Sunday 12th April 2026 - Can't Beat It Then Eat It and Made My Day

Back today on the subject of Japanese Knotweed.  I have mentioned in the past, this invasive plant is okay for humans to eat as well as certain animals.  In Danni in the Wild’s latest short vlog, she demonstrates a variety of ways knotweed can be eaten and preserved.  I am not advocating we, or local chefs, start climbing the cliffs and harvesting the knotweed.  This is something we mustn’t do, not just because the cliffs can be dangerous but after the Council treated the knotweed, and may do again this year, dangerous toxins, poisons etc. may remain in this area where it’s been growing in profusion.  However, Danni’s vlog certainly gives food for thought (sorry about the pun!).  As with anything growing wild – be absolutely 100% sure of what you pick and eat.

The weather has changed from giving us a taste of summer, back to spring with an accompanying chilly wind.  When rain cut in yesterday morning, I settled for a thoroughly lazy day, mainly spent on the laptop, as well as reading that gardening magazine I don’t gel with.  Not a waste of time, as I learnt a few new things about wild primroses, moving plants, insulating containers and there are over two hundred and fifty different types of bees here in the UK etc. 

By the evening the rain stopped giving way to clear skies.  Sat in the conservatory, until after dark, we watched the stars ‘come out’ but sadly we didn’t see any bats.  We started to ponder, as we’ve done in the past, what it would be like living right out in the sticks with no light pollution and surrounded by nothing more than nature.  It would be amazing to see many more stars, hear owls, have regular visiting hedgehogs and walk out to be in the company of badgers and other animals which emerge in the hours of darkness.  We do have quite a lot of wildlife both in and surrounding the village so I’m not complaining but just contemplating about being immersed in more of the natural world.

Out just after six this morning, we set off through the village for a taster of local wildlife.  Passing the shop, we saw a good part of the brickwork, bordering the information point, has been knocked down.  It surely must have been hit by a vehicle to cause so much damage and no doubt whatever hit it must have sustained a fair few scrapes, dints and dents.  Blue skies, only marred by a chilly gusty wind, making our way up Madams Lane we saw pheasants, red leg partridges and deer in one of the adjacent fields.  Further up a rat shot across the track and once up, on what is termed as the airfield, there were good numbers of skylarks.  These birds are on the red endangered list but on this field, we observed small flocks of almost twenty lifting up from the growing crop.  Skylarks are regulars on this field and judging by the numbers, surviving well during their nesting seasons.  There were plenty of other birds to be seen and heard, some songs I could identify others were outside the scope of my knowledge.  We both have a bird app on our phones but with so many, all singing at once, it would have been impossible to identify each song to a specific bird.  The ‘icing on the cake’ was a solitary hare, at the top of the field, initially hopping before setting of at speed across a ploughed area with its back legs kicking up clouds of dust.  It veered back over to the main field, disappearing into the distance and out of vision.  We know hares run fast (up to 50mph/80kph) but we’ve never seen one sprint across an open area at speed.  I can safely say, it’s made my day.

Today’s photo is of a field edge tree.  The trunk and bare branches showing off its beautiful shape (its skeleton), soon to be masked when the leaves open.