GOLDEN AUTUMN, CLAGGY GRASS

This morning I was wakened at 6.30 am by a pair of tawny owls hooting from the tree outside our window. As the sun came up it lit the now yellowing ash leaves with golden light.

Bramleys weighing down the tree - the apple picker came - a mesh thing on the end of a long wooden handle - and it works. Three boxes of paper wrapped apples in the shed. 
Then I picked the sparse damsons - many had split with the rain but got 5 pounds in the freezer and one for Sammy for his gin. The dodgy ones are cooking in the bottom oven of the Aga range. The over ripe ones on the tree covered in butterflies.
Of course I ended up on my backside in the herbaceous border picking them due to a change of pills for my little bit of blood pressure making me airy headed.

In the main lawn the eucryphia has been in full flower but is now going over and the leaves on some of the trees, especially the birches, are definitely autumnal. 
Having cleared under the magnolia I now am thinking what bulbs to plant there - or even cyclamen?

There is an abundance of yellow in the garden giving a bright blast to September.
 

 As I drove in late this morning a sparrow hawk led me up the track like a guided missile, small birds scattering in alarm. The pheasants have bred well - this night time video showing not one nor two nor three but four young pheasants.

Just been to Abi and Tom's amazing nursery at Halecat in Witherslack (there is a link to their site on the left of the page) and we bought a variegated euphorbia. He took us on a tour and it was very interesting. Also met Fiona Clucas again, she was doing a painting in the garden with wonderful Chrome yellow rudbeckias.

One thing he said was how it is wet that does for plants in this area, not cold - how right!
Here is part of our lawn (R calls it the mown field) where I have replaced the washed away planks over the stream but then, in mowing - with the little mower - have gouged wheel tracks in the grass.

And so to autumn and the changing of the colour already coming -

Geranium, euonymus and acer.

Just been to Scotland for 3 nights, the land of John Muir - by that I mean went to Dunbar. Thought R would not want to go to his birthplace but she enjoyed it. Took them ancestry of his maternal grandmother though they probably know all that. (JM was my grandfather's cousin.) That is probably why I like a wild garden. R has just had her DNA results back (birthday present from the offspring) and she is almost two thirds Sami or Lapp! And most of the rest is Scandinavian so, as she says, Abba eat your heart out.

AND THE HEAVENS CRIED

I was woken early by the sound of torrential rain battering the garden. Later the sun came out and the land shone with that brightness you only get after a downpour has washed the dust and fumes out of the air. Water was crossing the garden in silvery sheets, erupting from previously unknown springs, even out of mole hills - the runs acting as underground pipes.

This is the mower crossing of the stream, old scaffolding planks that had been lifted and thrown around by the water.

And the breakfast table is  covered in water - too wet for cornflakes. (I have the WHOLE EARTH gluten free ones.)

As we may be having changes in the spring - perhaps the extension (reduced in dimensions by the cost of VAT) I decided to photograph the beds that will be changed to paving.

The tree on the left will go and the plants we want to keep be dug up and replanted in the veg beds.

Sometimes walking around the garden it is the small things that catch the eye - 

 A new bud on the Magnolia grandiflora,

Cardoon buds so heavy they need support,

 Or just a small rose.

The first apples (Bramleys)(cookers) have been picked, wrapped in paper and put in old photographic developing trays in the shed.

This is the big ash tree at the top of the garden. It has ivy climbing it - a hideaway for small birds - and a Rambling Rector climbing rose. There is some die back on the branches - not the dreaded ash dieback present in young trees but just old age - I suppose a bit like myself as the years pass.

The small  trees at the bottom - left the big magnolia, right the handkerchief tree.

Some plants just love the autumn like these Anemone japonica alba but one has to be careful as they tend to spread and invade others nearby. 

 And, is autumn coming through the endless rain - every day - well the roses think so - the rubifolia is heavy with hips.

Grandchildren joke - Why did Captain Hook cross the road? - 

To get to the second-hand shop.

(NB. And the Heavens Cried - 1961 Anthony Newley written by Glynn Elias and Irving Reid) (Bit sad knowing that!)

JAMMING IT UP

Nothing to do with music - just made 6 jars of rhubarb and ginger jam for R (she'e the one who eats it) and have four pounds (about 2 Kg) of red currants defrosting for jelly. (Can't eat lamb without red currant jelly and mint sauce.)

Plums are almost over so waiting for the damsons and apples to ripen. Beetroot a bit chewed by slugs but rescued enough to pickle some.

