APRIL - "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now..."

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow

A E Housman

Funny kind of bird - this one's not on my app!!!

I was inspired to look up this old favourite by the dainty cherry blossom now blooming in our developing orchard. Thanks to A.E.Housman. Also I'd like to mention a great man who passed away in March and will be laid to rest on the first of May - John Cherry of Barrow upon Humber. So many people are thankful for his kindness. Our family will always keep his memory close to our hearts. May his soul rest in peace.

Last night Ginny heard the same burbling sound she heard on the first of April. That night was the pink moon and Ginny took some photos of the moon and the clouds. We are all inclined to think that, when we reach a certain age, we can no longer be surprised by anything! Not so! Such wizardry, as that pink moon demonstrated, only reminds me of the depth and breadth of the ever-changing canvas of the natural world. That same day - but very early in the morning - I heard the wren singing from the log store. That was a different kind of magic. I knew he was using the remains of last year's nest to create something wonderful for offering his lady and yet the song, when it came, still held me with its exquisite clarity and tunefulness.

The pink moon

Sadly, a couple of weeks later, he had to go elsewhere as his log store nest tumbled down. Did it jump or was it pushed???

The male wren builds several nests for his lady wren to choose from. The ones she doesn't choose and are left unoccupied are called cock nests.

At the beginning of the month, on Maundy Thursday, we saw and heard a curlew, skylarks, lots of geese and our three friendly roe deer who stayed just a safe distance ahead of us. We also saw pheasants who made walking the dogs a little difficult for Ginny as the dogs got a whiff of them and simply launched themselves forwards, pulling horribly!

Roe deer by the old mill pond

Just after midnight on Easter Sunday the weather was particularly dreadful when I was woken up by Orlando. I can't imagine why he wanted to go outside at that point. By nine in the morning the sun was breaking through and Clemency heard her young male quail (hatched here last year) make his very first crowing sound. He had something to crow about on such a special morning! Clem has been spending much of her spare time in her newly constructed potting shed and is frequently visited there by Bob Robin. She gave him a special Easter Sunday treat when she found a cluster of maggoty things in one of her raised beds and turned them over for him.

Sometimes the small birds who visit the feeders can be proper little comedians - like the tiny coal tit who was manically eating seeds at the Toad Hall feeding station, scattering many on the floor and into the beaks of Mr and Mrs Pheasant who didn't have to wait long to fill their tums!

Rolling our decorated eggs was a chilly Easter Sunday experience this year with a very bitter wind blowing across the hillside. Fun though! For days afterwards, the dogs were snuffling in the grass for tiny fragments of hard boiled egg.

Boiling and shelling eggs in the kitchen is sure to bring both spaniels to the door. They love them but they shouldn't have too many.

Easter Sunday is always a day filled with happiness and hope - even when the temperature struggles to please!

Easter Monday dawned with sunshine by seven thirty - just after the owls had finished their Easter finale. They were followed by a musical medley from the chaffinch, jackdaw, sparrow, goldfinch, meadow pipit, blue tit, wren, greenfinch, willow warbler, great tit, raven, curlew, ring necked pheasant, carrion crow, rook and chiffchaff. All these around the house and its close environs!

Female Emperor moth

That day Ginny and Judith walked towards the wind farm and made a shy little friend. A mustelid - either a weasel or a stoat - was hiding behind the biggest boulder by the bridge over the burn and peeped out from there - not once but several times.  They couldn't be sure whether it was a weasel or a stoat because it would only allow them a peep at part of its face each time it peeped out. They have seen the same little face in the same place since then too.

"Move along please! This is my patch!"

Dolly has been poorly. The vet thinks it may be pneumonia and so Clem is giving her antibiotics in her water. She is at present transferred to a solitary hutch in the kitchen garden so that she remains separate from Daisy, Drusilla, Winnie, Gwynne and Saldoni. She seems to be getting better and will soon be able to join them again. When she is out of her hutch during the day, the other hens go up to the fence near to her and they all have a chin-wag together. I think they miss her and she misses them too. We have the best vets - DS McGregor & Partners. I'm told you can see them in action on the television - The Highland Vet (I'm not a TV viewer - except for watching the Scottish team in the Six Nations rugby tournament!)

In the middle of that first week of April, Trump was claiming victory as a two week ceasefire began in the war with Iran and, on the same day, the first two calves of the year at Stempster came out into the field with their mummies. The farmer, Colin, tends his animals with compassion and we have complete certainty that those little creatures have the best start in life.

At the end of that first week of the Easter holidays we treated ourselves to breakfast at the Forss House Hotel just across the valley. I'd never been into the grounds before and I was delighted with the celandines which smothered the sides of the driveway. Celandines pop up all over the place here in West Caithness and I love them but I don't think I had seen so many together before that morning. Although it was a lovely morning it was still cold and relatively early so the little flowers still had their eyes closed against the night chill but even so it was quite a display!  It was a happy close to the first week of the Easter holidays. That and the sighting - by virtue of the hidden camera - of William the pine marten eating a piece of leftover jam roll deliberately placed by the cabin in the little wildwood! 

