A green and pleasant land, but with grey skies

      The two terriers get walked at least twice a day, and sometimes three times, but lately it's been twice a day because fifteen year old Barney doesn't cope too well with the heat. The picture above shows Lucie burning energy during May when the wheat was still growing and we had what you could call summer skies.

      Now the skies do have the odd bit of blue showing but mostly they're grey and we've had some torrential rain and thunderstorms but the wheat has grown and somewhere out there is terrier hunting for rodents. The copse of poplars at the back have  a family of Buzzards nesting up in the canopy, it'll be good to see the first tentative flights from the safety of the nest.

      The many varieties of apples, plums and pears in the orchard is maturing nicely and fortunately the plums haven't been battered by hail to bruise and damage them just steady rain and there's good crop showing, the tees aren't heavy with fruit but what is there is quality fruit. A big thumbs up for that and the prospects for plum jam.

      The Bramley cooking apple crop is the best for years, lovely clean fruit that will be just beautiful in the autumn. All of the other varieties of eating apples, about a dozen varieties in total, and the early Grenadier cookers are showing the same beautiful clean fruit. Just what the doctor ordered you could say.

      In one of the orchards there are signs that a derelict bit of equipment obviously came in handy and was pressed into use as evidenced by the new nuts and bolts. The farmer was right, these bits of equipment always 'come in' at some point. Meanwhile the greyness continues but summer sunshine will arrive soon.