SQUIRRELS IN BUTTERCUP JUNE

R was up about 5 with Cawthwaite.com going around and around in her cranium. She made tea. I woke and, as usual, went to the window - rabbit on lawn ten feet from Mrs Pheasant and her last chick. It is a poor brood this year but she always seem to lose a few.
Bed, book, tea then R calls to me. She is at the window and now two grey squirrels are inch-worming their way along the path, synchronised moving, wooing I suppose.

The sky is all Turkey Lurkey and wet. Then the sun comes out down the valley and all is golden fields. I have never seen buttercups as good as they are this year. They are everywhere in abundance (including the flower beds). I wonder, is it the long cold spring or the long wet autumn and winter that has produced this show.

We have had two to three weeks of lovely weather (about time too) and then light in the garden, especially the woodland has been amazing. The first picture is the lower garden between the stream and the willow avenue.

In the upper garden the azaleas have been spreading their wonderful scent making it a pleasure to walk there, though, not now as the rain has caused then lush growth to flop over the paths causing wet trouser bottom moments.

The forget-me-nots are all but over and will need removing. They will not be composted but chucked up in the wood to seed themselves.
There have been white fly on the roses but the change in the weather to wet will deal with that.

Down in the veg beds we have lost all the squashes - slugs, mice perhaps.

However the variegated horse radish is splendid.
We have a few spears of asparagus but it looks like another disappointing season. Perhaps the soil in the bed is not light enough - some sand is called for?

I should have supported the oriental poppies as they are prone with the weight of rain - some rescue stuff needed.

Every year, at this time, I look at the garden and am flabbergasted (good word) by the change. Only a few months ago there was some scruffy grass and the odd spring bulb yet now the flower beds are waist deep in vegetation, plants fighting for the light.

Now I am going to town for a coffee with friends and then to lunch with N, another good friend.
I have earned it. The Family History I have been writing for six months is done, Dropboxed and distributed.

I gaze in an abstracted manner from my study window and see two squirrels eating the bird food, one hanging by its back legs from the roof of the shed, the other on the ground catching the shower of seed dislodged by its partner.
I open the window and shout, 'Aaaaargh! I'm going to get you!' They ignore me, well look up as if to say who is that old fogey and what is he blithering (good word) about now.
So I have just got up, gone outside and moved the seed feeder to a place of more difficult access, not that that will deter the furry acrobats. It is time to get some so-called squirrel proof feeders.

Time to think of names for them - how about Hou and Dini!
That is not really apt for they do not have to escape as they do not get caught - and if they do get into my squirrel trap they definitely cannot get out.

Back to the weather. It will have to be Chicken and Licken.