The Thrush...

It is just the sort of morning to get out there and be physical!.....
So with rake in hand I collected the twigs that come down from the crack willow...I know it should be given another name nowadays...it could get a bad reputation....
...anyways...as I hauled the debris from the driveway...there in the corner a beautiful collection of empty snail shells!!

 

...the work of one of the thrushes in the back field.....

.....don't you just love these precious birds...

...and how perfectly he ...or she!...has winkled the goodies out of the shell.

Knows a thing or two...perhaps learnt from the French!!

Entering the Jungle.

It rained most of June...though we were lucky enough to be in Spain for some of that...
and then it has rained most of July...
oh and of course we couldn't garden when we were in Spain...
and so now...
...we have a jungle in the back field part of our land!

This is the result of two hours on a meter square bit of the herb garden.
Now I know that in some ways this looks rather attractive...lush and green...and to those followers living at the moment in a dried up and dusty wilderness...I'm sorry if you think I'm moaning.
The slugs and snails are so big that they have smaller slugs and snails doing the housework for them.
I have even heard that they have come all the way from Spain after hearing how good the takings were around our parts!
The Times today had a good article on how to get them ready for the pot ...so watch out you slimey things!
Anyway...I'm knee deep in the green everyday...skipping the showers and hauling the soggy undergrowth up to the old wheelbarrow.
But...the other thing is that some of the plants have grown to twice their size and I suspect that they have been coupling with some triffids while we were lounging on beach beds in the sand.
These are the cardoons last year...

probably around 4 feet high...so... easy to see the tops of the flowers...

...this year... I can't see the tops of anything!
They are at least 8 feet high.

Ahh! looks like it might rain in a minute...maybe there's a golden goose at the top of these and it will lay me a golden egg....stranger things and all that!