And then made redcurrant jelly with the last of last year's crop.

Autumn is definitely in the air and the garden seems to be waiting for the go ahead to sleep. The jays are burying nuts so they feel the change and the martins are gathering before leaving us until April. Looking out of my study window the big old ash has a few dead branches and I wonder if I should get in the tree surgeon to lop them off before they fall?

These are the chairs and table R got from John Lewis - for breakfast? Sadly it seems to be mostly wet or cold at the present.

Then there is the wind spinner I bought at a garden centre at Hadnall near Whitchurch on the way back from Herefordshire. I have moved it about a bit trying to find the best place to get the two wheels turning in opposite directions - and has ended up amongst the agapanthus.

The feeder area outside my window has been inundated by goldfinches, one even perched on the top of Doc's head.

The Hydrangea Annabelle has enormous heads - much bigger than I have seen elsewhere. The trouble is when it rains they are so weighed down they lie on the ground.

And still the roses bloom - Emma Hamilton in full show.

R wants me to try and freeze chives for the winter so has had a go. I do not know whether to freeze them dry or in water - we will see.

I blog on even though it seems so trivial compared to N Korea and the USA sliding slowly over the precipice. It needs a strong woman 
to take Don Trump and Kim Jong-un (Wrong-un), put them over her knee and give them a good spanking - trouble is they might like it? Things get dangerous when the boys' toys are missiles and H Bombs.

And then as R says, "I haven't seen a grey squirrel for ages, do you think they've gone?" This appears on the shed roof outside my window.

Tree rats!

BLOB BLOG AND BANTER

Having rabbited on about Nostoc Commune the other blog, R produced an article about slime moulds in a magazine called Aquila.
Is its plant?
Is it an animal?
Is it a fungus?
No a slime mould is a plasmodium - a single called thingy that can move and keeps its memory outside of it.
It does sound like an alien - the blob from outer space, something Professor Quatermass would have faced. (Now that is dating myself!)
But what we have is not a slime mould but a cyanobacterium (but looks equally revolting!)
  Anyway enough blob blogging - got desperate to mow the lawn as the grass grew and grew. So cut it a bit wet - endless mower clogging and tyre tread marks but got it done.
Eating our own carrots again tonight, chard last night, with some chicken sausages from Crakeside.

The seeds R sowed on the bare banking where the brachyglottis had been savagely pruned by yours truly have flourished - nasturtiums and eschscholzias.

But there are a plethora of yellows and oranges now, even the butterflies.

Weeding continues and now the damson trees are showing a good crop - so when to pick them - most suggestions are just when slightly soft as with other plums, so a few days yet. Then out with the sacking, tie it to the trunk, spread the tarpaulin (or equivalent) under the tree and wallop the trunk with a sledge hammer (or in my case a 14lb marl.) The fruit fall in droves.

The pond, after a hunk of plant extraction, is looking good.

  The pointing we had done on the paving is already showing us that it was done poorly so I am patching it best I can. R has been on to the man who did it so he is ringing Monday - in fact everyone is ringing Monday - the wall charger for the hybrid car is not working so they are calling too.
  R had some cream over from a do so we have dug out old rhubarb and gooseberries and made fools. (Something I seem to find easy to do!)

Now you might expect colour with the roses - however, now September is upon us leaves are colouring as well.

It is cold - only 13.5C yesterday at teatime - and August! In the south that are basking in 25C. 😕
  The house martins have been gathering and flying en masse up to the western gable nest, hanging on the wall etc. They did this once before and I wonder if they are casing the joint for next year?

Mystery plant? Flowering everywhere and really a bit out of control -
    

  
Nothing outrageous - just apple mint, the best of the mints if a bit hairy. It needs to be grown in a container or a pot sunk in the soil but, of course I have ignored my advice and it is now well spread by the cattle grid and on the banking near the veg beds. Mind you, where it hangs over the grass it gets mown and releases its aroma.

R got roses for her birthday, a climber, a hybrid tea and a smaller one so I have taken them with the Rosa mundi cuttings I struck and put them by the path to the writing shed with the addition of a load of old compost, trimmed overhanging trees and other roses.
I have also cleared under the red currants by the veg beds.

The nice man from the planning department came today and we have provisional go ahead for an extension (if we can afford it) so now to contact an architect (and have some fun.)
R wants a study and another bedroom. I thought we could just have a big greenhouse/orangery but . .  (joke).