Snake's Head Fritillary

 The Fritillarias in our backyard are in full bloom now.

Bumble bees are hovering all over the place. 

We have a crosssing between the purple Fritillaria meleagris and a pure white one.

Result

This is the end result.

 This morning we stil had a couple of fencing poles left....

 The kenderman is trying to spare the plants while he's removing the last pole :-)

Just a reminder how it looked like yesterday morning.

Tear Down

We have always disliked the garden fence in our garden.

We have been planting hedges and stacking wooded banks to hide this ugly fence.

But at the end of our backyard we wanted something else........ 

Until a few weeks ago we had to think of Sil.

Sil was only allowed to stroll through our backyard so we needed the fence.

No more wire netting....

Usually you will see us building instead of demolishing. 

But trust me, it's for the greater good!

I'll show you tomorrow.

Weekend!

Enjoy your freedom and have a nice weekend!

Blind

For the observant viewer: just one handle on our tap :-)

This is the design I chose for the kitchen.
It looks like handmade paper. I saw something like this 10 years ago.
The brand was Wood and Washi but they don't produce it any longer.
Luckily I found a similar one made by Luxaflex.
It's quite an expensive blind but I think it looks stunning!
I'm chuffed to bits!!!

Shades

We finally got some blinds.

You can read about my research here.

Gorgeous

Pininana

Two years ago I have sown some seed of Echium pininana Snow Tower.

This plant stayed in our shed for the second time during it's second winter.

 It came outside again about a week ago.

We want to plant it soon so hopefully it will grow very tall with lots of white flowers.

Insects love these plants!

Rose

We have been working in the garden yesterday.

Afterwards the kenderman poured me a drink.

Lunch

I felt a bit faint so I started eating straightaway :-)

Tower

This morning I took some quick shots......

If you take a closer look, you can also see a landing strip in front of this water tower.
You can see my favourite photo I took earlier here.

Books

And suddenly.........  spring has arrived.
We will use our garden books so much more :-)

 Hope you will enjoy your weekend!

Beauty

Because of the late spring a lot of plants are starting to flower at the same time.

This wood anemone is such a real beauty!

Blossom

When we came home today, we noticed that the first flowers
of our pear trees must have opened during the daytime.

Eventually all the pink flowerbuds of our pear trees will transform in beautiful white flowers.
We planted these trees ourselves about 4 years ago and each year we are so glad we did!

Nest Boxes

Finally the dormouse nest boxes are placed in our garden.

One is attached to the trunk of our pollard Black Alder at the end of our mixed hedgerow.

The other one is hanging in front of our wooded bank. Raspberry as well as Blackberry are nearby.

You can read about these boxes and the dormouse in my previous post here.

Sunday Drink

Yesterday we have been working in the garden for a couple of hours.

Afterwards we treated ourselves :-)

Peel

Abrikozeke

Yesterday we visited the Peelmormels and we went for a long walk in De Groote Peel.
You can read some extra information about this National Park here.

It was a really nice day! We enjoyed the good company and great surroundings!

Spring

Spring has finally arrived!!!

Hope you'll have a nice weekend!

Missing

Everyday or night I think about Sil.

We still talk about him frequently.

We both miss him a lot.

Typing

Two years ago I bought an old typewriter. It's an Olivetti Valentine.

An Italian design classic by Ettore Sottsass from 1969.

Red Mouse

The kenderman caught this bank vole (rosse woelmuis) while we were working in our garden.

He told me to hurry and get my camera.

He released this little fellow at the exact spot where it was caught, our compost heap :-)

Esprit de Mer III

These photo's were taken by the kenderman

Despite the weather we had a great time in De Panne.

On saturday, the day we left, we had some sun and less harsh winds.

In the back of this last photo you can see our bed and breakfast Esprit de Mer.

Finds

I love searching the beach for treasures of nature.

We found some lovely sea shells, urchins, bones and vertebras in De Panne!