A Few Notes for 5th August.

I noticed yesterday that the quality of the daylight is changing now that we’ve moved into August. It’s moving perceptibly towards the mellow light of autumn before sinking further into the cold light of winter. Being no longer a schoolboy revelling in the long summer holiday (August was the only month of the year when you never had to go to school), I’m not particularly enamoured of August. August is the month when the leaves start hissing at you.

So what did today offer that is worth mentioning?

The barley I’ve mentioned a few times is mown at last. I’d say that the wheat still has a week or two to go. The maize plants, on the other hand, have adopted the delusion that they’re rehearsing to be extras in Jack and the Beanstalk, courtesy of all the rain we’ve had lately. They’re already more than tall enough to hide hobbits, and the view of the Lady B’s erstwhile abode from Church Lane is almost totally obliterated by a forest of them.

I saw a tractor doing something I’ve never seen a tractor do before, but since I couldn’t work out what it was I won’t bother trying to describe it.

This morning’s depression was one of the worst ever. I don’t know the source of my habitual morning depressions, but I do have a few suspicions. None of them are particularly sensible.

There was a sparrow hawk perching on one of the bird tables, which struck me as an odd sort of thing for a sparrow hawk to do since no small bird would dream of coming within a five second flying distance while it was there. I’ve never seen a sparrow hawk do that before. My oh my, hasn’t this year been full of firsts?