William the pine marten scoffing jam roll

Later that day Ginny, Judith and Clemency had a bonfire of lots of brush and branches from the wood. As I was gardening in the tiny cottage garden I could smell that marvellous spring soil smell and the smell from the bonfire in the orchard. Their mingling was just amazing!

The next day, peace talks began in Islamabad and Clemency and I spotted the first lone swallow over the river Forss.  It was the day of our "Shrub Crawl". We have been doing an annual Easter Shrub Crawl for four years now. Clemency and I take ourselves off and visit the local garden centres. We have the smallest and the best! There are none of the massive complexes you get further south - great if you're searching for a gift but not always supplying plants which have been reared with a love of gardening/horticulture. In fact, I've known people who visit those places and arrive back at their homes with nothing to plant - having spent a fortune on fancy goods and a packet of seeds!!  The garden centres in the far north are maybe a bit basic but you get what you go there for - a car boot full of tenderly reared plants. Achies Farm is the perfect example. It's a relatively small polytunnel with a tiny add-on tunnel at the side. There's a small wooden shed -  they sell eggs and honey too - and in there is an honesty box. Judith had heard about it and sent us there - with no directions! After a bit of a wander we went home for a comfort break and Ginny found out how to get there. It turns out to be close to the reindeer farm in Harpsdale. The plants are well looked after with details printed out below each section and the prices are very, very reasonable. They're so reasonable that one feels inclined to round up!

At the beginning of the second week our jaws dropped when Trump was childishly critical of Pope Leo as he set off on his African tour. It seems almost inconceivable that a world leader could be so destructive with his words and actions in 2026. So I created a new bed in the cottage garden!!! My answer to everything!! Was it Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that all his hurts could be healed by his garden spade? If it hurts, take it outdoors and feel a part of something sweeter!

Snakeshead Fritillary

The new bed is very small but I think it will be quite lovely when the flowers I have planted there are all in bloom.  I planted clarkia, heuchera and Black Ball cornflowers.

Last weekend we revisited Achies Farm - this time with Lydia and Euan - and I bought some mesembryanthemums (Livingstone daisies) which I may add to the new bed. 

I made the new bed where I had previously had strawberries in a raised bed. I put aside the compost, moved the base and sides - which were rotting anyway - then I dug over the compacted soil. This was hard work but it really is a very small bed. Then I replaced the compost and dug that into the soil, raked it over and hey presto!!! It had been a rectangular shaped raised bed so I coaxed the edges into a circle. Now I have to wait and see. 

A type of violet found in a crevice by the front door

Ginny caught a redstart on the camera recently. Later the same day, when I went out to empty the ash bucket, I heard a birdsong which I didn't recognise. I can't say what it was because I wasn't armed with my Merlin Bird ID app.. I rely on it! Now just about everyone in the family has one too! Can't believe that this old lady was only the second person in the family to install the app.. Feels like I'm down with the kids!

Redstart

On his way home from Wick this week, Keith saw a magpie on a fence post by Bardnaclavan Farm. It flew off as he drove past it. This is not unusual for those of you south of here but it's the first time we've had a positive sighting near Stempster. A few days ago I saw the moving silhouette of a bird which might have been a magpie but I wasn't at all sure. Ginny saw a bird moving up through the trees in the wood around the same time and she felt that too may have been a magpie but it was Keith who positively identified it.

And now for some sad news. Ginny's bees, having survived the winter, failed to make it into April. After a brief outing in March, they hadn't re-emerged and so they were re-checked and found to have died in the hive. We think they probably just divided due to the production of a new queen. Some would have gone off elsewhere but, in the hive, there were many deceased bees. This has been sad for us all but especially for Ginny who did everything right with the advice of one of Scotland's most respected beekeepers. Clemency is buying some more bees in June so that Ginny can start again.
 
In the middle of the month Lydia saw an osprey near her home in Ross-shire. Strange to think that birds continue their annual migration when bombs are being dropped and fires are created by conflict, leaving huge swathes of barren land and skies heavy with pollution. But here they are - all coming back to us unscathed!

The cuckoo too! On the sixteenth of April, Ginny and Clemency heard the cuckoo and Ginny picked it up on her bird sounds app.. Later in the day she picked up more sounds from other birds - including a golden plover. At the other end of the day, on an evening walk, the owls were calling to each other. These were the tawnies. We hear them more often than we hear the barn owls at present. The next night there they were! Barn owls shouting at each other and probably warning each other that humans would pass that way on a late night stroll!

Early swallow

We didn't have to wait long for the next exciting news! Ginny saw TWO swallows together ! So, if one swallow doesn't make a summer, then surely two swallows do? After we'd had our tea Ginny went back outside and into our little wood to check the trail camera. She discovered that a badger had visited a bit before two thirty that morning. It was near the wooden cabin and seemed to be quite at home!

