It seems like only 2 weeks ago that we were getting excited about the end of the unprecedented May heatwave, and wondering if it would go with a bang or a whimper. On Friday the temperatures started ramping up again, and today the weather station in the garden says 34.5 degrees at 4:20pm, so not yet the hottest time of the day (around 5:30pm). We are back to early starts, keeping the windows closed and shaded during the day, a constant hum of oscillating fans and an unsightly selection of shorts and t-shirts to keep things as cool as possible.
No chance of me getting product placement money, but there are other brands available! Yesterday at 7pm it was only 31 degrees, as you can possibly make out! This morning at The Shack, the local bird population was getting its trills out early and also trying to compete with the sound of what might have been a rave party, or just some chaps letting off steam. It was annoying enough to send us on to The One Acre Wood, but not before I had noted a number of our avian friends.
This is a screenshot from the Merlin application - I'm not sure if other reputable bird song identification apps are available, but it works for me. The Golden Orioles were in fine voice today - clearly they like techno music - making a noise in the wooded area at the bottom of the Meadow. In the Orchard I met a rather nice butterfly - not a variety I can identify easily, and it is too hot to dig out my Observer Book of Butterflies and Moths I'm afraid (other butterfly identification books are definitely available)!
The wood was wonderfully cool after the direct sunlight in the Meadow and Orchard, and also full of very loud birds, but not as great a variety as at The Shack - it is amazing how much noise a Song Thrush can produce! It was the first time we had been for a few weeks and now all the leaves are out, it is a chance to take stock of what is dead/dying and needs to be felled on a cooler day. The plot next door was clear felled in 2020 using heavy machinery, so the light is very different, but the drainage is also affected. That plot hasn't recovered from the treatment, with none of the chestnut boles coming back to life, rather rank bog grass in places over winter, and only pioneer species taking over the area. As it is registered woodland, it can't be ploughed for crops, but no one seems interested in replanting trees, even Mother Nature. Some of our trees are suffering from the changed conditions, as well as from climate change, but you wouldn't know it from this photo.
While laziness is affecting some of my productive gardening, other aspects seem to be working of their own accord. For two years, we have been recycling tea leaves onto the rhubarb bed at home. Last year we did well, this year it has gone nuts, and shortly I must go and make a pile of crumble topping to freeze as a batch of rhubarb crumbles for the winter. There is also a very large pot of rhubarb fool in the fridge for eating now.
A friend of mine's family are all current or retired professional flower growers and sellers. My friend's father has moved into sheltered housing (aged 91), so they are having to dispose of his kit and property in order to fund his new lifestyle. I bought a couple of earthenware baskets as interesting planters for the front porch. I bought some trailing lobelia for one and a couple of surfinia petunias for the other, bulked out with supermarket stumpy petunias. The results are currently gorgeous.
I've got a busy and exciting week ahead of me - I hope I will be feeling up to doing a blog next Sunday, otherwise you will have to wait for Monday!
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