Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

9th~12th November 2025

Between the 9th and 12th, I set the action camera up by the bird table and pond to catch some daytime visitors. I had some new feed, so set out three different piles to see which birds went for what food.



In addition to the usual pigeons and magpies, there were a number of smaller birds, including Robins, Dunnocks, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Chaffinch, Tree Sparrows and a Ring Necked Dove. The pond saw very few visitors on the 12th.

 

16th November 2025

Late on Sunday afternoon, I spent a hour freezing in the wood with my DSLR camera. I wanted to see if the birds would come down to the watering hole with me sitting fairly close by ( around 7 to 10 feet away ). Some did and the Blackbird spent at least 20 minutes there. Photographs from my Nikon D3200 with the Tamron 70~300mm zoom lens. Two and a half hours after coming indoors, I was still freezing!

 

19th November 2025

Over night from the 18th into the 19th, it snowed. The wind was coming from the North West, coating everything facing right in snow, while a patch of the lawn next to the wood, remained clear. Despite the freezing cold, bitter cold and falling snow, "Jelly Bean" the wild rabbit, was happily munching away on dandelions on the clear patch of lawn. He or she is virtually a daily visitor to the lawn, often being caught on the trailcam when passing through the wood.



Inside the woodland wasn't as snow covered, with the trees and shrubs sheltering the ground to some degree. In the open area near the top entrance, there was slightly more snow cover, but a couple of the Cyclamen were still in flower and providing a splash of colour.

Of course, the snow stopped all trains down at the railway! There's not much going on down there in the winter. Last year, we had some Cyclamen in there, but this year, most things are dormant. There's a few weeds in there, so the whole area needs a good weed and dig over in the Spring.

 

Inside the wood, near the pond, there was a light scattering of snow, allowing Jelly Bean to show up much more clearly. The trailcam was fairly quiet over the first two weeks of November, but then went crazy in the second two weeks. In all, it captured around three hours of video in one minute clips, from the 1st to the 30th.

A surprise on the camera in late November was the return of a mouse to Pinetree Wood. I think the last time we saw mice was April, then they suddenly vanished. I think the foxes may have had something to do with that!

Also a surprise in early December was to catch two foxes together on the camera. I think these are two of the grown up cubs. The mother's fur looked a low more tatty than these two. Originally, there were three cubs, but I think one was run over at the bottom of the village.



22nd November 2025

The Cyclamen and Campanula are hanging on in there in the grey planters. This is a temporary home for them until the stream is built and they get planted along its edge.

I did notice some bulbs coming up too. These are probably the crocuses, as we planted a few crocus and daffodil bulbs in there too. I am surprised to see them so early and didn't expect to see them appear until next year.

 

Gosh, snow already! Please keep it up your way!

Lovely pics of all the birds, not sure I would brave the cold though.

We have had a sparrow hawk visiting almost daily who's trying its best to snaffle our small songbirds at the bird feeders near the magnolia. It's very adept at swooping at high speed thro the branches without hitting itself, goodness knows how it manages that. It looks like he got a pigeon on Thursday, judging from the feathers scattered all over the lawn.

 

The bottom of the wood is looking a lot more open now, as most of the plants down there drop their leaves for the winter.

Another surprise is a workshop Lupin. I tried to grow some from seed, earlier in the year, one of which survived and went into the railway. Most didn't grow and a few others died. I hadn't cleaned out the pots and by the end of September, noticed a little shoot in one of the unwatered pots. It kept on growing and is looking fairly respectable now in the beginning of December.



6th December 2025

The ongoing lounge decorating is plodding on, with much of the decorating involving Blue Circle cement, as it was in the bedroom! However, yesterday and today, we got the first two undercoats on the window and sofa walls. This paint is just to give an even colour to help identify the areas that now need fine surface filler to smooth out all the imperfections from the chain-drilling, gluing and filling of all the cracks. Just these two coats have shown my just how much the surface of the wall has been improved by all the work.

The aim is to get these two walls finished in their final coats before Christmas, so the sofa and TV unit can to back and allow the Christmas tree to be put up at the right end of the sofa by the door. This needs to be done for the annual Christmas stocking picture, where since 2009 when my daughter was born, we've stuffed her into a tiny Christmas stocking for a photo that has become an annual tradition.

Once Christmas is out of the way, there'll be more furniture moving as I work my way around the other walls of the lounge, dining room, breakfast bar and kitchen.