The harvesters are out at last. I can hear the faint thrum of the combines from two fields away and had to pull smartly onto the verge to let a huge beast of a machine get past a couple of days ago. In the way of farmers, I can get no consensus on whether it will be a good year or not, but the sun has been fierce today so, hopefully, this will have dried up some of the rain from last week and mean that the grain dryers won’t be needed. Our own fruit harvest is shaping up nicely, with the plum and pear trees absolutely laden and Keith’s courgettes, tomatoes and cucumbers now “on stream”. The cucumbers are particularly prolific and every passing visitor is now gifted a long green takeaway. Lachlan has got in on the act and gifted us his first golden beetroot with immense pride a few days ago. Apparently the Auchencrow sweetcorn is going so well that further gifts are imminent. To the poor boy’s utter bemusement, Lachlan is finding himself in thrall to the gardening bug and “spent last Saturday weeding like a right old biddy.” Genes will out….
In the Hirsel woods another harvest has begun. All along the tracks are clusters of gnawn through hazelnut shells – the squirrels have started early. Down amongst the undergrowth, white bite marks suggest that the voles and mice are enjoying the red capped fungi and huge panicles of bright orange rowan berries promise a fine harvest for the birds too. Peacock butterflies and bugs of all sorts have gathered to enjoy the purple thistles exploding in the field margins and, not to be outdone, Mum and I are thoroughly testing out the first brambles. Not everyone is busily focused on their store cupboard though. In the field running along the top of the tree line, Mum and I were bemused to find large flattened circles in the wheat – not fancy alien artefact ones, but random cloud shapes a good hundred yards from the edge, as though something had been dropped in the middle of the field and bounced around. We wondered aloud whether this might be the effect of a strangely localised cloud burst or mini tornado (neither unknown) until I spotted a very narrow, slither of a track leading to one of the nearer “cloud holes”. Looking closer I could see more tracks tracing between the hollows. A nice nugget of cherry stone studded poo at the edge confirmed my suspicions. Young deer had been sidling in and lying down for a snooze atop the wheat. On our way back later that afternoon we caught one young ne’er-do-well leaving the scene of the crime. He seemed in no hurry, and watched us pass from the shade of the trees, possibly planning a further siesta.
Now also seems to be the time for second broods. The house martins in our windows are onto their second clutch, with the first fluffy lads set loose. I’m not entirely sure they have quite worked out what to do – I found one rather dazed and confused fellow in the shrubbery behind the library bed on Monday. Driving down to the village a few days ago I had to brake to avoid flattening a hen pheasant and about ten chicks. They swarmed ahead of me and seemed thoroughly disinclined to move off the road until I had pomped the horn a couple of times. Down on the river it was the same story, with two young looking swans carefully shepherding eight cygnets upstream against a fairly vigorous current.
The garden is bright now with the late flowers we usually see well into August, dahlias, perovskia, the orange buddleia and Japanese anemones. I think we might have a short, but glorious, few weeks and then we will be moving properly into Autumn mode. We have a holiday booked for September so hopefully I can catch a little more sun before then to take the edge off my lily white legs! But Keith has just wandered past with a sack of charcoal and mum is waving a glass of rosé through the window so I shall now take my leave and make the most of the last of summer.
