without ever leaving NW Austin - even Bluebirds and Caracaras! Birding along Mikael's magic creek sounds like fun if you're able to walk & look through binoculars at the same time.
Birdwatching takes practice and study, but it's probably necessary to have good vision in the first place. When the description tells me to notice if there is "a black smudge below the second wing bar" - it's a lost cause - I can't discern that even when the bird is right outside the breakfast room window and a bird book is in my hand. But even if being a true birder is beyond me, when something more exotic than the usual White-winged doves and Mockingbirds show up on the next Great Backyard Bird Count, it would be great to turn in the correct identities.
Mikael also uses the birds' songs to help identify them, but only certain voices can be heard through my windows - like grackles, jays and mockingbirds. Outside you can hear the calls of a chickadee, wren, cardinal or titmouse and it's easy to tell when a flock of cedar waxwings is in a neighboring yard.
Last year we had what I think was a male Yellow Rumped Warbler and it looks like another (or the same one) is here now, looking like a wet, real-life version of an Angry Bird through the breakfast room window! Hope this one is right, Mikael:
Could this be the female Yellow-Rumped Warbler? Here's the back of this bird A similar bird was around in January, so maybe they're not just passing through.
In March I took a photo of the male yellow-rumped warbler, perched on an herb trough at right, waiting a turn to bathe. Reflection from the water spoiled the image of the bird at left, but at the time I thought it might be a Nashville warbler.
I'm not sure if the same bird was here yesterday, but with those white eye-rings it looks a lot like the Nashville warbler from last year-
Could the bird with white eye-rings at top left in this trio also be a Nashville warbler ... or maybe the same one, rumpled and wet? As to the other two - any chance the one at right is a Ruby Crowned Kinglet?
Here's another shot of the trio. Did I get anything right?
Insects with wings can be confusing, too - this is some kind of Swallowtail butterfly on the Carolina Jessamine but which one?
A few days ago a mammal with wings rested for a short time on the wall in the Secret Garden - my guess on this is a Little Brown Bat. Some sites suggest a full moon can throw off the bat's normal schedule... my hope is that a night of eating mosquitoes made the bat too full to fly straight home. Thanks for any input ... there is some video footage of the little birds hopping around on the fountain - it can go up on YouTube once they have names.