Mud and mounds

Now that everything has thawed, going for a walk again involves large quantities of mud on my wellies. The trick is to plough through the mud at the start, try to wipe it off on the grass during the walk, and find a path across grass instead of bare earth back to the drive and thence to the house. Some of the sown grass has bravely started to grow, outside the guest sitting room and in the cut. Soon the roots will be binding together into a matting and hopefully mud will be a thing of the past.

I walked down to the far north-east of the grounds, where the electricity supply comes in overground to a small pylon and plunges underground - hence named (by me) Electricity Corner. A mole, or family, has been busy creating fresh mounds. Some are right next to the tree guards. A quick google tells me that 1) moles do eat tree roots; or 2) moles don't eat tree roots, but may be followed down the tunnels by voles or rats, which do eat tree roots. I had a look in some of the guards, and the trees mostly seem to be twigs at best. But I expect they're OK; one or two had plenteous healthy-looking buds.

The stream is running quite high, possibly with melt-water still draining through the fields, and it is making a pleasing gurgling under the tumble-down bridge. At a distance, some of the smaller trees look as though they are covered in yellow lichen, but close to, it resolves into etiolated mistletoe.