JUST A LITTLE LOVAGE

Changes things . .  (Decca F.12553)

So R decided the lovage comes out and I plant a Hydrangea Annabelle in its place - one I have grown from a cutting. 

The lovage was a thug, roots the thickness of small branches and I had to divide it into six with a spade before any luck. It filled a wheelbarrow and that was after cutting it back.

Once out not much soil remaining so I will have to address that before planting.

I have taken two pieces and dug them into rough grass up from the pond. The rest has been dumped in a corner and will survive, or not.

Replanted the nearby crambe and added some wallflowers.

We went to the Lowick Show, The Li''le Royal, back after Covid and one tent I love is the one with the veg and children's concoctions -

beetroot

Mmm, not sure what this animal is.

Then J and D had given us one of their courgettes but we are not sure what sort of duck it is.

We have had a dismal crop of Bramleys, perhaps the frost got the blossom in the spring but we do have some damsons that need picking.

We are still harvesting sweet peas though the stem length is getting less as we move into autumn. Of course they have not been grown a la TV with tendril removal etc - just shoved at the bottom of some sticks and fed and watered. They are not the ones I grew from the autumn just bought in a shop - much easier.

Must mow the lawn - it is pouring - ah! well.

Autumn is decay? Here the cut trunk is already being consumed by fungi - 38 rings I think.

It is the time of the Japanese Anemones, they do tend to spread so I bunged these where that does not matter.

When we think of corvids there are crows and rooks and ravens and even a though but here are two thieves eating our fallen plums - jay and magpie.

We have tawny owls next door and barn owls at the farm -

WAILING IN THE NIGHT

Had I not been awake I would have missed it.

Outside the window a baby was keening.

I was in bed, under the blankets reading by a flickering torch.

And it was after midnight.        

     

    But there it was again.

I crept to my window, gently parted the curtains.

A waning moon lit the roof of the porch.

Three feet away, open mouthed and wailing

sat the baby, 

    but not a baby. 

A barn owl swivelled its head,

    stared at me,

 

blinkless, 

ignored me, 

keened again.

Had I not been awake I would have missed it.