"Flaming" June?

June has started, and friend Frances' prizewinning duck photo delights me every day when I look at the calendar Fran and Alan have sent me.













The month came in more like a normal April than June, cold and very, very windy.  Three quarters of my lovely rose "Fru Dagmar Hastrup" were lost, but I managed to upright the golden columnar elm again after it had nearly been blown to the ground.

 

Following advice from my friend Christine Ashton I contacted a private pest controller for this area on Monday evening, and he came on Tuesday morning to assess what was to be done regarding the capture of marauding foxes.  He advised putting out chicken pieces as bait, and when they had been taken on two consecutive days he would come and put up a trap - which he did this morning, Saturday 6.6.  It might take a day or two before a fox goes in.

On Wednesday I had another fantastic all day help session from my friends Pat and Graham.  I can hardly believe the amount of rubbish Pat managed to dig out and transport to the huge fire, you can see the wall of the garage again!  Graham's work with strimmer and mower were equally impressive. I can see it won't be long before I can mow the whole area without hindrance:

 

Work in the formal garden is making slow progress,

but I've done a bit more hedgecutting since I took this picture.

A couple of presents from friend Petra are starting to give a lovely show .....

.... as are some of my plantings from last year and the rose pergola:

 

On Friday morning I had another wonderful surprise gift from Gerd and Maria [they'd only recently sent me a big box of Mon Cheri liqueur chocolates!], they'd remembered how I love pink peonies:

Also on Friday Annie and El went to Exeter to see if the university is right for Eleanor's studies.

Early this morning pest control man Alan brought and installed the fox trap, as I mentioned above, and he also put in a mole trap - the moles are exceptionally active this year.

I was still watering my plants when I got another visitor, Carl!  He'd said he was likely to come sometime this weekend, but I had half expected him to come with Val and Alfie tomorrow.  Carl got active right away, put a new chain on the chainsaw and felled a number of awkward branches.  Then he got going with the big strimmer and flattened the area around the big pond, after which he continued into the field to tackle an overgrown area there.  I did some more work with the hedgecutter and then started weeding in the fruit cage area.  All of a sudden I saw Carl coming back from the field, I thought he'd run out of petrol.  But no, he was holding his nose and there was blood all over his face, hands and clothing.

The strimmer had thrown up a small piece of barbed wire which gashed the tip of his nose, it was still lodged in there.  It's only 8 mm long, but what damage!  Carl considered himself extremely lucky that the piece didn't fly in his eyes, it would have blinded him.  Yes, he was suitably contrite in not having taken the advice himself which he'd given me on the phone the week before, to wear protective head gear before going out to strim!