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Pixie capers
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Pixie capers




Category: Miscellaneous | Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:32 am

I could be forgiven for thinking I have pixies in the garden. Or maybe I have. This is now turning into something of a local mystery, and I'm already considering opening up as a tourist attraction (but I don't think the council would welcome it).
Let me explain.
It's a mystery that's been going on for some time now, and to the unobservant eye it would be missed entirely - pixies are so subtle in their pranks. I have a fair amount of paving slabs in the garden, and in many places this is edged neatly with gravel laid on antiweed material.
Just in front of the conservatory is such a situation. A slab path with a narrow border of gravel next to the conservatory wall. I started to notice that where two slabs don't quite sit squarely, but not far out enough to be noticeable, gravel begins to accumulate in a small pile. I brush this back onto the gravel verge with a shoe to neaten up again, and the next morning...it's back again. A neat pile of gravel. This has continued for many weeks now, and always in the same place.
And where does the gravel come from? Well it doesn't come up from between the crack, it comes from two equally neat depressions in the verge gravel, next to the slabs.
I've walked up and down the path to see if any human weight and movement causes this deposit, and it doesn't. I've considered rainwater dropping down from the conservatory guttering and displacing the gravel, but it still happens rain or shine.There are no creatures in the garden that would systematically choose that few square inches of gravel to make two small excavations and place it neatly in the same spot each night whilst I'm in bed.
I can only conclude that pixies are fooling with me.

AFTER TIDYING UP:


BUT THE NEXT MORNING, IT'S BACK AGAIN!:


These photos were taken at the same time as, after it's been tidied up, it looks much the same as it would any other day. The gravel has now been left as in the top photo. Tomorrow morning, assuming there'll be another wee pile there, I'll take another photo.


Last edited: Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:38 am

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Comments

 

Netty wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:58 am:


Sure sounds like the work of Pixies! Good luck with your mystery!




 

toni wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:43 pm:


Since Devon does seem to have an unusually high concentration of Pixies it looks like there are a few having a good time in your garden.

Have you left them a gift or some food/milk to keep them happy? They might even start helping you with chores then.




 

dooley wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:00 pm:


Are you sure it's pixies and not one of Frank's relatives? dooley




 

glendann wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:40 pm:


Ummmmm you do have a mystery
on you hands.Could an insect or frog do this?




 

SongofJoy57 wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:27 pm:


LOL . . . it is definitely the work of pixies, I'm afraid . . . or something else as equally mysterious.




 

Droopy wrote on Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:16 pm:


That pile is meant to be just so. By whom I won't guess. What happens if you stop straightening it, I wonder?




 

Palm Tree wrote on Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:54 pm:


Mysterious indeed - maybe the pixies get a little help from either a four-legged or many-legged pal.





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