Buttercup

Angie had to disappear to Munich to sort out technical (broken fridge) problems at her mother's. So Luna and I had the day to ourselves. I took the opportunity to hijack Angie's lawn tractor and mow one of the horse fields that was covered in a sea of yellow buttercups.

It is a wet field but also has always suffered from acidity which buttercups love. There hardly seems to be any grass as it is smothered and strangled by the roots of the buttercup. Buttercups are also poisonous to horses (and likely to honey bees too). As I'm not allowed to treat the field with lime to make it less attractive to the flowers, the only thing left is to make sure the flowers don't seed.

Shame really as they do look lovely. To the left you can see a very narrow strip I hadn't yet cut. On the other side of the apple tree at far right, I also left it uncut as it is a cooler patch where there are still quite a few dandelions in bloom.

My motivation for doing the mowing was mainly to see if I could dislodge kidney stones which I think are stuck in the tubing. If it works, I should see the result tomorrow! Fingers crossed.

Despite the sunshine, weather still cool. Well we are still in the middle of the Ice Saints which end on Saturday with "Cold St Sophie". However, the weather forecast is saying no change in temperature anytime soon. Perhaps we have switched back out of the Gregorian calendar and the Ice Saints are pushed back 10 days to their original ancient place.