18/11/08 Latest
18/11/08 Large red poppies small yellow poppies in flower, the occasional butterfly and bumblebees strange weather!
30/11/08 Daffodils in flower, the earliest in 35 years since living at Rogeston!
15/1/09 Very wet today, hens look very sad we keep telling them to go in to their house.
18/1/09 Snowdrops opening in the sparse sun - look superb.
19/1/09 Two Mallard ducks circled over the fields on our early morning walk - perhaps looking for a nest site.
22/1/09 Repaired one of the willow gates today, it looks much better.
3/2/9 Fall of snow today so we planted our tomato seed, to remind us that spring is not far away.
27/2/09 The last few days have been warm, so the birds are very active - while having breakfast we watched two Goldfinch feeding off the Teasels in our small walled garden, later on while walking the dogs on the farm trail Lettece came face to face with a Cock Pheasant, not sure who was more suprised, though Lettece soon remembered she is a hound and gave chase, the pheasant made a lot of noise but escaped. Then, a Raven flew over closely followed by two Canada Geese all three were quite vocal.
31/3/09 The first rose is just opening its buds in Stables cottage garden, I think it will need a few more days of sunshine before it is fully open
2/4/09 Bluebells in flower!
6/4/09 First Swallow this evening - spring is here?
21/4/09 First Cuckoo we have heard at Rogeston for two years!
27/5/09 Sad day, Mary one of our Indian Runner ducks has disappeared, we suspect a fox!
30/5/09 Hundreds maybe thousands of Painted Lady butterflies flying low but heading south a marvelous sight, some stopped of for a drink of nectar on our flowers.
31/5/09 Many more Painted Lady butterflies than we thought have stopped of at Rogeston, when we walk past the plants in flower, clouds of butterflies (20 or 30) circle round us.
1/6/09 Just before dark, we were walking the dogs in our far field (the Moor) when about 20yards away from us were two young badgers snuffling about in the long grass, Lettece suddenly found their scent and chased them off. In our top field (the Green) we found the first of this years Orchids in flower, we counted twenty in 2008, we hope for more this year.
2/6/9 Another sad day, Jones the last of our ducks was taken by a fox this morning, the vet was attending to a sick cow in our neighbours field, not twenty yards away but this is a very persistent fox.
15/6/9 In a few weeks time the television service is going digital in Wales so we have put small new sets in all our cottages - lots and lots of programmes!
Elderberry cottage, Heather cottage and Little Rogeston cottage all now sleep two people per cottage.