more flora and fauna a very beautiful pair of grey mares have arrived in a finca just above mine – this girl is very friendly. no-one does anything about the flies here in Spain – at home you hardly see a horse outside without fly sheet, face mask, tail guard, neck protection ….. in fact here a lot of horses are put outside with no shelter and hogged manes and tails cut just short of the bone. not kind. the giant thapsias are all in flower now  – stupendous things the bees like them too. they make great dried arrangements indoors … these pretty variegated thistles are coming into flower now small-tongue orchids in a wet spot I need to ask an expert what this is, it’s not in my new book Common Wildflowers of Spain. easy one, white campion wild gladioli, growing in rocky places on the fincas below mine a Spanish something-or-other butterfly – I can’t look it up as it appears someone has made off with my butterfly book. ah, a Spanish Festoon. complaining bitterly this year that someone stole the Iberian peninsular flora reference book, and the butterfly and moth book from my house. I won’t be leaving them out for house renters any more, I’m sad to say. a few people are so selfish. my gate all flowery more flowers – corn marigold, vipers bugloss, camomile ….. this little person is rather special, she’s a baby mule, a yearling by the look of her mostly hiding behind mama. they were straying on the camino … talking to another horse which poor thing, is hobbled permanently. peace and quiet amongst the rocks and flowers, listening to turtle doves purring, hoopoes hoopoeing, bee-eaters clanging, nightingales chanting, blackbirds just like at home, and crickets ringing. Post navigation more testingmore extremadura colours Leave a ReplyCancel reply This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.