JUNE - "The tiniest dewdrop hanging from a grass blade in the morning is big enough to reflect the sunshine and the blue of the sky." (from our perpetual calendar 25th June)

Engineering over the babbling brook

As I start this blog, 22nd of June, I'm sitting in a world just awakening. Birds are active all around me, the siskins don't move, or even stop feeding, when I approach them. For a moment the birdsong stops and I wonder what is lurking nearby. Something has been in the garden according to Orlando's nose!! It's a poorly nose at the moment though. He was bitten or stung by something fierce and is now having medicine for it. When he was a puppy, he had a snake bite that was worse but this is not fun for him either! We believe the culprit may have been a Great Water Diving Beetle. Ginny photographed one in the pond the day after he was hurt. We didn't know it was there - or what it was until we researched it. Orlando and Jessie both drink from the pond but Orlando doesn't just stop there on the edge - he swims in it - it's not big - but he pretends!!! He hasn't been in the pond since his injury so it looks likely the beetle ate his nose!

The culprit - the Great Water Diving Beetle

We have so many insects at present and they do love to eat us! It does mean, however, that we also get the swallows and the bats in the garden. Last night we watched bats circling the front grass - lots of moss, clover and daisies amongst it!! Quite lovely really!

As far as I know the most likely bats here, in the far north, are the Daubenton's, the Natterer's, the Pipistrelle and the Brown long eared bat. Ignorance and ageing eyes mean I can't be sure what I am looking at. And bi-focals don't help!!! I know they are bats but I can't be sure which ones. Last night there were very large ones and very small ones - that's the extent of my identification!

We have had bats living with us in three of our homes. In Barrow upon Humber, North Lincolnshire, we put up two bat boxes for them - one set on each chimney stack. We had them in Wick, East Caithness, and we have them here in West Caithness - we are fairly sure they are sharing our roof space. I think they live in just about every ecclesiastical building I know of. Best to check the pew before you sit down! Bats may be at risk - and I don't doubt the statistics - but we seem to be fortunate in choosing, for our habitation, what turns out to be their territory! Although, I have read that they move from site to site so I guess they come and go. Oh well - they are welcome - we don't use chemicals here so they should find we offer a safe harbour when they need one.

I had missed the wren family until this week - there were only occasional sightings - but now they are back. I love to watch them scurry and flit amongst the shrubs and in and out of the crevices in the stone walls, looking for insects. And so much music from such a little ball of feathers!

At celebrations then
All left here will come
And laugh for me, with me, again.
Attending but unasked,
Arriving so early, and when
All have gone home, I will remain.
You know I love the wren
Yodelling for me,
Yammering as he defends his den,
Yelling to save his mate -
Yet you will hear his song, then
Yesterdays will be as today.

Moonrise on the Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice gave us an extra long daytime with an amazing light in the evening. It only started to darken at around eleven o'clock and was still not properly dark at 11:30pm. It came towards the end of the first good weather week of June. At the beginning of the month the wind was coming at us from the north and pegging down the temperatures quite a bit. We were able to do some gardening but were wrapped up against the cold. On 4th June, at bedtime, the little weather station was reading 5°C. Daytime temperatures were low too but, by Sunday 9th, we were basking in a heatwave of 10°C!!!!! The one good thing about the low temperatures was that the grass didn't grow very well! No need to get out the lawnmower!

There's been a big improvement since then and we seem to have a proper summer at last.

Bursts of colour in the Cottage Garden

Years ago, June was a month for hoeing and weeding crops - one field after another - by hand - just walking along with a hand-held hoe. Imagine the backache and the sun beating down on the open field. There was no shelter in the fields. The men would sometimes wear, on their heads, a large handkerchief which they weighted at the corners by forming knots. The women wore straw bonnets or cotton  "Lincolnshire sun bonnets". The special thing about the Lincolnshire sun bonnet was its extension at the back to protect the neck from the effects of the sun. Some bonnets reached down over the shoulders. They were often starched. Who remembers horrible starch? Used on collars, it could make the neck sore!  Frankly, I prefer the wrinkled fabric!

