Easter Time..

All around, the hedgerows and gardens are full of colour, spring has definitely arrived. We heard the first Cuckoo last weekend and yesterday the Swallows arrived.

In the woodlands Bluebells

and Wood Anemones are in flower, the perfume from the bluebells is wonderful. The wild Garlic is also well up,  but no flowers as yet. We had a drive out to Forest Park and then onto Derreen woods to see and smell spring time.

Close to Derreen woods someone is farming Llamas, they look to be doing very well and are definitely looking very woolly, last year we saw them just after they had had their babies, maybe next time we go that way we will once again see their young. Most of the local farms have now finished lambing, it's lovely to watch the lambs playing chase and 'King of the Castle'. Our wild birds are not so interested in the food we leave out for them, they are too busy making nests.

All the  Blackthorn hedgerows are now covered in white, they look as though someone has covered them with lace, they look beautiful.
Everything in the garden is growing well, including the weeds,

we've had our first picking of Asparagus. If the fruit blossom all set we will have a bumper crop of  fruit this year,

the Lough Key crap apples have lots of flowers as well as the  Victoria plum trees,  the apples also have a lot of buds.

At last, one of our two Damson trees has bloom, first time in five years, I had severely pruned one of them, threatening it with the  chain saw, but it's the other one that has the flowers.
 Both of the peach trees have set lots of fruit, however the Apricot tree has not, despite having been well hand pollinated, the friend that gave us this tree also failed to get fruit to set.

The lemon is  full of bloom, again something that has to be hand pollinated although we do leave the porch door open in the hope that a bee might arrive and do the job for us, the perfume from the lemon is lovely.
 Even the Blueberries have lots of flowers this year. Unless we get a late hard frost we should have lots of fruit to carry us through the year. Vegetable seed sowing continues, the propagator and greenhouse is full of seed trays and modules, there's always something that needs doing at this time of year.
We still have lots of daffodils but the tulips are now taking their place for colour.

My last pottery project turned out well, I had ordered a special glaze for it and I'm very pleased with the outcome,

I have now started another one to make a matching pair, but it will be several weeks before it's ready as Jacki my teacher only fires when she has a complete kiln full, I will just have to be patient.

Being Easter we once again made a dozen Hot Cross buns, unfortunately they didn't last , we ate them all in two days, maybe we will make some more, they were delicious.
Finally, colour overload, some of our Tulips.

Sunny days.

The weather has been brilliant the last week, very warm and sunny, it feels like summer rather than spring. We saw the first swallows yesterday but so far no sound of the cuckoo. Everything is growing so fast in the garden you can almost see the plants emerging. Easter was spent mainly in the garden, the main crop potatoes are now planted, the first earlies are well up and have had their first earthing up,

First asparagus shoots.

even the asparagus has pushed it's first shoots up. Sunday we went to a plant swap, exchanging two types of seed potatoes, spare strawberry plants and  sweet pea plants for  more snowdrops, 'now in the green', Verbascum (mullein) and a twisted willow tree. It was a well attended event, with lots of like minded people there.

Over the weekend I found time to make our hot cross buns

and scotch eggs,

they made a very nice evening meal served with purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus, not ours I'm afraid, that will be a couple more weeks before it's ready.
Most of this seasons seeds are now planted, either in the garden or in modules for the more tender things, ready to plant out when there is no longer danger of frost.

Daffodils.

The flower gardens are looking very colourful now with most of the spring bulbs blooming, it wont be long before the first  summer flowers appear, they all seen to have survived the winter. A few more photos of the spring flowers.

A very pretty bulb but I can't remember it's name.

A special dwarf tulip. it's highly perfumed.

Toad lily, it's beautiful and has a wonderful scent.

Tete a Tete.

 

Fritillary's in bloom.

More daffodils.

Hellebores and blue anemones.

Yet more perfume.

A blue version of the bulb I can't remember the name of.

Just coming into bloom.

Our eldest and youngest, Freddy the kitten on top, Tommy being sat upon, he's twelve.

Part of the rockery.

Easter Traditions.

Hot Cross buns have long been associated with Easter and adopted by the Christian religion many century's ago but they date back far further than Christianity. Easter is named after a Pagan goddess Eostre, the goddess of light, gifts of small buns were offered to her, each one had a cross marked on it symbolising the four quarters of the moon. However, does it really matter how or from when they originated?

Hot and steaming.

They are delicious and very easy to make, eaten warm with lashings of butter, yum!!
The last week has flown by, we had friends from Spain staying for a few days, far too few, they are great company and very interesting people, the house seems very empty without them. They are both teachers of English in Spain and are now on their last term before doing the summer schools and then heading for South America for nine months, it might be over a year before we see them again which is a shame as they are such good company. We will look forward to the next instalment of their adventurous life, and will look forward to their next visit.

While they were with us we managed a trip to the Mayo coast, we had hoped to show them the Ceide Fields near Ballycastle, but unfortunately by the time we had stopped off for a cup of coffee and a picnic on the coast we were too late for them to see the Ceide fields.

Beautiful colours in the rock face.

This is the oldest known field system in the world, dating back 5.5 thousand years, under the peat bog they have discovered field walls, house and tombs. A truly wonderful Neolithic land scape.

                                      The nearby  cliffs are truly spectacular,

It's a long way down.

                  and high, not for me I'm afraid, I will enjoy them from the road side.
The garden keeps on giving, so much rhubarb and now purple sprouting broccoli,  curly kale, we still have plenty of carrots and parsnip also celery. The very early potatoes are growing well, these are in bags, Ratte, kindly donated by a friend. the earlies in the garden are  now through, but no sign of the Sarpo yet, this was our own seed saved from last year, and we still have plenty in store, hopefully they will last until the  earlies are ready. It will be touch and go on the onions though but we might last out until the new crop is ready. The tomato plants are looking good and are now needing to be planted in their  summer space, we hope for a good crop. Meanwhile seeds keep growing, and that includes the weeds, always something to be done when you grow your own.