An everyday story of country folk

[shewhomust]

Down the garden
Originally uploaded by she_who_must

From Wem we moved on to visit my cousins who live in the Welsh Marches, in a converted chapel whose garden slopes on and on up the hillside. While J. finished planting out the leeks - for they are vegetarians, and trying to be self-sufficient in vegetables - F. took me up the hill and showed me the badger trod which runs through the long grass at the top of the orchard. Later, she pointed out that it is visible in the aerial photo of the house.

The pond is new since our last visit. There are frogs and newts, but no fish: "We didn't stock it at all," says J.
"Well, we put in some frogspawn. I feel a bit guilty..."
They had put in frogspawn before the plants in the pond were really established, and the tadpoles had grown to a certain size and then stopped, presumably because they had run out of food. But J. and F. had read somewhere that tadpoles like meat, so they had bought some stewing steak, and devised a method of suspending tiny cubes of it in the pond - and suddenly the water was black with tadpoles coming to feed.

Extreme, but effective.

Comments

[sovay]

But J. and F. had read somewhere that tadpoles like meat, so they had bought some stewing steak, and devised a method of suspending tiny cubes of it in the pond - and suddenly the water was black with tadpoles coming to feed.

That's really wonderful.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

They are the kindest people...