Amelia's photos

We are away from the computer for 6 days. Enjoy the warm weather and the coming weekend. It's traditional in farming and gadening communities, to plant potatoes at Easter. Shropshire farmers are renowned for their ploughing techniques. The furrows are deep so that the new poatato tubers can be 'earthed up' in order to prevent them from going green if exposed to sunlight

Don't ask me to explain this fence.

SC190 - Post 29 March - Miksang photography

The double avenues of pleached lime trees are a remarkable feature here at Erddig. The trees form a ‘living wall’ and mark the position of the original walled border of the Grade I listed garden, which was later demolished. They burst into bud around April time, a sure sign that warmer days are here. The extensive pleached lime tree avenues are pruned by hand. This ancient art, which dates from Roman times, involves connecting branches together to create a shaded walkway to promenade. It would take one skilled gardener around 10 weeks (about 2 and a half months) to complete the task single-handedly, making around 65,000 cuts – thankfully we have a small team on hand to take on the mammoth challenge! When we were there on the 18th March this year, the gardeners were out in force doing the pruning, along with parties of school children. The weather was glorious. www.ipernity.com/doc/1081863/53277954 This a shot (taken by Herb Riddle) of the same area taken in March this year.

A glorious March day. Parties of school children with their teachers and helpers were busy sketching the Hall, and the gardeners were very busy pruning the avenues of pleached lime trees.

SC189 - Post 22 March - Animals in the wild Well here is today's challenge photo, and who can identify the feert? The toes of coots are not webbed like those of ducks. Instead their toes have distinctive lateral lobes that are indented at each toe segment. One advantage of lobed feet over webbed feet is the ability to run, webbed feet would make doing so more difficult. Coots are very good runners and in fact they run across the surface of the water in order to take off. Webbed feet would hinder that ability.

SC188 - Post 18 March - Dutch Artists en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoes_(Vincent_van_Gogh) As a tribute to Vincent van Gogh, I have chosen to take a photo of my well worn gardening shoes. Once upon a time they were shiny and red, but now they are very faded and scruffed, but comfortable. On the left shoe it's possible to see a black paint splash. This latest addition happened just this past week when I was painting some new trellis. The shoes are placed on the quarry tiles in our kitchen.

Overlooking a viaduct carrying rail traffic, shown here in this photo, and an aquaeduct by the side of it.