MOLES GALORE AND MORE

Out scything part of the lower wood and I uncovered many - 40+ - mole hills and holes. We are a waistcoat! Sunday is the last day of sun for tomorrow it rains. The warm dry spell is about to cease. We have been offered a few trailer loads of horse manure - hooray.
This will need to be carted around the garden - Mmmm!
Wallflowers are planted and the tops pinched out to make them bushier.
The summer seats are away in the shed and wooden stuff brought under cover. Fog is with us.

I have picked the last of the diminutive Conference pears (not a success) and last Bramley apple. We have spinach for supper tonight from the garden and a few runty broad and french beans are left. The courgettes still produce - in fact they have really only just got going. 

So much is late this year because of the cold summer - cardoons and Michaelmas daisies only just flowering.
Sunday sun, Monday Rain, Tuesday rain and grey - SAD time is here for some of us. 

So time for some colour!

 The first two from Holehird Gardens in Windermere.

The rest from The Nook -  late roses,

Nasturtiums - these are allowed to self seed, Helianthus,

and two red admiral butterflies on the yellow buddleia.

You will notice that these shots were taken in the now missing sunshine.

So this is Wednesday, and what have we got, summer is over, so not a lot.

I have finished cutting the lower banking and only fell over twice - this means I have to be very careful with the scythe! R has been out dead heading and has brought flowers into the house - it is always good to have flowers around inside.

R was told that blackberries, elderberries and apples make a good jam so I nipped out and picked some of both berries. We still had the last apple off our Bramley so they were prepared and cooked with a little sugar.
It was delicious.
I had mine with creme fraiche, R had hers with some luxury vanilla custard from the supermarket!

The rosehips are splendid on the Rosa rubifolia - but we do not make rosehip syrup any more.

Last evening (Tuesday) it was 19C here, this morning it is 11.5C. Time for wooly combinations?

HOLEHIRD GARDEN, WINTER DRAWS ON

So, after a good lunch out I was off to Holehird with N. It has a splendid view to the Lake District Mountains

This hillside garden is the home of the Lake District Horticultural Society and a must visit for any garden lover coming to Cumbria. It has the National collections of Astilbes, Meconopsis, Daboecia and Polystichum. The Society lease the gardens and all the work is done by volunteers. They have a library and run courses and lectures.

Three pics of birds now - Adam Booth's metal ones by the pond,

the cock pheasant on the banking creating a fuss with his raucous call - the birds may be beginning to sing again but he hardly sings.

And the nuthatch at the feeders on the shed with a goldfinch. The reason there is not much sunflower seed there is because the grey squirrels are eating it. I can hear them when I wake in the morning clattering the shed.

And this morning two delightful? bunnies on the top banking.

Yesterday I took out the little mower and set it on mulch, raised the blades a bit and did the whole garden. As rain is forecast this may be the last big mow.

The butterflies are having a late fling especially the red admirals.

Elsewhere the black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia goldsturm I think) goes on and on flowering imparting a blaze of yellow as the nights close in.

I have some plans afoot for the winter but body and pocket may determine as to whether they get done - and if R agrees. As she says - "It is my garden too!"
(By that she means it is her garden too.)

Non garden bit -

So England are out of the Rugby Union World Cup at the first stage - not surprising after they lost to Wales - and we have some men in armour running about in London - Jets and Dolphins.

Putin has put his oar in and when all is done and Assad is his buddy he will have access to the Syrian Mediterranean coast. He can strut more (is that possible) and say what a big boy am I.
Until Sunni and Shia shake hands and give each other a hug nothing will be settled.

Just seen pic on Facebook showing US has 3.7 murders a year for each 100,000 thousand population - UK has 0.07. Just wondered if gun possession has anything to do with that?

Back to gardening - 
I have decided, no R has decided, that the pink Japanese anemone will have to be moved. If so perhaps I (we) will replace it with some agapanthus and/or hollyhocks.

It is time to sit back and think of (no, not England), to think of changes too be made over the winter. Can I face having the drain men back for the boggy bits of lawn, should we have a large ash tree near the house cut down, will I have my right knee replaced?

Nearly time to put the central heating on.