In June 1893, in Lincolnshire, George North recorded that Saturday, 24th, was "the first rainy morning since March". That hasn't been our problem here in Caithness, 2024! We've had the rain - we need even more sunshine now so that the crops will ripen. I have my straw hat. I'm ready!!

At present we have sunshine even when it rains - lots of stonecrop on the walls! The yellow flowers garland the tall leaning wall between the row of small sheds and the kitchen garden. It makes you stop and look at this time of the year. Normally I walk that way without really seeing anything - it's just stone and sheds!!!! But now I notice the large clusters of sulphur stars lighting up the path. Magic!

Spectacular Summer skies!

There's so much that is magical in June. In Wick, on a Telford road with Telford housing on one side and a modern row on the other, a dismal rectangle of soil has been converted into a delightfully uplifting garden plot by one person's vision and determination. More magic!

Here, at Stempster, we keep finding little miracles. I sowed my favourite nasturtium seeds in the lovely blue planter I was given when I left my last teaching post. They germinated and, soon afterwards, I noticed they were being eaten. A couple of days later more seeds had germinated and they haven't been eaten - even more exciting - the older seedlings have recovered and don't appear to have been nibbled anymore! These little miracles don't go unnoticed.

Battling it out: Honeysuckle and Virginia Creeper tumbling over the gate

The creeping things are making a big push. The honeysuckle and Virginia creeper are battling it out above the gate. They won't take discipline - either of them! The blue periwinkle is oozing through gaps in the stone to start a new plant on the other side. The dog rose I brought from Wick is green and bushy but I haven't seen any buds yet. I can be patient though - especially as we have a lovely little stretch of dog roses just across the road from our drive. One has turned up behind the greenhouse too. The ivy is bullying its way through the garden, taking no prisoners. I shouldn't forget the purple vetch here! It keeps its head down and is really deliciously delicate - but it tangles through the flowers like there was no tomorrow.

Dog roses across from the house. They don't look much like dogs to me!

This has been a different sort of June. I soak up the marvellous beauty of it when it's offered. Even in the rain there have been moments which have been quite lovely. And knowing the rain is good for the earth is important. I enjoy the commentary of others on these uncharacteristic aspects of the summer. There's been a great deal said about the full-on striking beauty of June but not so much about the other things! My daughter and I have an ongoing light-hearted difference of opinion about Dorothy Wordsworth. To simplify, my own view is that the woman might have been more successful than her famous brother, had the time been right for her. This quote from her journal, written on 23rd June, 1801, shows her appreciation of a June evening at Grasmere:

"It was a sullen, coldish evening, no sunshine; but after we had parted from Leslie a light came out suddenly that repaid us for all. It fell only upon one hill, and the island, but it arrayed the grass and trees in gem-like brightness."

The temptation when writing about the natural world is to bring in as many surprises as possible - and we do have lots of surprises at Stempster - but some of the least surprising creatures are a constant source of pleasure too.

Certainly-not-a-dog rose!

The little siskin is one such. We have spruce trees and they do love their spruces! The siskins nest high up in our spruce and pine trees and they are bringing their first young to the garden now. There should be a second brood too. They are finches and sometimes they bring a redpoll along with them. The redpoll is also a finch and nests in trees -  but not as high up as siskins. They don't nest on the ground but they will build low down in a bush. Like the siskin, the redpoll is a fan of alders and birches.

Trees are lifeblood to birds - feeding them, sheltering them from storms, providing nesting places in springtime and roosting places on winter nights. An oak tree in Wiltshire has been the home to successive families of barn owls since the 1730s. George the Second was on the throne and Robert Walpole was Prime Minister in 1730. If you research your family tree you will know that, by the time you get back to 1730, you are looking at many branches! My Temperton branch was living on the banks of the River Trent at West Butterwick in 1730. John Temperton married Hannah Watson on 11th April 1738 in Saint Martin's Church, Owston Ferry. The oak tree which still gives shelter to the barn owls is 1,000 years old. I haven't a clue where my Temperton ancestors were in 1024!!! Some theorise that they were from Ayrshire and were Templars. Even that is of little use as the Knights Templars were not founded until around 1119. So that little oak tree growing in Wiltshire in 1024 predates the Templars - and the Norman Conquest of 1066!!!

