It's a Merry May Day Full Moon Fiesta - come on in!

Greenwood Hobbit

Greenwood Hobbit

Valinor
Welcome one and all to a May Day Fiesta! Whether it's spring or autumn where you are, embrace the season, load up with any snacks and drinks you fancy and share what's been going on in your corner of Middle Earth. Everything here is now dressed in fresh greens; it's a pure delight, driving between blossom-laden hedges with an arching canopy of new leaves above, dappling the sunlight.
Two local Morris dancing teams - Mersey Morris and Mockbeggar Morris - dragged themselves out to dance in the dawn (5.38am) and had a wonderful morning for it, with a sunrise uninterrupted by cloud. If you're on Facebook, there are pictures from this morning's dancing on their page.
Closer to home – as close as you can get! - I have a wood pigeon sitting on a nest in the ceanothus at the back of the house, right next to the patio. 'Pidge' will just have to get used to me sitting out there and reading when the weather permits. There's a pair of collared doves around the garden too, but I don't know where they're nesting. I know there are sparrows under the roof tiles, but they're welcome to the space.
Anyway, what wildlife do you share your space with? Do tell. I'll raise a glass of Harper's Golden ale to you all. Cheers, folks!
 
That must be a good-sized bush! Can you see if there's eggs? We had a pair of pigeons under our feeders one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we checked them out and realized they were a homing pigeon pair, just stopping for a meal before continuing their journey.

It was a cool, clear May Day morning here! I checked out those Morris Men. LOL, was that a dinosaur and a shark with them? Dancing near the water as the sun rises is so appropriate. Our local Westerly Morris Men were dancing at Stonington Point (an eastern Connecticut peninsula) at 5:45 a.m. here. So nice to know the traditions are kept up over the years!

I'll grab an ale also, please! I was out hunting for something to plant in front of a meter-wide low rock, and came across some pretty mimulus, so I'll be planting those later today.

Meanwhile the turkeys are hungry! The toms and their hens have been making a mess of part of the backyard as they scratch for juicy grubs and such. In about a month the hens might be leading the tiny poults across the yard!

Happy May Day to all!
 
About 5'6" high, maximum. Maybe the bird thinks that, being so close to the house, magpies will be deterred from raiding it.
Yes, the dinosaurs and shark are firsts for that particular ritual; I'll find out about them! The daughter of my old schoolfriend dances with Mockbeggar and plays for Mersey and her husband and son dance for Mersey. It's a real Morris family! Her parents both danced in their prime, too. I've just watched a short Youtube vid of Westerly dancing on the hilltop; it's pretty rough underfoot up there! I hope nobody took a tumble this year.
Mimulus are cute colourful flowers; I'm hardening off my snapdragons and they'll be planted out very soon. I've not heard tom used for a male turkey, you learn something every day! There are mallards with ducklings on a local pond; there are also predators about, so everyone is crossing their fingers that the birds make it to adulthood.
Enjoy the weekend - cheers!
 
I'm just back from a fabulous "girl hang" with my bestie, whom I have not seen for 18 months. We met in the middle at Leavenworth, Washington in the Cascade mountains and went on wonderful hikes, ate lovely food, dropped some bucks at the local bookstore buying each other books "you must read!" and, of course, had ice cream.

This hike was the best ever. Lots of spring blooms.
https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/icicle-gorge-loop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rYvA1Y2XoI

We saw deer. Where we stayed, the blue-green swallows were out in force.
 
but time spent with a bestie is quality time indeed! Glad you had such fun. I'm meeting my two oldest friends in September for our annual Moot, a few days spent together in a cottage somewhere; we've been friends since 1964. Now I feel reeeally old! I love the look of the blue-green swallow - like our little summer visitors, but in party clothes!
 
And nature put on a show for you!

Of course, raiding the local bookstore must always be a part of any outing, especially with a good friend. [cool]
 
As if they'd been splashed with white paint down their front.

That mating dance looks like he's trying to take flight, but doesn't know he has to move his wings!
 
