MOTHER NATURE

Has a DRY sense of humour?

Yet the garden, though parched still has colour -

Some more subtle than others. This is the dastardly thorny rose Grouse.

and plenty of white -

including this - one of the banes of my life - bindweed.

Up in the wood -

are white bedstraw and the thuggish hogweed - beware the sap, it blisters.

There are plenty of marsh thistle and milium effusum looking lovely backlit.










The sycamores are covered in thrips - millions of them that settle on your head when you walk underneath.

This is the canopy lifted rhododendron and the new view underneath back to the house

Not far away is the greengage given to us by I and A, a few fruit but suffering with the drought.
Underneath the seat where the ants nest was when I sat down - you can see the red ants here after I disturbed them.
I have not mowed for three weeks. admittedly some places are a bit shaggy but others have no grass growth at all.

And I found out what had been destroying the beetroot seed bed by digging the soil etc - not a rabbit, it was a cock pheasant throwing soil over itself and the surroundings - perhaps an anti parasite behaviour - or possible a nesting instinct?

So it is time to bend the back and stretch the legs, get the place back into some sort of shape. Out with the mower and hoe, out with the scythe, in with the ibuprofen.

And the Rambling Rector needs pruning - anyone got a suit of armour?