Pond pics for Jennifer

Difficult to photograph tadpoles without fishing them out of the pond but think you can see them here. The lighter bits are the jelly and the black is the recently hatched tadpoles.

Two views of the pond

First the bad news

About three quarters of the frogspawn in my garden pond died due to the pond freezing over shortly after spawning.

The good news is that the remaining portion has hatched and has lots of extra jelly to consume now. Maybe that will give them a better chance of surviving and becoming frogs.

Another piece of good news is that my pond is now the residence of a little newt too. I spotted it swimming around yesterday.

Jonquils

I have recently learned that Jonquil is another name for daffodil. You learn something new every day. Don't think it would have sounded quite the same in Wordsworth's poem.

Here are the different jonquils in my garden.

This large one is all yellow.


This small one has 2 flowers on one stalk. Often has more.

This is a double one with lots of petals and no obvious trumpet.

This one is very pale with darker short trumpet

This one has a darker almost orange trumpet.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

Today is St David's Day. St David is the patron saint of Wales. Stuart was dressed in his Welsh sweater and wearing a leek. The leek and daffodil are both national emblems and Stuart tells me that boys wear leeks and girls wear daffodils!

We made welsh cakes today.

Chinese New Year

Last Thursday Stuart and I made a chinese dragon and a lantern ready for the Chinese New Year on Friday. We also read the story of how the years were named by the Jade Emperor.

Spring already?

How Useful!

Many families in Kashmir still keep a buffalo to provide them with milk. From this milk they make butter, cheese and yoghurt. What they don't use they trade with neighbours for products they don't grow or make themselves. This isn't as common as it used to be as many families have some income from other sources now and prefer to buy from the shops.

Nothing is wasted. Waste products from the buffalo adorn many houses. Maybe this should have come under the heading of "Art". Once dry these are used as fuel to heat the houses and for cooking.