The days are shortening and the nights become cooler. Yes! Our long, dry, Summer days are drawing to a close. The little blue wrens are returning to the garden, their fledglings with them. Chattering all day, they look for worms in the grass. I am sure it is more comfortable in our gardens, than the nurseries in the blackberry patches that infest our surrounding bush, but it is hard for work for the delightful chatter-boxes as the worms have burrowed deep, trying to find a moister home. The wood ducks or maned geese have also returned to "Big Pond, Cinderella". They use the bush trees to buld their nests and rear their young. The doves do not realise that Spring is over and continue to increase their population. We have six white adults now and two more babies in the dovecote. If this keeps up, will I have to make pigeon pie? They are so soft and beautiful, how can I even write it? No wonder they are used as a symbol of peace! I have seen them quarrel over wives or husbands and the courting and cooing pair give a shove to the pushy, hopeful young one. The loser silently flies down to the grass and looks for another wife to coo softly to.
The wet Spring, [four Open Garden days and four days of pouring rain], followed by record average high temperatures and record lack of rain, has made the trees and shrubs punish us, most severely, for placing them, when they first came to live with us, far too close to their neighbours. Even the conifers, the Spruces and Abies [the blue spruce is supposed to take many years to mature] are now tree like. We are now in our thirteenth year of planting our first tree and it is supposed to take at least thirty years of slow inching skyward before these special conifers become mature. The gardens are full and there will be much grumbling and hard work in Autumn, as we prune and shift and shift and prune. Then, if you surprise us with a visit, you may hear me mumbling "I told you not to plant so close, Kees" which will be ignored. In a louder voice I will say "Nothing for it but we will have to make another garden". This gets a response, which I don't quite hear but think I hear the words "greedy gardener" or something like that. At the end of the day, you will find me walking around where the too enthusiastic shrub used to live, looking from every angle and thinking, "I can now see through to where the New Zealand lacebark tree is in full bloom and that is beautiful" Yes, new vistas will be created, until next year when it will be all filled up again! I do hope we will get a wet Autumn so the poor migrants will settle down in their new position, their roots in the still warm soil and their leaves getting a refreshing drink
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