On a beautifully sunny morning I aimed for the wood beyond the rape field. What, earlier in the year, when the crop was young, I had described as a brassica field, had in fact been sown with rape
which has completely overgrown the public footpath.
I wasn’t about to tackle that in sandals with my dodgy leg.
Another path has been trodden around the edge of the field. I took that one.
Stinging nettles made it rather less inviting in parts.
Today’s ‘bee’ is probably a hoverfly. The disguise of these harmless insects is so deceptive that I can’t always tell the difference.
I eventually made it to the wood and walked down to the stream where I rested on the rails of the wooden bridge, watching overhead foliage flickering in the shallow water, before retracing my steps.
The filtered sunlight dappled the dark, sheltered, path, casting fascinating shadows.
Our own garden now being less overgrown, we can appreciate our antirrhinum snapdragons,
and the rose Compassion.
The rest of the day was jointly occupied in weeding and planting. Sometimes I wonder if the necessity of eradicating unwelcome flowers has come about purely to make space for the trays of the more acceptable bargains that are brought back from garden centres every time Jackie ‘pops out for compost’. When my Dad ‘popped out for some cigarettes’, you would not see him for an hour or so. So it is with Jackie and compost. When I ran out of weedkiller whilst treating the future rose garden, there were, it being a Sunday, just ten minutes to closing time at Otter Nurseries. I thought I might escape by being able to finish the task tomorrow, but she volunteered to go and buy some immediately. As she said when she returned very soon afterwards, that must have been her quickest ever trip to a garden centre.
This evening we dined on garlicky chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potatoes, roasted peppers and mushrooms, crisp green beans, and pure white cauliflower. Jackie drank her customary amber beer in the form of Hoegaarden, whilst my red wine was a little more of the chianti.
The antirrhinum brought back a few early memories: we used to call them “bunnies” as kids, and if you squeezed and resqueezed the base of the flower it would open and shut its mouth!
So it would. I had forgotten, Bruce.
What a lovely walk and perfect ending to what looked like a perfect day!
Thank you Dale
Wonderful walk in green and yellow colors. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thank you Anna
I had never heard of rape weed before, so I googled it:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/051015_superweed
Thank you painkills2. The link seems to identify our field as oilseed rape, and not the weed
You were right; rape is a brassica. We call in canola in Australia, now genetically engineered varieties are causing causing major problems for organic farmers.
That’s too bad because they’re beautiful weeds. 🙂
Thank you Mary. I didn’t know for sure what would come up
Thanks for sharing your walk, and work day in the garden. The photograph of the reflections is quite a charming abstract. We stay out of many of the local state parks in the summer months because their hiking trails get terribly over grown. Around here we have to worry about deer ticks and evil little things called chiggers. Chigger bites leave a tiny welt that itches for a few weeks.
Thank you Rich. We have mosquitos, whose bites trouble Jackie for months.
Always a lovely and peaceful reading, Derrick. Thank you…
and thank you, HeavyCloud
I would be seeing read at an unreconstructed public footpath. Grrr, it is a personal insult!! But a grand Sunday by all accounts and you too have beautiful roses!
Most footpaths near us are much more blatantly concealed, one has barbed wire in front of a stile.
B*****ds!!
Lovely photos Derrick…
Thank you Julie
Wow you ran into quite a lot during your little walkabout.
A lovely Sunday, Derrick! And an enjoyable post – great photos, as always! 🙂
Thank you Rob
Your walk sounds like it was quite an adventure – seeking out passable paths! I too have been noticing the wonderful shadows cast by sunlight filtering through the leaves. I loved the holly shadow shot. The dandelion’s visitor is what we know as a ‘Marmalade hoverfly’ – but there are so many species of these useful creatures, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to its ‘official name’ 😉
Thank you Peggy, especially for the confirmation, and identification, of the hoverfly. Can you tell me how they are useful?
Hoverflies are useful as pollinators alongside bees and also the lavae of some species feed on aphids, making them even more of a gardener’s friend.
Thank you Peggy. I will inform the head gardener.:)
😀
Such food you dine on! And a rose named Compassion? Perfect. Thanks for the walk.
Thank you Cynthia
The photos of the water and the holly shadow right below it are the two most interesting to me. I could stare at both of those photos for a long time.
Thank you Crystal. That is encouraging.