I genuinely thought our wood pigeon was silent until a few years ago when I was corrected by someone who *had* heard them cooing - evidently, it's a very quiet coo. (I still haven't heard it, myself, and I gets heaps of them in my garden.)

ETA: OMG you're right about the sound of your bird's coo! I can hear it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poeYBbpR9z4
 
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Every full moon, things get weird around here and my family all get moody or accident-prone! After a few hours of crazy, I check for the moon (sans clouds). Yep. There's the reason right there! [;)]

I had a WONDERFUL visit with my Balti-daughter for a few days this past week. She's on her way home now, and I miss her horribly already.

The critters around my home are very busy doing their springy things. Lot of Cardinals, yellow finches, red-headed woodpeckers, wrens, bluejays... ooodles of birds and chipmunks raiding the bird feeders. The pigeons and bunnies love munching on what falls. The robins prefer worms and bugs, so they give the mixed flock a wide birth. I can hear the baby coyotes yipping and howling after dark, and have seen the local bobcat. Deer, turkeys, eagles, turkey vultures and other water birds are beginning to crowd the place, too.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and very relaxing week :D Thanks for taking such great care of us!
 
I wonder how many people are sensitive to the "pull" of a full moon.

Wow, is it active around your home! Do you know where any of the nests are? And what kinds of pigeons do you have (seems like we're all comparing pigeons this week!).

I'm glad you had a great week with your daughter - and that she's been recovering well! [heart]

Enjoy the Springtime, gramma! Although I think we're supposed to get some cooler temps soon...
 
After a run of bad storms, we've been enjoying some truly lovely autumn weather, with golden days and crisp evenings. Our small grove of autumn trees is looking particularly lovely in shades of red and gold - the persimmon looks as if it's on fire!

This year as an experiment I grew a small bed of paste tomatoes as well as our main tomato beds, and yesterday I turned that crop into tomato paste. Verdict: very much worthwhile, and we'll aim to grow a lot more paste tomatoes next summer. I also made sourdough discard crackers and marmalade from our Seville oranges, along with some sourdough bread. I've collected enough of the small guava fruit to make a batch of the wonderfully tart jelly they produce, but that's for another weekend (they're in the freezer for now). The kereru (our lovely wood pigeons, as described by Ataahua above) have yet to rediscover that bush, but I'm sure they will any time now. I'm perfectly happy to share, now that I have what I need for this year's jelly.

I've been working on my non-fiction book, and have been getting thoroughly engrossed in the research. Every now and then I have to step back and confront shocking ideas, such as the possibility that not all readers will find brickmaking (to name one small element) as fascinating as I do (even when it's a natural metaphor!). It's good to be getting back into writing.

As for wildlife: we live in the countryside and have our own small patch of forest, so are well-endowed with birdlife. At this time of year natives include kereru, tui https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/tui, piwakawaka https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/new-zealand-fantail, putangitangi https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/paradise-shelduck, kahu https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/swamp-harrier and riroriro https://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/grey-warbler. Among the introduced: sparrows, swallows, starlings, finches, Australian magpies, Barbary doves, mallards. And this morning I looked out an upstairs window to see a family group of six turkeys pottering about on the grass. Hunting season started yesterday, and the game birds know where to come at this time of year.

Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend.
 
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that there were tomatoes that were bred specifically for making tomato paste! They must have a nice soft "meat" inside.

That's a lot of non-native birds, have the locals had any problems with them? Yes, turkey hunting has started here too in specific reserves, for May only, and one reserve is bow-hunting only. So those birds have all come to our backyard as well. [laugh]

That's the way it is with writing - you end up having to discard a lot of good stuff. I wonder if something like brickmaking would be fine for an appendix?
 
but my tamarillos have, so win-some-lose-some, I guess.

I've been working on pruning my Hawera Red plum tree, which is huge and gangly. Those branches are much thicker up close than they look from the ground, so I ended up getting only one sawn off (and gave my head two solid bangs in the process). The tree has opened up remarkably already, but I do still want to get a least one more big branch off before winter arrives - its subsequent branches have reached right across to the other side of the garage!
 
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