Bill Badger feeling at home in our wee wildwood

Badger fluff

Last week was National Mammal Week and, with Ginny at the helm, Stempster House has been sending in details of mammals spotted here from Monday the twentieth to Sunday the twenty sixth of April. The most common of the mammals seen here that week was the hare. There are so many of them - and all characters. The bats are out in the evenings now so they could be added to the Stempster list too. 
The twenty second of April was a night for shooting stars - followed by a beautiful sunrise with the temperature down at zero degrees. 

Two hares hanging out

We've had a few misty starts to days recently and today I was reminded of how the mist plays tricks with distance. We're on a single track road which has passing places positioned at various places along its length. This morning the passing place which I can see over the wall, the meadow and another wall, from the kitchen door, looked further away than it normally does. The mist was rolling in bands as I was setting the table for breakfast. The sun was a silver sphere penetrating the pearl grey mist. Sometimes I think I'm living in Fairyland. It feels like magic.

Early morning sun through mist

When I was a little girl I used to love the hymns and songs about the natural world. "I love God's tiny creatures that wander wild and free, the coral coated ladybird, the velvet humming bee" was a school song and, after singing it in school, I would skip home for lunch (we called it dinner in those days) still singing and feeling so much a part of a beautiful word. 

A night time visitor!

In church and Sunday school we would sing "Glad that I live am I, that the sky is blue, glad for the country lanes and the fall of dew - after the the sun the rain, after the rain the sun - this is the way of life till the work be done!" I still sing this to myself sometimes!

Another childhood favourite - and this one I share with a dear friend - is "Daisies are our silver, buttercups our gold - these are all the treasures we can have or hold." This was another school hymn which has stayed with me from the happy years of infant education with Mrs Snell at Epworth Primary School. Such a lovely lady!

My granny used to have a new hat for Easter Sundays. Most ladies wore hats for going to church in those days. As children we always had something new to wear at Eastertide. In 1896, Good Friday was on the third of April - as it was this year. I wonder if George North, in North Lincolnshire, had a new handkerchief or perhaps a new shirt for Easter Day. That April, George was amongst other farm work, "getting swedes up", "leading manure" and "drilling barley".

I remember the wonderful wide April skyscapes of my native Lincolnshire. There were none of the stunning mountains rising up in the distance as we came home from shopping today but the miles of open fields - here a hedge, there a ditch, a farm, a small number of trees, had the power, in their reach, to make one think they would go on forever. Since those days, things have changed. There is still beauty in the open landscape but there isn't as much of it. Some dedicated groups ensure there is still habitat available for the displaced wildlife. They are admirable people committed to a fair deal for those creatures who cannot speak up for themselves. Corridors are made to allow animals safer passage where there are busy roads. Trees are planted to compensate for shelter which has been lost. Some areas are allowed to return to their historic wetland. It goes on. The countryside has changed but moves are constantly being made to rectify mistakes and to enhance what is left for the benefit of the native wildlife. 

A glorious band of honesty

Another ten years further back - in April 1886 - George was drilling barley and also sowing oats, ploughing and harrowing. His sow farrowed on the sixteenth of April that year. 

"Footfalls echo in the memory". Life in the late nineteenth century - whether in Lincolnshire or Caithness - was never as picture-perfect as it may seem to us today. Life in the early twenty-first century is not without its problems for all of us across the world. For me, the most worrying thing today is the lack of compassion. Internationally, humanity and the environment (seriously interlinked) are disregarded in the search for power and manipulation. Here in Britain, so many people want an ideal that never was. They are prepared to dismiss human kindness to achieve their goals. That baby is in danger of being thrown out with the bath water - again!

It seems to me that the trees, shrubs and all the plants which grow in our northern garden are quite happy to be here. They get along very nicely. They are providers for the various groupings of animals and birds that visit and add to the diversity of our little corner of the world with its pasture land, arable land, woods, moorland and coast. I wish that human beings could get along together as well as our Stempster wildlife does - all varieties!

Cereal leaf beetle

A Light That Shines In The Darkness

There's a light that shines in the darkness.

There's a destiny waiting at the end of the road.

There's meaning in the middle of this emptiness.

There's a reason you've been asked to carry this heavy load.

Lessons are taught when we reach out

Farther than we thought we'd ever dare.

Faith abounds when we confront our deepest doubts,

Enduring more than we dreamed we could ever bear.

There's a dawn waiting at the edge of every midnight.

There's a seed planted with every fallen leaf.

With every wrong there's the chance to make a right.

With every hour of suffering there's an eternity of relief.

Our darkest moments give us the opportunity

For seasons of our greatest growth.

Everyday we work towards continuity

Of acceptance and persistent hope.

And there's a light that shines in the darkness.

There's a star that guides the way.

There's a gate that's open to forgiveness.

There's a shepherd who saves those who've gone astray.

  Justin Farley