Busy planning our next holiday house in the same meadow as Orchard Lee

First of February half term visitors enjoyed a wonderful multi coloured sunset late this afternoon!

Green Woodpeckers seen in the Orchard this morning.
A sign of spring?

Spring is postponed for a few more days.
Just time to plant a few early peas with grand daughters help and prune some roses.

May Bank Holiday - the first of the season' potatoes

The first handful of potatoes - Premiere, living up to their name.
The potatoes are doing their best in spite of a lack of rain. Enough for a meal for us - another week and there will some to sell. So far Vales Emerald and Premier are the clear winners, with Premier a good even size. Best for flavour though were the Red Duke of York babies, snatched from the plants and hardly big enough for a mouthful.

Bank Holiday butterflies - we walked through Painted Lady butterflies in the garden and farm. Usually we see a few, and later in the summer. Must ask the Isle of Wight Natural History and Archaeological Society for comments on this! http://www.iwnhas.org/

Caterpillars, moths and butterflies

Actually, one butterfly - an orange tip, on the charlock in the vegetable garden, - and the caterpillars of 2 moths, the hairy one wandering in the greenhouse, the other sliding down the side of the plastic trug.
May is the month when some caterpillars emerge from hibernation, ready to eat their way to a suitable size for pupating. As neither has had time to hatch from eggs and grow to this size, both have presumably overwintered. A short spell with the Oxford Book of Insects should mean we can guess which moths they will turn into, assuming the voracious blackbird and blue tits in the garden, haven't already eaten them.

May Day Bank holiday weekend in Yarmouth

Low tide , Yarmouth Green, with the new Wightlink ferry heading for Lymington.
One of Wightlink's new ferries at Yarmouth. The red roof is Yarmouth Castle - surely the only one of Henry VIII's castles against which ferries moor.
Perfect weather for the weekend - and Wightlink's new ferries brought all our visitors on time.



Yarmouth harbour in the weekend sun - the water busier than the roads whilst the bridge is shut for repairs. Could we book this sort of weather for every spring holiday?