The nights draw in, the weather changes and is most noticeably
colder and we start to harvest in many cases the last of the season’s crops.
‘It’s cold. Can we go home?’ asks Lottie as she snuggles
down further into her pillows on the bench. She already has her winter coat on
and as whippets have little fur, she needs it.
‘We won’t be long,’ I reply digging up yet another weed whose
root seems to go on forever.
Apart from the spinach, kale and last of beetroot the season’s
crops are all up. The Spring crops of Romanesco Cauliflower and Purple Sprouting
Broccoli have snugged up under their netting and finally resigned themselves to
the approaching winter. Mind you half the cauliflowers did think it was Spring
last week and I now have some incredibly early ones to harvest in the coming
weeks.
‘That squirrel is up the sunflowers again,’ remarks Lottie,
too cold to stir and warn it off.
I turn forgetting that I still have some sunflowers to pick
and dig up.
The Squirrels take it in turns to ascend the sunflowers, chew off the seed heads and scurry down to collect their prize. Then you see a sunflower head with four legs and a bushy tail disappear to some secret hiding place they will probably forget about tomorrow. One goes down and suddenly from nowhere another pops up and clocks on for their shift.
‘I better pick what they haven’t taken,’
‘Not much then,’ laughs Lottie.
As I approach the sunflowers the squirrels retreat to watch
me from a distance and I find some flowers still have bees taking in their last
orders or perhaps they too have a new closing time imposed on them with their
own virus.
‘You are right. I’ll leave these for the bees and squirrels,’
I tell Lottie who is not interested and has buried herself further into her
pillows and left no sign of her presence exposed.
Just as if he had heard me say i would leave them on of the
green parakeet lands on the sunflowers. Looks at me and says in somewhat of tropical
accent, ‘Thank you, now do you mind, its parakeet time!’
They are like pigeons who have been dipped in green paint only twice as noisy told them red beaks don’t go with green.
I have just a couple of square metres to dig over and job’s
done for today. Robin appears as if to usher me along and sits perched on the
climbing rose overlooking the final piece of undug earth.
‘Come on, it’s cold out here and I want a nice juicy worm,’
says Robin now hopping onto a lower branch.
As I start to dig he is almost examining the soil as I turn
it over it is literally only inches away from his anxious beak. Suddenly a worm
wriggles free of the surface and before it has time to adjust to the bright
daylight and don its sunglasses, Robin has him and is off for lunch.
The soil is so dry, turning it over and removing the weeds
takes no time at all and before I know it, I am putting away the tools and
putting the debris into the compost bin.
‘That thing is like a Tardis,’ exclaims Lottie who is now
fully alert and sensing it’s time to go home.
‘It’ll soon compost down,’ I reply.
‘But it was full and overflowing only a couple of days ago.’
I reply, ‘that’s composting for you, those little critters
in there just munch it up and spit it out.’
‘I don’t think it’s spit,’ says Lottie with a broad grin.
As we leave Lottie, suddenly stops and points her paw over to the passionflower, ‘I think you had better tell that moth over there that summer has gone.’
I look to see a beautiful orange moth spreading its wings and taking in the last rays of sunshine. ‘You certainly don’t miss much and are a real sighthound,’ I tell Lottie who smiles up at me over the compliment.
We lock up and Lottie eagerly awaits her run home down squirrel alley. It’s amazing, one-minute cold and wanting to go home next alive and wanting to chase squirrels up trees.
