Colours, Crabapples, Currawongs & a Cat!

The colours of the Persian Witch-hazel are utterly brilliant this year - so vivid as to be almost unbelievable.
This tree currently has pride of place with its autumn display in the front garden now that the English Elm has lost just about all her leaves.

Immediately outside one of the front windows (and 90 degrees from the window that displays the Persian Witch-hazel) is our sole Crabapple tree.
Two years ago I harvested the fruit and made Crabapple jelly - six full buckets of Crabapples gave me less than a dozen small jars (250 -300 grams) of the jelly.
The process was so tedious that last year and again this autumn I decided to let the birds have their fill, so we've seen King Parrots, Cockatoos and Currawongs make the most of the crop.

The Currawongs are the keenest.
They come down - usually in groups of 8 or 10 - and go for the fruit that has fallen onto the ground.
They swallow them whole and must have nitric acid in their stomachs in order to digest them!
They are as tart as a bushel of unripe lemons and if you pluck a ripe one (all red) and nibble it then you'll end up with grimace to end all grimaces.

 

Maybe next year I'll be masochistic enough to have another go at the Crabapple jelly but in the meantime the birds can have their way with them.

I mentioned the Cockatoos.
Here are three of them going for the parrot food that my wife puts out each day.
She doesn't like the cockies getting to it - she makes it available for the King Parrots but you can't stand out there shooing the cockies away.

Rosie, our 18-month old cat, has found a lovely sunny spot on these crisp, clear autumn mornings.
For about an hour she wedges herself into the gap between the side window at the front door and the indoor pot-plant basket and soaks up the rays!
When the sun moves away, so does she - off to another window to follow the warmth down the northern side of the house.

Autumn is nearly over



It is now the start of the last month of what has been a very dry Autumn for 2013.
But the colours of the deciduous trees and shrubs in our garden have been magnificent this year and this past week the English Elm has finally decided that enough is enough and over a three-day period she has dropped most of her leaves.

I did a quick (2 minute) video on May 1st., which you can view here or, if you click on the You Tube in the bottom right-hand corner, you can view in a larger format on You Tube's page.