1st July
Clare had submitted her article on bee-keeping to the national bee-keeping association's magazine; it was accepted, and after quite a while, was published. She dreams of a book deal, though that would mean writing a book.
3rd July
Butterfly Tim sent updated news on the Peacock caterpillars, saying they had grown dramatically and are now 'more clearly Peacocks, notice the red prolegs (Tim's new word of the day).' Presumably these are paid more than amateurlegs.
5th July
Mel and John logged and bagged up more of the fallen rowan and finished re-chipping the path in the Top Strip. Butterfly Tim came and had his first look inside a bee hive. Half an hour after he and Clare had finished, Clare saw bees swarming from the hive that had been in purdah awaiting emergence of a new queen. The most likely explanation is that the virgin queen had swarmed taking part of the colony with her, there is a faint chance that this was a mating flight. Clare suspected the former because the new queen was only just due to emerge and wouldn't yet be ready for mating, but kept her fingers crossed for the latter and decided to wait a few days to give the queen, if there was one, a chance to get laying.
7th July
You may have noticed that it's been a bit dry of late. The rainwater collection trough was nearly empty so construction began to create a platform for a bowser. In the longer term we will reinstate the plan to add guttering to the sheds which will fill the bowser. We had crossed this off the to-do list because we had never been short of water.
8th July
The weather forecast and a local farmer suggested we cut the Meadow as soon as possible as rain was predicted for the end of the week. It is traditional to wait until after July 17th, sometimes longer in the north-east, to allow most of the flowers time to set their seed. This year we have had phenomenal success with Yellow Rattle, however the downside of this is that there has been far less grass for hay. The extreme weather has also meant that there have been far fewer wildflowers. The hay was cut today and John started strimming the edges of the Meadow which the cutter could not reach. Below are some of the wildflowers that did appear.
Great Burnet with Yellow Rattle seedheads
Greater or Black Knapweed with pollen beetles
Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare - echis is Greek for viper) "Bugloss" is derived from the Greek word bou (meaning cow or ox) and the Latin word glosso (meaning tongue). These refer to its leaves, which could be said to be shaped like an ox-tongue. Apparently in the language of flowers, the plant stands for falsehood.
9th July
Strimming finished and raking started. Courtesy of yet another helpful farmer, the full bowser arrived.
10th July
The hay was turned and declared 'made'.
12th July
Helpful farmer (see above 9th July), in spite of being hugely busy with combining, called in and baled our hay. All 5 bales of it - rather fewer than last year's 19!
Friday 13th July - Green Gym Day - lucky for some
Getting the hay in was the day's job. We succeeded. Gleaning yielded an extra two dumpies of hay. We managed to rake up 5 bags of Yellow Rattle and four of these were shaken over miscellaneous patches outside the Meadow; one bag went on its way to a helper's friend in Cumbria. All the hay was loaded and transported to the hay shed and as we sat down for a picnic lunch, the rain started. Perfect timing re hay, not so good re picnic however we stayed out enjoying the change from the heat.
Gleaning
Not gleaning
Coffee break
Pat insisted she hadn't had her photo on the blog for too long
Not sure whether Clare is gleeful or gritting her teeth
Harvest home
15th - 18th July
Clare identified and John strimmed (guess which was harder) an area in the Pit Wood that Eilidh can use as a story-telling circle when she brings her pupils. John also strimmed a circle round the bonfire in the Orchard ready for our fifth birthday celebrations, although with the weather as it is, the bonfire might remain unlit for the time being. Eilidh rode Paul and John walked William with them. They were all very well behaved. Clare found a couple of self-seeded oaks in the Top Strip path and potted them up at home. Clare checked the swarmed hive and found a new queen cell from which the new queen should emerge in a few days. So it was a virgin queen swarming. Back into purdah they go.
24th July
Roof sheets for the shepherd's hut arrived today - John hasn't quite worked out where they should go. Clare suggests on top of the main structure.
25th July - 31st July
There will now be a pause in blog entries while John redecorates the porch at home and Clare makes clothes for granddaughter Juno!
See you in August.