The Old Vicarage

Been ploughing away at the Old Vicarage on the moths and garden. Now up to 977 pan-species for the site and 465 moths, so slowly getting towards the target of 1000 and 500 respectively. 

The moth trap is now being characterised by the autumn grass moths, Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwings, unidentifiable Ermines and the first Setaceous Hebrew Characters and dwindling Footmans, Bird-cherry Ermines, Hawk-moths and Uncertain/Rustics. The diversity is still not too bad with 52 species last night. 

A bit of sad news this week, Harvey the Shetland Pony died and also one of the dogs (an 18 year old Jack Russel) had a visit from the vet who decided the best thing was to put her down so we've lost two members of our domestic large mammal population, now down to six humans, one pony and three dogs. No loss in species though. Bryan mentioned we might get a pig. That will be interesting. 

Common Carpet

Red Twin-spot Carpet

Yarrow Conch 

Agriphila moths- more like selasella (above) and presumably a worn tristella (below) 

I'm checking the pale Footmans for Hoary? 

Impossible Ermines (above and below), the one above could be rorella?

Plenty of food to harvest from the mini-farm. I could literally live off this now (nice to know if ever there was an even more deadly pandemic, although we would need razor wire fencing and guard dogs to fend off the zombie neighbours! :-). Luckily we've got guns in the house as Bryan shoots clays and pheasants so anyone reading this thinking of of raiding us in the next big collapse we've thought of that too lol . Actually on a serious note in this game of insurance adaptation to the ecological and climate emergency personal security and defence is a critical consideration. 

Preservation of food is vital in self-sufficiency. Did a bit of pickle training this weekend. 

If I did actually live off the mini-farm I would probably be a lot healthier! This time of year it's easily possible to be completely self sufficient.  Keeping it up all year is the big challenge- hence the next thing to learn- preservation.  We planted some autumn potatoes this weekend too which should be ready for xmas and its possible to grow onions and garlics through the winter too, so phasing and rotating things so that there is something to harvest most of the year is also critical.