A bit more sunlight today — hardly high summer though. Heatwaves are just something other people are having. The buddleia seem happy, however, and there were plenty of butterflies around in the garden this afternoon.
More plants, but there are a lot of them around at this time of year, particularly after the healthy mixture of sun and rain which has characterised the last three weeks or so. You were getting something from house or garden today in any case, as I never left the vicinity. But work is nearly done.
Third post in a week to be taken in the garden, but it’s still sunny and there’s not much else going on that offers a change of scene. This tennis ball has been sat pretty much in the same position for weeks now, and both Clare and I have acknowledged that neither of us have the slightest idea where it came from. It offers an opportunity for a still life, nevertheless.
Another one of those recurrent, annual subjects. Our plum tree definitely has years off — and 2022 was one — but this year there’s going to be a decent crop. Previously I have referred to these as plumlets but for some reason ‘plumlings’ came to mind this time round, which I feel is definitive.
I have developed some druidic powers. I can, fairly reliably, summon a robin. It’s quite easy actually — simply go up to the garden, dig over part of it, and wait five minutes. One will usually appear to check over the bounty that has been revealed. This one was quite unperturbed by the presence of both myself and Clare, and has a look on his face that suggests he thinks we should be doing more digging — I reckon robins are evolving to use humans as manual labour, in fact. Perhaps they will be our overlords in a few dozen millennia,
I’m not convinced about all the technicalities of this shot but it was done with an extremely long zoom (x80 at least) and in that respect it’s pleasing enough. We don’t really pick up any of the details on the wings of the Cabbage White but let’s not get too ambitious, eh — at least, not with my kit.
Summer fruits and rosemary. All picked from the garden just before this picture was taken: and all eaten, one way or another, within an hour afterwards. Most enjoyable.
Respect the pollinators. This bee was giving our incipient loganberries some care and attention. It had put in a longer working day than me, anyway.
Year on year, some photogenic subjects come round: foxgloves make a regular appearance around this time of year for instance. Baby plums or apples. And here, the year’s first wild stawberries, a June staple. Enough for a bowl in the evening, with cream and sugar. Nicer than the watery cultivated version, in my opinion.
I’ve been suspicious before that certain flora depicted on here are in fact versions of ‘Audrey II’, the man-eating alien plant from Little Shop of Horrors. Here’s another one. Of course, the connection is made because the plant in the movie is so well-designed, and takes characteristics of real plants as the basis. But it still works. (It’s a foxglove by the way.)
Being 42 