Pond Tidy Day.

I had planned to give myself a day off today but the sun shone and the garden called.....

The forecast was for rain but apart from a few very brief showers it was hot and dry all day long. I managed to cut back the alchemilla around the pond, weed the path and weed all the pond planting. I didn't have time to do much weeding before my friends' visit so if you're reading this girls, this is how the pond should have looked. I'm sure that if I kept everything really tidy all the time I wouldn't have so much wildlife in the garden but it is good to be able to walk on the path. While I was weeding I uncovered a Great Diving Beetle, bright green and about 2" long. Apparently it is a ferocious predator and it is the first time I have seen one in the pond. I wonder how it got there as the pond is fed by water which drains naturally through the hillside. Did it walk from one of the nearby streams or the lake or was the egg carried on the foot of a visiting bird?

Fred the builder was plastering the last walls in the kitchen and the hall so it was good that I was able to keep out of his way and let him work in peace. It was from Fred that we got Speedy and he told me today that when they first found him he was half starved and couldn't walk properly with his back legs, maybe due to being kicked. He can certainly move fast now and is living up to his name. This morning Jack came visiting with Fred the Dalmatian dog (confusing I know). Fred leapt towards Speedy, Speedy hissed and they both ran away in opposite directions. Speedy returned in a while but neither would get too close. Jack is a font of tall stories and today as we weeded the vegetable patch he told me of a bean plant that he had grown. It grew so big that his Dad had to dig it up and plant it in the middle of the field! He's thinking of growing some potatoes but first he'll have to get one of those machines that digs the potatoes up.

Elora, did you ever identify the creature making those little soil mounds? I have similar mounds in a lawn and today as I was about to mow over them again, I saw something going down the holes. Zooming in with the camera is a great way to identify creatures.

My wildlife book tells me that it is a Field Digger Wasp and that it stores flies in the holes for its larvae to feed on. My mystery solved at least.