THIS AND THAT AND HABITAT

I put this image of an opium poppy onto my Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/8662878@N02/ - and it was put onto something called Flickr Explore. In three days it has had 4000 hits! I wonder why. Perhaps it is the unusual angle of view, perhaps the word 'opium'?

The roses continue to flower sporadically - dead head and hope. The Japanese anemones are coming out - the sign of autumn to come? Some of the trees are looking suspiciously yellow of leaf.

The last of the black currants are picked, the old raspberry canes removed and the few new ones tied in.    I am not too hopeful for next year's crop. We now have our first butternut squashes coming and loads of courgettes. We await the plums and damsons.

R has sheared off the alchemillas and deposited them on the compost heap.
I have planted a selection of stuff around the garden - clematis montanas to grow over the willow tunnel, a rose to grow up a buddleia on the top banking, tansy in the wildish bit by the veg beds, a line of small 'senecios' below the main path. R has wanted a grey hedge there and so I took cuttings, grew them on and have now obliged. The pot from Viet Nam has blue grass in it and a stone from Piel Island beach with an inclusion shaped like a cross.

To habitats.
The garden has formal and wild areas, woodland and a small stream, ponds and bog, a hedgerow, dry bankings and a very old log pile. This has wood no longer much good for the log burner but insects love it. it is full of beetles and bugs, woodlice and so on. Holes provide hideaways for bumble bees and, through the winter, places to retreat from the cold weather.

Over the year the bonfire has gradually grown and is now six feet high, wet and rotten and probably not flammable. It has been inhabited by a nesting blackbird and possible hibernating hedgehogs. So, the dilemma is when to light it. Last year I moved it to make sure the fauna was safe.

We have also had J and W here with their mother I. Voices coming from the wood and their den are a delight - I love to hear them playing. There are demands for ropes and swings and things so that will have to be seriously considered.
I have my orders from they who must be obeyed - well, you know what I mean.

Time to take a new load of soup from the bottom of the Aga and liquidise it.
Just noticed my keyboard is a bit grubby - soily fingers.
I am glad I do not moult - there is a very moth-eaten sparrow on the feeders outside my window - very scruffy.
A bit like me?