
inside the Secret Garden
The caretakers of the secret garden have an interesting hobby. The garden, which is a couple of acres, has many…I’ll call them…critter cams. They’re infrared, motion detecting cameras, set up near areas like, bird boxes, nests, bunny haunts and badger dens. They have made their garden extremely wildlife friendly- going to extremes such as building hay bale habitats for badgers and bringing them left-over bread from restaurants every day, to filling the countless bird feeders and birdbath every day with fresh food and water! All the cameras connect to a computer in the summer house where one could sit and watch video of last night’s badger bread raid or the blue bird sitting on her eggs inside her private (so she thinks!) bird box, if one was so inclined. It’s like a super high-tech security system, but for critters. It’s a little quirky (stalker!), but incredibly fun and addicting. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the eggs hatched!

gnarly apple trees
These old apple tree were overgrown with bramble bushes for so many years that the branches grew very long, with not much strength (being held up by the brambles). When they were cleared, and some of the branches just flopped to the ground, the gardeners couldn’t bear to prune away the interesting shape of the old trees. Notice the forked branches being used as stakes to hold up the long branches. These trees had swelling flower buds all over them and I was sad to miss the glory of their bloom.

hugging trees
This last image was taken in the evening, as the sun was going down, casting it’s last light on these two trees that grew together, looking like lovers. Someday, oh someday, I will have a secret garden of my own!