I've been reading, in step with the year, The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel. I love his writing, his observations and above all, as a farmer, his pragmatism about life in the countryside. It's an outlook that chimes with mine. much as Juliet Blaxland did with The Easternmost House. However John and I had a minor disagreement on August 1st.
Having pointed out that it was Lammas Day, the day when traditionally the hay is safely gathered in and the cattle are allowed out on the newly-shorn grass, and my having duly noted that, whilst the owlets slept snug in their branwolery, the cattle were indeed out in the back field, and in all the twenty-five years we've lived here I had no idea that this was a done thing specifically on August 1st...
and then, having expressed his dislike for the 'lassitude' of August, John said this...
'On the lane-side hedge, the ladders of goosegrass are still in place, but grey with weariness and dirt. The cow parsley and hogweed, dry and gone to seed...
And you just know summer's lease is finished.'
'Noooooooo....' I cried before shifting into complete denial that it was so. In fact that very morning I had opened the curtains to see the particular mist that somehow heralds not sweltering heat but a pivotal point in the year, that sense that the year is turning its face to autumn, but I had decided to ignore it.
I love August, wonderful memories of bringing our firstborn home from hospital and realising she wasn't a puppy and we were now parents. My first batch of terry nappies fluttering on the line, that sort of thing...
The greenhouse full of scarlet geraniums and glowing marigolds...
The swallows busy feeding their second brood on the front veranda...
Enjoying our share of the Painted Lady butterfly once-every-ten-years hordes that have arrived across the UK...
Lazy days when it is perfectly allowed to spread the quilt on the grass behind the summer house and be a little bit idle...even read a book all morning...
Anyway I'm refusing to believe that summer's lease is finished, or that the evenings are getting slightly shorter, because I want a lot more of summer yet before I am prepared to surrender. I'm all for a bit of lassitude me.
That said we are very happily busy with Tinker's Cott bookings through to October (a few vacancies in early September if anyone fancies a few days in the country, when I declare it will still be summer)
and, as the garden loses its early shape, the dahlia bed with its hedge of cosmos in the cottage garden (god bless the Tinker, my Dad, for starting us off on this dahlia craze) is coming into its own and looks beautiful from the Tinker's Cott kitchen window (that's the shed behind....not Tinker's Cott). I added another six new dahlia varieties this year along with a crowd-planting of those I had grown from seed and a row of sunflowers along the back. The bed is bursting at the seams with flowers and buds that will hopefully see us through to first frost, maybe even some first prizes at the Village Show because we have two trophies to defend.
I'm majoring on pom-poms this year...here are Wine Eyed Jill, Genova and Little Robert
In the Owlet Department we have had our first sighting of all three owlets peeking out from the box together and have been watching them learn to fly. I'm also in denial about the fact that eventually they will leave to find new homes (though the parents may stay) or be prey to any number of hazards out there. Can you believe that we take the rotary washing line down every evening for fear of finding a tangled owlet trapped in it the next morning, and my current concern is wondering how they learn not to get their feathers wet, other than to get their feathers wet, survive and think 'I won't do that again.' So we are just enjoying them for as long as they decide to be here and as I am writing this, it is dark and I can hear them 'talking' to each other across the garden...
In fact, living here, along a beautiful country lane miles from the bustle, it's quite easy to be in denial about just about anything, so I'm making the most of this eternal summer and will be ready for autumn at a time of mine own choosing.
Over to you, how is the lassitude of August shaping up where you are...
Anything you particularly like (or loath) about August...
Have the Painted Ladies arrived with you yet...
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