Milking time

Rains has fallen in showers today so I've stayed indoor to move files, email and suchlike from my old stationary computer to my new laptop. It's taken most of the day because the old computer just doesn't want to cooperate and is very slow and old.

My walk brought me as so often before to The Garden in the wood. The effort of the two garden-keepers are certainly starting to show, already there are lots of flowers and vegetables. The rain has been gentle and generous so everything is spurting out of the ground everywhere.

The gardeners keep lots of large thistles everywhere, they really are magnificent. Beautiful and hostile at the same time. The thistles themselves keep Aphids, plant-lice, -or the lice just happen to like that kind of plant and the Aphids are kept as cattle by ants who milk them of a sweet liquid called honeydew and, in return the ants protect the lice from being eaten by their predators like ladybirds and dragonflies. 

I don't know if the thistle also benefits from this but it doesn't look damaged yet at least.