Trees are one of the oldest forms of life on this planet - they are essential to life here. The increased pressure we are putting on them, threatens their future. Planting trees is a way we can not only look to the future of trees here in Britain but also a way we can improve the lives of those people who will be here after our time has passed. I remember reading, a lot of years ago now,  about a lady who had a beautiful garden but she was getting old and knew that her "Betula Time" was not far away. The Betula genus includes the birch, alder, hazel and hornbeam. Her idea was to sow grass and plant betulas amongst it, watching them grow in her later years and only needing help to mow occasionally.

As children, playing down Carrside in Epworth, we had an old tree as "den". As a parent, I watched, with terror sometimes, as my children climbed in Granny's willow behind her pond. We had no trees in our Orkney gardens but in Barrow we had a nice collection of native trees to start us off and then we added several eucalyptus, a greengage, a second plum and another apple tree. Ten years later we moved back to the far north and lived on a tree lined square in Wick - Telford's Argyle Square. Now we are surrounded by trees - both evergreen and deciduous and enjoy all the benefits - with a few concerns about wires and gales! Trees as comfort for old age? Yes, I like that idea!

Delightful delphiniums

The year after we moved into Stempster House I decided to give the people who live here permanently a tree as a birthday present. It wasn't as if we didn't have enough trees! I wanted us each to start our own tree. Clemency has a quince which she has planted at the bottom of the orchard. The orchard was the paddock but we don't need a paddock so we're recycling!! Judith has an aspen. Aspens do well up here in northern Scotland. They have two ways of reproducing - their seeds can travel long distances on the wind and they also send out suckers which produce genetically identical trees. Aspens love water and Judith has planted hers on the front lawn where the grass soon became soggy after a rainy spell. Now it doesn't get soggy there anymore and I put that down to the aspen's ongoing thirst! Ginny didn't really want a tree so I gave her two different mulberry bushes - one is planted in the orchard and the other is struggling a bit in the cottage garden. Hopefully they both will survive and then she will have to go round and round in circles deciding which mulberry bush to circumnavigate! I gave Keith a ginko.  He's always been a specimen man and is far more fascinated by plants which are a bit different than the regular native ones. We grew a ginko in our first garden in Crowle, North Lincolnshire but we moved to Orkney after nine years and had to leave it behind. This one is doing quite well planted at the edge of the front garden. Nobody wanted me to be left out so, for my birthday that year, Keith gave me a tree of heaven, a sweet gum and a bottle brush plant. The tree of heaven is planted in the cottage garden and is redeeming itself - one healthy red shoot at present but I'm hoping for further development! The bottle brush succumbed to our testing winters - and the sweet gum is no more due to a doggy incident.
There have been a few incidents during June. We are unsure if there is one culprit or more than one.

One tree that certainly does well at Stempster - with the beautiful elder flowers!

Overnight, between Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd June, something happened on and around the outdoor table which sits beyond the French windows in the kitchen. I had a small but very heavy planter there with my Purslane seeds growing in it. They were growing slowly but they were growing. It was knocked off the table and smashed. Judith and Clemency rescued the tiny seedlings and repotted them. They seemed to be getting better but then we had a chimney stack repaired and rubble fell on the new pot. That was the end of my Purslane. I'll have another go! Not accepting defeat!!!

The next incident was on Thursday, 6th June, when a crow (not a Crow) knocked over the flimsier of the bird feeders and also uprooted the new rhubarb. I've since jammed the bird feeder inside a large forsythia bush and put the rhubarb into a big pot. Bird feeder and rhubarb both doing well!!!

On Monday 10th , the battered mailbox, where the great tits nested, keeled over. There's nothing to be done with the mailbox except to put it aside for a bonfire.

A series of unfortunate incidents!

On the positive side, we are surrounded by the most marvellous choir - birds of so many shapes and sizes, calling, singing, getting angry with each other, trying to locate their errant young and sweetly crooning their lullabies then waking us up in the early mornings with their "good to see you" songs.

There is one particular male chaffinch who is strikingly dapper. You can't miss him! He has a blue crown, a chestnut back and is a very rich pink underneath. On his shoulder is a significant white patch which stands out really well. Absolutely stunning bird!

Personal hygiene is important... even for insects!

