HAIR TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW

And I am going cu-cu?
Can't shift manure at the moment - just tweaked my back pushing human hair down mole holes. (Trying to turn the compost did not help much either.)

Why the title - don't know really - time for a pome reflecting on the glorious summer of 2012 :-

WHAT SUMMER?

Summer is a-going out,

loud sang no cuckoo,

strewn - no seed, no sweet

mead brewed, leaves fall,

water springs anew

through our sodden wood.

It rains, it rains 

again, rindle drips collide,

pipes gather shadows,

throw down torrents,

besprent the yard. 

The garden weeps for the sun.

Three amelanchiers are dead

drenched by the flooding rill,

mildew’s white hyphae 

blight the meadowsweet.

We dream of drought

now summer is a-going out.

This has so much internal rhyme it would make the compost heap turn itself.

Actually line two is a lie - I did hear a cuckoo here once last spring.

The garden does have colour in early February - apart from snowdrops and so on - is white a colour?

Most of it is in leaves but the hamamelis (we have an orange one) is flowering and spreading scent, shoots are appearing everywhere and the grass is greening.

At this rate, ground permitting, I will be mowing by March and the beds will not all be manured (because of my back).

I am now finding out where I planted daffodils in the autumn for, as usual, I have neither kept a record nor labelled them.

There are lots coming up by the far dry-stone wall and along the willow tunnel - shown above.

Unfortunately the sides of the tunnel have also sprouted a plethora of mole mountains - hair to the rescue.

The ranunculus in the old earthenware sink is sprouting and tulips are pushing up through the yellow pansies in the pots.

I do not think I have seen so many tiny figs on the bush as this spring - we need a good summer up here though to stand any change of figs stuffed with cream cheese and cooked - Yum!

Until today I had not seen Mr Phez (cock pheasant) around but he is back - the ladies must be looking attractive again. He is prowling by the rough shrubbery at the top of the garden where they nest every year.

So, I will have to keep a watch on the moles and hope that 'hair today, gone tomorrow' actually happens.

Hot bath or watch the Rugby.

Could I record the Rugby and have an early bath?

Why not!