Wednesday 1st October, 2014
I sometimes think the internet is rather like an immense game of Chinese whispers - full of endlessly repeated distortions and misquotations, as well as common or garden ignorance and lies. Take this Conrad Lorenz quote as a minor example. According to an apparently reputable site he once wrote "Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing." Some unknown person embroidered the quote and came up with "Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing." Fair enough, but what does annoy me is that the modified quote is now widely attributed to Lorenz. I would like to embroider further and add a third category - "bloggers and commenters on the net" (and I include myself in this category). They know nothing about anything but have an opinion on everything!
The reason for that grumble was some incorrect advice that I found on the net. After I replaced the drive belt on my Flymo lawnmower, not the simplest operation because it involves the removal and replacement of eleven screws, the stupid thing made a brief loud squawk every time I started it. I thought it might be something to do with the belt tension and Google found a forum where someone who had the same problem had asked for advice. A "helpful" person written in and stated very confidently that the belt should be loosened because it could only make that noise if it was too tight. Well, he was wrong. After loosening the belt on my mower it was no better. I found another site which advised tightening the belt and tried that. I don't think I managed to get it quite tight enough. It has stopped squawking but occasionally when I start it after scraping off the wet grass it still makes a polite little chirp. Better find those screwdrivers again. Hope it is a case of fourth time lucky.
Just when I thought we had come to the end of the "new" flowers, I found a few early winter flowering plants that I had overlooked. One or two flowers are opening on the winter jasmine. I brought a few cuttings from the garden of the house that we rented when we first moved to the Island and planted them up by the summerhouse where they resolutely refused to flower. After being moved down near the house they have been growing much better and even produced the first blossom a few years ago.
Just behind the trellis supporting the winter jasmine is a mahonia. It is probably a mahonia japonica but I am not sure because it came up from seed - probably a unintentional gift from our next door neighbour via an obliging bird.
The Nerine bowdenii were an intentional gift from the same neighbour. He lived on the south side of our garden when we first moved into the glen. He was a very knowledgeable plant collector and tended to give me South African plants like the nerine and veltheimia. Perhaps he thought I was homesick. I wasn't. But his plants wouldn't have helped anyway because I think they are indigenous to the Western Cape and we lived in Natal. I had never seen them before.
As well as the autumn and early winter flowers, there are a second flush of late blooms on some of the summer flowering plants. This rose "Rushing Stream" is flowering better than it did in June.
It is not surprising that the flowering season has been so long this year. September was unusually mild. I haven't seen the final statistics for the Isle of Man but in the UK it has been the driest September since countrywide records began in 1910 - and the fourth warmest. The Met Office reported "Using figures from 1-28 September, the UK as a whole has received 19.4 mm of rain, which is just 20 % of the normal amount of rainfall we'd expect for the month. Prior to this, the driest September on record was 1959 with 23.8 mm." My little rain gauge reports just 13mm for the whole of September in the glen!
There was a pretty start to the last morning in September. But all is set to change in October with near gale force winds predicted for Friday - combined with a risk of flooding.
The big autumn clear-up is not going as fast as I hoped. My (almost recovered) sore toe didn't help but the main problem is that I get bored and look for other more interesting things to do. About half of the daffodil beds have been cleared and about two thirds of the wild flower bank in front of the summerhouse. That is a slow job because I try to cut back the meadowsweet and the other taller plants without damaging the primroses - and I leave the oregano and knapweed till last because there are still a few insects visiting the late flowers. By the way, I think the purple toadflax (in the bottom left corner of the photo) is one of the most valuable "weeds" in the garden as far as the bees are concerned. It has been flowering for four months, since the end of May, and bees are still visiting the flowers.
We have been walking most days since my last post - mainly in our local plantations in search of colourful autumn leaves and interesting fungi. They are few and far between. The conditions needed for spectacular autumn colours are a big drop in temperature and not too much wind - so that rules out the Island. The leaves are starting to fall but we haven't had any frost yet. There is an occasional pretty leaf.
On Thursday we walked through Brookdale. We had planned to go for a longer walk up the Narradale road but strong winds and hill fog were forecast so we chose a more sheltered walk. They were right about the hill fog.
During the walk we found some of the elusive red toadstools. We missed them on the way up but saw them at the bottom of a bank near the track on the way down. I don't know why we always went to such lengths to plan circular walks. When we return along the same route, we enjoy the views from a totally different direction and often spot things that we missed the first time we passed them.
After being delayed by weather, mowing, and golf on the TV, we finally set off for the Narradale walk on Monday. It was the first time that we had attempted a longer walk since the beginning of March. It is only about five miles but the climb up the Narradale road is both long and steep. It is broken only by a short dip down to a little glen where the trees were just beginning to look autumnal.
About half way up the road, we were greeted by a very friendly sheep dog at Narradale Farm. Its tail never stopped wagging.
Across the road is a modern home which is rumoured to have a nuclear bomb proof bunker in the basement!
The path connecting the top of the Narradale Road to the farm track down to Ohio was puddle and mud free for the first time in years. The farm track was dry too but the ruts had been patched with stone. I am not sure whether it was an improvement - maybe for vehicles, probably not for hikers. We thought the track might be puddle free as well . . . until we reached this detour along the top of an old sod "hedge".
There were some dark clouds looming but fortunately only a few sparse drops of rain fell before we reached the plantation.
I had decided not to bother with fungi on this walk but I couldn't resist this group of toadstool on the bank above the track. I haven't seen so many old toadstools being attacked by mildew in previous autumns. I wonder whether the mildew is attacked by an even smaller type of fungus. It reminded me of the old infinity verse "Bigger fleas have little fleas on their backs to bite 'em, Little fleas have smaller fleas and so ad infinitum!"
We passed a sad sight near the bottom of the plantation . . . the body of a young hare, not long dead and with no visible injuries. It is probably a brown hare. The mountain hares also have black tips to their ears but they are a more greyish colour before they turn white in winter.
We both enjoyed the longer walk and suffered no after-effects, so we are planning to venture even further afield and to be more enterprising hikers in future - weather permitting, of course.
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