30 Days wild; Day 5 & 6

Day 5

And the birds keep singing and the sun is still shining bright. Alfresco living is the life for me.
A few days ago I rooted out 3 books that I have in my bookshelf on wildlife and plants. One of the books I have had for a very long time since I was in secondary school.(that's a long time ago). So Im attempting to bring a little note of an novis educated in wildlife flavour into the blogs. (well lets see how it goes)

So in search of knowledge about the Dandelion I decided to go and find a dandelion to photograph. I was even quoting a wee bit of shakespere "wherefore art thou" in my desperation to find a dandelion. I found one eventually.  I have always loved the Dandelion flower head, as it overflows with tiny florets of pure yellow. Its such a vesatile plant according to the oldest book I referred to above. Apart from foraging young leaves for salad and have heard of  people making dandelion wine with it, one of the main attributes is that it provides nectar for bees.


                                        




On my wee trip of looking for a  dandelion I noticed how amazing our wall of clematis was so I had to take a photo.           
  

Clematis planted  2 years ago. 

I also wanted to find out more about all the birds  singing about me so I downloaded an app called Tweeter Bird sounds and I'll have to test it and see if its any good.
And to finish off day 5 I reflected the following in my notebook;
' In the cool of the evening I am enjoying sitting outside and taking in the fresh air. My thoughts being; What does it take for us to stop and smell the flowers? For me to really appreciate these things a chronic illness slows me down considerably. People have described activities on 30 days wild about appreciating the small things. But lets turn it on its head and say nature and the wild are the big things and must not be missed by our busyness, as we rush from day to day.' What do you think?

Day 6

I'm attempting with the use of an app to recognise the calls and songs of the birds around me. It will be a slow process but so far my son and I've recognised the Chaffinch.
My hubby plants herbs all over the place so it was a nice surprise to come across a dill plant in the back garden. I just love the smell of dill and its just so nice with new potatoes and butter.

 In search for wild plants I took a photo of some wild grasses that I loved when I was in primary school. We used to play a game called Soldiers, and the winner was the

one with the head still on the stalk. Well today we learned the proper name for this is 'Ribwort Plantain'. According to my old book 'wildflowers' by Octopus its says; 'it used to added to clover to prevent flatulence in cattle .' Now theres an interesting fact for ye! lol. Also the juice from its leaves ' was applied to wounds to promote rapid healing'.

Finally to finish day 6 I came across the purple flower below and so far I have identified as Vetch either tufted or common. its just a beautiful wild flower.