Coming back from hen feeding.

This is the only road in the village.  Houses on one side, the sea on the other, and this morning the tide was right up to the sea wall.  It was so beautiful and still, with lots of seals about, and eider ducks and divers too. After all the storms we've been having, it's so strange to be completely becalmed, yet knowing that further south are now having the awful weather.

As well as our own hens, I am looking after three others and elsewhere in the village two cats, but only for a few days.  Taking advantage of the weather, I gave the hen house a good clean out and then spent the rest of the morning in the front garden.  

My natural instinct is to tidy up and cut things back in the back end of the year but I do try to leave as much as I can for wildlife, and to protect the soil.  After all the bad weather though everything is black and slimy, so it has to go!  I now have a huge compost heap and the soil is peppered with emerging bulb shoots and tiny green leaves are appearing in the bases of the perennials.  It's amazing what is already/still growing.  I hope taking away their cosy covering won't mean they shrivel up and die, but at least they won't rot or get eaten by the handfuls of snails I removed!

The dinghy on the slip is not ours, but the one tied to the lamp post,  further along by the NZ flax, is!