Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Easter Day, 4th April 1999
A NEIGHBOUR brings round a wasp's nest, smaller than a golf ball, which he has found while spring cleaning his loft. It was attached to one of the roof timbers.
I pick up a brown spider, from the bathroom floor, a place which has a strange fascination for arachnids. The pattern on its abdomen reminds me a bit of a Christmas tree picked out in mosaic. Its body length is 8 millimetres, its leg span about 2.5 centimetres. Another, smaller, spider dodges into the sink overflow as I try to catch it.
I re-dig the raised bed for the fourth time in a year. There seems to be almost as much Coltsfoot as ever. I fork out quarter of a bucket of rootstock before deciding that what I'd really rather be doing is catching up on my on-line diary. Old fragments of rhizome have sprouted new growth, it looks like stripped out wiring.
A NEIGHBOUR brings round a wasp's nest, smaller than a golf ball, which he has found while spring cleaning his loft. It was attached to one of the roof timbers.
I pick up a brown spider, from the bathroom floor, a place which has a strange fascination for arachnids. The pattern on its abdomen reminds me a bit of a Christmas tree picked out in mosaic. Its body length is 8 millimetres, its leg span about 2.5 centimetres. Another, smaller, spider dodges into the sink overflow as I try to catch it.
I re-dig the raised bed for the fourth time in a year. There seems to be almost as much Coltsfoot as ever. I fork out quarter of a bucket of rootstock before deciding that what I'd really rather be doing is catching up on my on-line diary. Old fragments of rhizome have sprouted new growth, it looks like stripped out wiring.