garlicky garden with ducks

We had lots of rain over Easter weekend that turned the garden into a temping slick of slidy mud. Everything seemed a bit forlorn, despite gaudy coloured eggs being rolled downhill, smashed and then foiled ones found and eaten.



But then today, yesterday (tomorrow?) was magically like this:







I much prefer the bare legs of today. Just glorious. There is no where on earth I'd rather be on a day like this than in my garden with my children.





The seedlings seem to like both sorts of weather tho, so we must suffer the rain cheerfully on their part and everything starts to shoot up to show us it's a good thing.





We have a pair of ducks, mating and picking their nesting spot right under our nose (or bridge). This is the only time of year we ever see ducks on our stream so it's pretty special. Every year this pair (we think it's the same pair, I mean how can we tell) come back to this same spot and then weeks later their chicks are led away at the crack of dawn one fair morning as we all slumber. Now it's mild I can sleep with my window open and I hear them up early quacking. With the cockerel crowing and the woodpeckers chipping away it's hard not to to be woken early here (or with the perpetually early rising two year old latched to my breast around the clock, it could be that too), we live in the land of birds (we have a pair of majestically cawing buzzards up in a tree right now too).





You need socks off to look at ducks properly.









The boys and a girl helper get busy making fires and dens. Fires and dens are the highlight of warm weather. Isaac is a total pyromaniac, always has been. But is careful and in control (he likes to tell me). He's used matches since he first spotted them, both boys are pretty fire savvy. As for Esmé... well, she wants to be, but generally ends up sitting with smoke blowing in her eyes and crying about it. She moves... and then the smoke follws her.... The boys insist that chanting 'white rabbit' three times changes the direction of smoke in your favour so it's all I hear.





(note Esmé and her big girl pants; she's so proud of them they must be on show whenever possible)

I am yumming up the spring goodies coming my way.





Isaac doing the honours and collecting the wild garlic. Every inch of land in our dank damp stream area is just carpeted with the green jewels of wild garlic, it's so magical. My favourite style of eating them this week is this: leeks and sweet potatoes and red lentils simmered in stock and coconut oil to a nice squish, the wild garlic and crushed bulb garlic added at the very end. Divine mush to spoon up or spread later, cold, on crackers.