ALL ROOK AND ROLL

(This blog carries a warning of insensitive material later on)

In the beginning there was a heart sinking feeling as we strolled past the pond and noticed that, since the drain had been put in under the liner properly the liner was rising again!
Methinks a call to Gary may be needed. 
Very depressing.
To move on -

When the light shines through young beech leaves it is a delight.

Have just hoed around. We had stormy weather and the garden is wet so big mower will have to wait.
Where one of the drains was put in the mole has dug a new run off to the side and all the water is going that way! Not down the pipe.

R is having three downstairs room floored in oak which has floored me. One is my little private haven stuffed with . . . stuff! My stuff! And it will all have to come out.
3 days later and I am stuffed - floors done and chaos resolved, bank empty, brain dead! But the lady loves it so . . .
And have managed to mow without getting bogged down.

Still cropping asparagus, just, and earthing up the spuds.

We have had a a swarm of honey bees into the dormer roof space outside our bathroom - windows shut for the moment.

R has been up the garden digging up recurring brambles and pulling out goosegrass and tiny tree seedlings. There are millions (well hundreds) of sycamore and ash infants.

The campion is in full blossom now.

Let me chuck you a few garden shots - first looking west from the kitchen patio - what a yucky word - there must be a better.

Then to the shed from there and down to the pond. Note the candelabra primulas in full glory.

Finally a view up the garden to the west along the curved path. I prefer curvy things - like paths - except in the veg garden.

Two plants doing well at the moment are these saxifrages.

Din outside my window and I have a squirrel in the trap, no I do not, yes I do, no it is not it is a jay and it is making a terrible fuss. 
Its plumage is beautiful for a crow so out I go and release it.

The metal trap is encased in a plastic sack tied on with string and weighted down with a stone (To stop it blowing away).

The sack is needed because as peanuts are the bait they fall through the metal mesh - and if the trapped prey is in there all night a little shelter would not go amiss.

The forecast ahead is good but we have had some special rain pouring over the gutters.

However it does not last forever and the sun comes out with a little magic light.
This was a complete rainbow but I could not get it all in one image. 
When all is said light is the main essential in any garden, creating contrasts.
There is something special about the varied shadow and light in the wood, particularly when there is a gentle breeze and the leaves cast shapes on the woodland floor.

(R does not have my appreciation of the finer things in life - I am currently listening to Bubbles in the Tar by The Piltdown Men on my iTunes player.)

This year's weed be mainly goosegrass (cleavers) and covers me with sticky burrs. Where did that come from - pulling it out by the handful.

A couple of years ago I put in 5 purple alliums at the end of the rose bed and have allowed them to seed with dramatic effect.

R wants me to chuck seed into the area of yellow/green euphorbia by the path down to the Wendy House when it is ripe - should make a contrasting statement.

My taste has improved (a little) now playing Early Morning Rain by Peter Paul and Mary - showing my age (and Mary is gone as are so many).

Now, I know New Zealand is a long way away and adjustments have to be made for climate, having an upside down year and so on but there is good advice at http://www.sustainablegardener.org/latest-post/. This post on broad beans.

Sometimes this blog can get a bit too nice? Can be too sweety?
So - New Writing Cumbria's online mag The Carrot has taken a poem of mine for the second edition - the theme was 'Killing"!
Also Manchester Camerata has requested photos of Ulverston so all going on. (No pay tho').
The verse is about how all things come around and nothing is wasted in nature.

Any way here is the charming poem - 

FUTURE

Rings set by summer sun running in elm-sap,

trap, in their stain, seasons of snuffed years.

Rain and sorrows run from the furrowed bole

where, beneath the waxen bark, beetles burrow.

Dutch mandibles bring lethal hyphae,

leave bleached skeletons of silent wood

spread against the sky, rattling in the wind.

Within the darkness of an autumn hanger,

from the brown of beechwood litter

and black-edged mould, a parasol emerges,

a Destroying Angel dressed in innocence,

pure and virgin-white against the soil:

and when the ignorant have eaten well

bells ring for worms and new mycelia.

At the north gate of the cattle paddock

past hangs in the dull eyes of a dead rook

hooked by its black neck to barbed wire.

Future crawls in its corrupt corpse, a white choir 

of gorging maggots warming the tangle of its rotten guts,
moulding old flesh to new flesh and paper wings.

Such a gentle little ditty - chicken for supper!!?? Or as was eaten in the last war - rook pie.