From Jean Stowe, 5th April 2008
The village is looking very pretty at present - in the field daffodils, primroses and cowslips are in flower, and marsh marigold is in bud. The first grasses are flowering, and earlier this week I saw the first buttercup. Along the boatee the snowdrops are over, but a few clumps of bluebells are looking promising. They are from two different sources, both are true English bluebells. I hope they will flower. The grass verge on the right which we re-seeded has quite a large population of cowslips. They either came in with the grass seed, or were dormant in the ground and have germinated. Gill Edwards has pointed out that all the sett violets along the boatee are white - last year they were blue. The same has happened in my own garden. This afternoon Annie and I sowed meadow grass seed on the remaining section of verge and planted some cowslips which I gleaned from the John Clare Cottage at Helpston. We've seen a sparrowhawk in the field behind us.

From Jean Stowe, 30th June 2008
Since David started a nature diary for the West Deeping website we've had two unusual sightings in our garden in The Lane. The first was about a month ago - I put some porridge oats out for the birds, and look what found them. A long-tailed field mouse or wood mouse. I think these must be responsible for many holes we find in the garden, though it's the first time we've seen one.


My second interesting sighting was found in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Fortunately although it looks fierce, it was upside down on its back and didn't move around alarmingly.
This has been confirmed by the RHS Entomologist as a Lesser Stage Beetle. He reckoned it could come into the house with wood, or fly through a window.