Early Signs of Life

                                                                     Foxes in the garden

I am amazed at the amount of life in the garden in February. Here are some of the fully-out flowers, but there are plenty of others, on the brink of flowering. The hellebores are well out now. I have had a double white one for years which is always the first to flower and plenty of pale and dark red ones. They really brighten the garden in the cold wet days of February. 

Double white hellebore, that I have had for at least six years

                                                                       

                                                                Two hellebores, white and red

There are a few spring cyclamen in the garden, not as many as the autumn ones, but they are beginning to increase. 

Cyclamen coum

There are the crocuses under the apple tree. When I first came to this garden over 30 years ago, the early ones were pale, but they have now been joined by offspring of the dark purple ones I planted elsewhere and they come out in early February and last for a couple of months.

The early crocuses under the apple tree

There are two foxes in the garden at present. They are very loving and I suspect they have cubs in one of the nearby gardens. I have to keep an eye out everyday, to make sure they don't start a home in my garden. I am really pleased they like my garden so much, in spite of the damage they sometimes cause, and I much prefer them to cats but I don't want them making their home here.

Those foxes again, I am sure they are waiting to be parents

I read a very interesting book by an economic anthropologist called Jason Hickel, originally from Eswatini (Swaziland). It is called Less is More - How Degrowth will Save the World. If anybody listens. We have a way of not listening at the moment but this does seem to offer some good ideas and it is very readably written.   It starts with the problems and then offers some solutions.