Visiting my granny on her June birthday is a memory I'd like to share here. She was so pleased to see us you would think we'd travelled miles. She wouldn't allow people to spoil her though - still had to run around making drinks and plying us with scones and buns. Some years Grandad would remember where her birthday card was and got it out for her - it had done very well lasting so long! Some years she had to remind him where it was!

Sitting on the lawn of their cottage garden was how I imagined heaven would be. There was a privet bush - very big and variegated. This stood beside the old wooden water pump and was usually planted round with nasturtiums - but they weren't yet in flower. The hens were grumbling around the corner and the fruit trees and bushes played host to a variety of small birds. The lawn was soft and very green - except for the patch from which Lassie used to enjoy the slow pace of life down Carrhouse. Granny brought out lemon barley water. It was always lemon barley water for children. I had my favourite glass with tiny children painted on it. Grandad would sit back in his deckchair with his hand behind his head. He knew how to enjoy the good things in life. I mean the really good things.  He'd lived much of his life in that house and he had no intention of changing anything. As they grew older, Granny found the housework more and more difficult. It didn't stop her of course - nothing stopped her! Eventually they moved to a bungalow for old people in Churchtown, Belton. I'm fairly sure they both missed the old place but things had suddenly become easier. A well-earned rest!

A funny little image to share was something Ginny and I witnessed on the dog walk yesterday. People have been telling me that the loud bangs coming from the field, across the road from the edge of the little wood, should not be audible on a Sunday. They are made by a bird scarer and are quite bassy - so one day off from them each week would be nice. But the operator didn't get the memo! Our neighbour, who farms around us, doesn't use them and neither does the farm across the Forss valley. What's funny? Well, as we were heading home we heard the first boom and waited with a nervous spaniel and his far less nervous little sister for the next. As we stood there, with the bird scarer assaulting our ears, we watched a pheasant strolling over the crop - completely unmoved!

Magnificence and delicacy in the garden

It hasn't been easy for farmers lately.  The weather has presented problems and we've been reminded of how inclement weather can directly affect a farmer's fortunes. In Caithness we have none of the massive amalgamated farms there are down south - so many of the stresses are the same as they've been for many years. If a tractor is out of action this can cause major problems. So too can poor animal health or the death of an animal. The weather affects the crop yield and that will throw out of the window all financial expectations. There is help available for agricultural workers and those who are retired from agriculture. For example, there's a "Help for Heating" grant available to those struggling with their heating bills. I do wish details of possible help were made more accessible. No one should feel there is no way out and nobody who will listen to their concerns.

"It is easy to forget that farming is literally a matter of life and death; easy to forget how amazing it is to live without ever having to worry where your next meal is coming from - for dinner to always just be there, and better than that, to have a choice of what you eat."

(James Rebanks, English Pastoral, An Inheritance 2020)

We used to take our holidays in June. June was the month between carrots and potatoes and peas and broad beans. As soon as the school year was over I would be off with Dad to inspect fields of growing peas. Were the peas ripening? Were they fat enough? One such field was down Low Melwood in Epworth - in the days when gangs of women from nearby towns were employed to pick the peas, being given tickets for each bag they filled during the day and then paid for each ticket at the end of the day. That was in July but here, in Scotland, the school year ends this week - at the end of June.

June is the month of feathered youngsters bobbing up and down in the rose-sprinkled hedgerows and on the paths of our gardens. It's the month of hefty toads deliberating over which direction to take as they heave themselves out of the ditch. Young chestnut coated deer peer through morning mist over the old millpond - now a bed of iris and pretty grasses. In the garden there are so many June friends remaining faithful through the years. The roses are coming into flower and the peonies too, in their shades of pink into red. A couple of super-tall foxgloves stand proud at the edge of the garden. 

Mottled paths, leading the bees into the foxgloves!

How tall is that?

And, when I step outside to take an evening photo, the sounds and smells stop me in my tracks. The elder tree is no small contributor to all of this - full of little birds and fragrant with great heads of creamy blossom. I close my June blog at the opposite end of the day - with dappled light flickering to my left and a heart-stopping peace all around me. Beautiful June.

Verse 2 from "Resolution and Independence" by William Wordsworth -

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with raindrops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the pashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.