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.