When the days start with a floating mist, when spiders webs are coated with dewdrops, and the sun has to be coaxed over the horizon you know that autumn is just arriving. That ‘s when the jumpers, gloves and scarves make an appearance and waterproofs become the order of the day ’cause the fields are cold and wet with dew in the early mornings when walking the dogs and inspecting the fields. We just love it – it’s a new chapter!
As September draws to a close and the days start to shorten (not that we want winter any sooner than usual), we look back at the glorious hot summer we have had here at the farm and reflect on the many events that have happened over the season. From Barn Owls to Flower Shows, time-lapse videos to our very first newsletter, we’ve reported it all to you in our weekly blogs.
Being a working farm and after a warm dry summer we are patting ourselves on the back for getting our harvest in early, which means we have now also finished sowing the winter wheat. There’s still next years supply of wildflower meadow, wildflower roof and lawn turf to sow, which incidentally is now almost complete, so all we need now to get everything off to a really good start is a mild autumn and lots of gentle rain – rather like yesterday actually. Do you reckon that if we put our order in now with the weather man we’ll be get what we need? Highly unlikely I know, but we all like to dream don’t we?
Talking about yesterdays rain, we were delighted to see a mixed flock of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Chaffinches all descend upon our trial wildflower meadow. As the rain progressed the Titmice relocated to the pebble-dash walls of the farm buildings feeding off insects which had flown out of the newly cut meadow – they seemed to be having a veritable feast. The Chaffinches on the other hand were harvesting the spilled seeds from the grasses and wildflowers. Funny how different birds visit this hidden courtyard. On balmy days it was mostly Swallows and House Martins catching airborne insects for their young.
You really know that summer is over when our summer visitors begin to depart. We can’t even remember them lining up along the telegraph wires this year, so abrupt has been their migration. Do they know something we don’t perhaps??!