Ash and Black Bryony

The afternoon was warm and sunny after the terrific rain storms the south-west has suffered. Much serious flooding in Cornwall.

Walking down the lane I was admiring the swathes of Black Bryony berries hanging in the hedges but decided this was more interesting. Here they are growing up some shoots of of an Ash tree that had been clipped into the hedge and had started sending out spindley new growth. Black Bryony (Tamus communis) is extremely poisonous while the Ash timber is very useful as it has flexibility and is good for making all sorts of items such as walking sticks, crates, oars, handles, etc, and in the old days it was valuable for carriage building.

The calves got out again at crack of dawn but luckily we were able to drive them back into their yard withou much difficulty. We always know when there is something afoot as the cows start bellowing and wake us up!