golden afternoons

The golden summer continues.  It is almost unnerving, five days before the start of November, for it to be this warm.  Blue sky, brilliant sun, if it weren't so low in the sky I could believe it was August. The angle of the light makes a lot of difference to how gardens look, sideways illumination generally being better, which is one reason why garden photographers do so much of their work at about six in the morning.

I am working my way down the long bed, weeding and mulching the last patches and corners that didn't get done over the summer.  Human nature being what it is, the parts I skipped around on my way up the bed are all the bits with overhanging shrubs, their roots interlaced with running grass, that are most difficult and unrewarding to weed.  It looks good once you've done it, being very careful not to let the shrubs poke you in the eye, but ten days later grass stems shoot again from the sections of root you couldn't get out.  I must start zapping them with glyphosate on calm mornings.

I was closely supervised by a robin, or robins.  They really do all look alike, and we have never worked out how many we have in the garden, but wherever you work there will be a robin watching you, and nipping in to seize the small edible things you've obligingly turned up for it.  Yesterday there was a flock of long tailed tits as well.  They ignore us, oblivious to whatever it is the robin eats, but not afraid either.  You often hear them before you see them, making a crazed high pitched peeping noise.

Alas, the latest batch of home made compost that was ready to use has run out, and tomorrow I'll be back to the bags of spent mushroom compost from the garden centre.  I am not sure what to do about the compost bins, since it looks as though rats have just moved in.  Keep turning the compost to disturb them until they move out again?  It's an awfully big volume of material to move too often, and I don't fancy meeting a rat.  Our Ginger has been assiduously mousing recently, leaving the evidence in the form of a series of small kidneys at the bottom of the stairs, while the owls hoot nightly and we see kestrels and buzzards most days.  Poison is not a good option, and if I manage to trap a rat without amputating my own fingers setting the trap then what am I supposed to do with it next?  Once again I have a nasty feeling that I am not really a country person, just an escaped townie with a fancy for gardening and trees, otherwise I should know what to do about things like rats.  I would have a pair of good ratting terriers, and raise my own replacement chickens instead of buying hens because I'm too squeamish to cull unwanted cockerels.

This balmy weather can't last forever.  I must remember to bring in the pots of succulents and the geraniums I want to keep, before I'm caught out by a forecast of frost for the night ahead and have to move dozens of pots in a panic one afternoon.