mrbadexample

I didn't know there were grey foxes. Are you sure you're not thinking of squirrels?

Got two under the long back fence and they can get under the gate at the front.

I may never get hedgehogs in the garden, but it won't be because I haven't tried.

I buried it in leaf litter that promptly blew into the pond to nourish the blanketweed.

If I made another one I'd put a dogleg in. Not that it was much fun to make - It was the biggest stump I had - it's about 10" deep and took a fair bit of effort to hollow out, even starting with a chainsaw. How big is a small entrance? I think mine's about right but it's been so long since I've seen a hedgehog it's hard to be sure. That's about 3" high.

Don't think I've ever seen a thrush round here. Used to see them all the time growing up in Kent.

I've built them a house up by the pond - if they come I'd be delighted.

I couldn't be doing with all that grass. To my mind the purpose of a garden is to save me having to go to Sainsbury's to buy carrots. And to have tomatoes with flavour. And gooseberries for pie. I like a bit of wildlife and if it pollinates my vegetables or eats slugs, so much the better.

Only the third year so had to go easy on it - we had about 8 spears. Next year should be good though. I lost 2 of the 8 crowns I planted so I need to get some replacements, and I've found few asparagus beetle in the last couple of days.

I need to have a tidy but I've just picked up a load of firewood that needs cutting up. That's it - warts and all. It's probably obvious that if I can make it, repurpose it or scrounge it, I don't pay for it.

The bags waiting to go to the tip are stones I riddled from two raised beds earlier in the year. New builds are a pain - it's like trying to grow vegetables in a box of rocks.

I want to attract more wildlife but the cats kill everything.

It's really difficult to introduce some height and cover for birds without trees and shrubs.

Welcome bit of rain this morning.

This is the earliest one I can find of the front - we'd just poked a few bulbs in. I'll take a few tomorrow to compare how it is now.

The strawberry trough etc we brought from my old house, there was nothing here at all except grass, stone and tarmac.

It was pretty sterile:

Our garden doesn't have the maturity of most of yours, and it has a few challenges. This Google Earth shot shows it before we moved in in March 2017 - it was owned by a builder who stored a lot of his stuff there but wasn't interested in the garden. It's a new build and at the end of the plot so the garden is much bigger than the neighbours' but at a price - there are drains and water storage tanks under parts of it where we can't plant trees or shrubs in case of root damage. I have a "protected strip" 3m wide running right through it from front to back.

You're the one hoarding the rice then? I had to make do with herbs.

What've you got, a price guide by Parker's?

I can see the base of the cuirasse and the 9 of the date. But opposite there, between the IUS of GEORGIUS and the bust, are marks I can't reconcile with the 8R. Similarly under the T of GRATIA.

When I first saw the marks I thought it was the undertype but they didn't seem right to me, I couldn't see the design. Could it have been overstruck more than once?

It is if you don't look too closely.

Me too. Made a bird table yesterday from stuff I had in the garage.

Oh, don't worry, I wrote that when I was in one of my good moods.