Emerging

The warm weather in recent days has brought on the barley in the top field of the Estate at a great rate, so there's now the risk of losing the ball in it. In case you're wondering whether I'm standing in a crop, I'm on a footpath. The Estate ploughed and seeded a section of footpath at the back end of last year but, over the winter and spring, people have continued to use the path, so it's now a hard baked track near the edge of the field. And, as for the "dogs in crops" issue, if you try to grow crops on a footpath, it's bound to happen! 

In the background is an area of the field that was thick with wild grasses and flower last year, but clearly the week killer that was applied to it has been sufficiently strong. All this makes the Estate's signs elsewhere saying "Keep off - environmental regeneration" hard to respect!

The warm weather has also transformed the tired winter/spring grass in our garden into a lush, thick carpet that, some day, I'm going to have to cut back with the mower!