more catch-up

In my last posting I mentioned I was going to remove the lower branches of the damson tree because of the accident when I got smacked in the face while mowing -- well I did, seriously! Compare the before and after photos below:

Before I took those two "after" photos above it didn't look as tidy, there were huge piles of branches lying on the ground as I'd not only chopped the damson tree severely but also the Weigelia opposite, the tall Christmas tree, the Garrya Elyptica and the big apple tree behind it [the very first fruit tree John planted after we moved here in 1998] which has got canker, and I hadn't got around to shifting any of it away.

So what did I see last Wednesday morning after Pat and Graham had arrived?  Pat had got stuck into carrying one lot of branches and leaves after another into the composting area next to the ditch!  Then she got even more carried away and tackled the totally overgrown bed to the right of the stile, disappearing at times into the "jungle", but emerging triumphant later in the afternoon having cleared most of that border:

By that time in the afternoon Graham had come back from his expeditions of mowing and strimming in both fields and I managed to take these nice pictures:

 

As Graham is keen on the "points out of ten" system I gave them both 12 out of ten after inspection for the fantastic work they'd done !

 Recently, whenever I went shopping, I'd bought one or two melons and presented a half of one [with seeds in!] to the ducks every couple of days.  They are very keen on them and gather around the melon half in a circle very quickly.  I tried to get this on camera, but as you can see in the photo above they scattered as soon as I appeared with the "black thing".

The loss of 8 much loved ducks in May is still very keenly felt by me and I get worried every time I see evidence of a kill.  I don't know if the big pile of feathers at the bottom of the orchard was down to a bird of prey - foxes tend to carry their victims away, don't they?

 

Then there were clumps of grey fur at the edge of the big field which I thought had been ripped off a rabbit, but when Val, Emm [back from her year in Vienna!] and Alfie came on Thursday evening Val thought the bits of fur looked more like a badger's:

 To more pleasant things:

I found a double-flowered poppy at the end of the raspberry bed, never seen one of those before. And my favourite indoor plant, the Medinilla, has developed another flower.  It started with what looked like a little green button and has now grown into what you see below right, I'm thrilled!

Yesterday, Saturday morning, I was out before 8 picking raspberries.  I could see young neighbour Keiran piling up a huge amount of pruned branches in readiness for a fire, and as I was planning to light a fire anyway with the accumulated soiled wood chip duck bedding I offered to burn his stuff as well if he could transport it to the site of the fire.  He immediately threw everything over the fence and came around to carry huge armfuls to the fire.  When I went back to the house for my coffee break I asked Kieran if he fancied a go on the ride-on mower - he did, very much!  He liked it so much he went on to mow the whole field, again, Graham had only done it on Wednesday.

The fire burned very well, I could still see it last night at 10 throwing up great plumes of white smoke.  We had rain overnight and this morning, but the fire was still going and I took these three photos before raking more "stuff" into the centre:

 

Coming back from the fire I spotted these lovely seed heads on some umbellifer similar to cow parsley, don't they look just like little golden roses?