It's really dry at the moment. it must be a month since we last had any rain and quite likely nearly two and whilst Rais is still quite green the streams have reduced to barely a trickle, the grass in the surrounding fields is all very brown and the paths are very noisy underfoot from the rustling of leaves sacrificed by the trees.
It was eerily quiet all day, long periods with no birdsong or any insects buzzing around. That did mean I could hear the occasional running of the new machine by the pond very well though. By the end of the day there seemed to be some piles driven into one side of the pond so I wonder if there will be a dock or a jetty there soon. I'm still thinking at a fishing lake is the most likely thing they are working towards.
I went to Immac to get a chair and the mice really are making a mess in there now. They have been very visible for the last few weeks but I think we're going to really have to remove the food source and make it less attractive to them. The seeds container has been eaten through and they have been making off with a lot of them! The seats and all the surfaces are covered in droppings and they have even made themselves a new front door!
I have an old metal ammo box that some of the seeds can be transferred to so next week's job will be to try and clean up a bit in there and see if I can do something about the door.
I needed a phone signal today so made my camp up at the Hive, I cleared off the deck behind and set up my chair. Inside there was more mouse evidence, although nothing like as bad as down in Immac, with a nest being started in the box of nibs so I cleared that out and will think about storage up there too.
I had a wander around and the rohdies I sprayed with weed killer are looking limp, but by no means down yet so I think they will need a few more sprays. The stumps by the stream are also sprouting again so either it's the wrong time to use weedkiller or this one is not as good as the roundup. They have definitely been slowed down though even if some more applications will be needed.
I couldn't quite bring myself to do nothing all day so I spent a couple of hours intermittently pulling bracken down from the twisted oak toward the shower. There is some greenery coming aside from the bracken there, especially foxgloves but it has some way to go to catch up the other sections of the wayleave so it looked quite bare by the time I had finished. In between bracken pulling I just sat and listened or read my book. It's mostly shady where I was and an occasional breeze helped keep it a fraction cooler. I am starting to recognise a few of the bird calls, or at least to be able to group them and while they were mostly at least familiar I was surprised to hear two I had not heard before. It seems the population up by the hive is perhaps a bit different to down by the Yardarm.
Great news was that the buzzards (or some Buzzards at least) were back and spent a good part of the day circling and calling right overhead
