We all know the joy that small things give us. And I don’t mean the pleasure of, for instance, a grand-daughter, though ours does indeed give us no end of delights. No, I mean the little things in life that sometimes merely cheer us up by their very unexpectedness.
Our walnut tree here at The Long House has given us one of those moments of idiosyncratic pleasure: it is, for the first time and against all expectations, bearing nuts. At least eleven of them. And here’s the tree and here’s the proof:
Our teenage tree has finally produced some nuts. Let’s hope that doesn’t lead to other problems. We all know what teenagers can catch through their derry-do’s. By happy chance, Bob and Bob appeared a couple of days ago to see if they could add to their plethora of aphids so I introduced them to the walnut tree.
To their delight, and to prove that indeed little things mean a lot (to some people anyway) they found Mrs Chromaphis Juglandicola and her family of small walnut aphids residing on the underside of one of the leaves. Better still, first Bob spotted a ladybird lava eating one of them and then some large walnut aphids - Panaphis Juglandis - on another leaf. Joy unconfined for Bob and Bob but happily no serious diseases for our teenage tree.
Elsewhere in the garden, above our heads as we sat by the greenhouse, we watched two pigeons hopefully embarking on, probably, their fourth or fifth family of the year. As they and their offspring are no friends of us gardeners I’m afraid they’ll need, in the words of the song, a shoulder to cry on. I’ll say no more.
