After three solid months of wall-to-wall summer with broiling temperatures and barely a spot of rain, we have skipped a good month or two and landed in autumn. It’s all very disconcerting. Fields are shorn of their grain crops, the stubble cut, bailed, stacked and now being hauled past the house in juggernaut consignments. The muck-spreaders are in action too, top-dressing the hard-baked land for the next crop. Dubious odours waft about the place – some of them human.
Our Midlands water and sewage company do a good trade in what they euphemistically call bio-solids. It has a low-grade, lingering pungency, but having recently watched a BBC documentary on the Secret Life of Landfill (a brief horror clip HERE on YouTube), I’m glad something useful is being done with the stuff. Animal waste also has to be recycled and one morning this week we had four tractors, grisly muck-spreading tanks in tow, thundering in convoy up and down Sheinton Street – to and from somewhere for and with some very potent slurry.
More scenically, early on Saturday evening as we were driving over to friends in neighbouring Staffordshire, we saw two tractors ploughing the red sandstone soil in tandem, a flock of seagulls swirling after them.
I keep wanting to yell, hang on! It’s still summer. Except the sudden 10 degree drop in temperature has me scurrying to the winter vest drawer. But still, out in the back garden it at least looks like summer, so to make up for talk of weird weather and bad smells, here is my August garden gallery. Somewhat perversely, the Morning Glory that has been twining up our small apple tree all summer, has waited for the cool weather to arrive before deciding to flower. A welcome sight, if surprising in the gloomier light. Likewise the Mediterranean-loving zinnias, which have stepped up a gear to full throttle blooming, and continue to be a favourite bee haunt.
The Changing Seasons Please visit host Su for some fine NZ vistas
Lens-Artists #8 Colourful And please visit Tina and the other Lens-Artists. for some ‘colourful’ photography. I hope Tina won’t mind my doubling up here.
Tish Farrell 
Wonderful photos. We are still in hot temps and would love to drop .I see you have overhead spraying too.
Here we’re welcoming the cooler nights. It was just too hot this year. This week we’ve still got a couple of days with temps over 30!
Aaargh…
Not sure I would have survived the heat in France. But yes, cooler nights, those are welcome.
You’re right, Tish, the temperature drop was sudden. There’s been no in between, just hot now chilly . Lovely photographs
Cheers, Trev. Not quite given in to lighting the woodburner.
We have even had to fire up the heating!
The farmers spreading muck makes me laugh. They started spreading on the farm to the East / North East of us. In a NE wind! Something of a rural smell in our lives.
Hm. And some rural smells are definitely better than others. The heating is on in Shropshire too – just a bit 🙂
We have also dropped in temps yet my strawberries are still flourishing!
I think a lot things are looking pretty relieved at the cooler temps – runner beans and caulis etc. But my strawberries gave up producing back in early July, and now look very autumnal. So well done yours!
It remains quite the surprise.
Bye bye summer 😟
Yep 😦
After the somewhat smelly and depressing introduction came the joyful surprise of a visual treat of summer-like images. Your flower shots are absolutely superb, Tish.
I thought I had to make amends with the pix, Peter 🙂 Many thanks.
Tasty flower shots – cannot have enough now that we did not have any flowers this summer…Thank you!
Happy to bring you flowers, Ann Christine. It has been a bit of a struggle keeping things going through the summer.
Indeed
such rich smells emanating from Shropshire – we have exhaust fumes mixed with sweat and other human aromas. The mornings are indeed glorious with the blue Convulvulus (more welcome than the white Pop out of Beds and the awful pink version) – for a moment I did wonder if the Dutch tilt was one over the eight but it shows off the blue blooms and rosy apples perfectly. p.s. what flower is the lilac coloured one
p.p.s. I always refuse Autumn until Michaelmas but the hot summer does seem to have hastened the harvest
The mauvy Parma violet type flower was a give-away pack of seeds in a gardening mag in March. Called somewhat obviously ‘Blue Lace Flower’. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and it’s been brilliant. Am hoping it will self-seed. https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/156419/i-Trachymene-coerulea-i/Details
it’s a beaut
It is beautiful when the petals fall off – like sparklers, and then it makes amazing little seed heads, and the leaves go tangerine.
Oh my Tish – while I appreciate cooler temps I am SO sad to say goodbye to summer, by far my favorite season. Your flowers are glorious. I cannot imagine how you got that ladybug to pose on the absolute center of the flower!!! No worries about doubling up, happy to have you with us!
Many thanks, Tina.
Beautiful portfolio.
Even Mr G’s wonky shed! Smells indeed. I’d check G’s wellies if I were you.
Thank you kindly. Overlooking the cast nasturtiums re smelly wellies as you’ve made me think. Better go check I’m not placing blame in the wrong quarter 🙂 (Hope G is not reading this).
Beautiful pictures that don’t hint of the smells. Though the nights are cool, the days are still quite warm. Nothing unbearable. About 30 degrees, sometimes going as high as 32. In the mornings still very pleasant to take a walk… xxxx
So glad you can continue with your walks, Shimon, and you still have some pleasant warmth. Our mornings are quite chilly now. But we’ve had some sun again today – a dreamy sort of warmth while it lasts across the middle of the day. Thank you for liking the photos 🙂 🙂
Well living next door to one of those places where the slurry comes from I have to say I am almost impervious to the pong, though I did keep well behind the muck spreader in front of my car the other day. Just in case there was an accident. You still have plenty of colour in your garden, mine is practically the same as it was in mid-August. With the addition of pretty white Convolvulus flowers, the common bindweed which managed to escape my eagle eye. The flowers are quite nice, just the habit of strangling everything else is not. I do like your blue ones.
The blue ones only come out in ones and twos, and don’t seem to have the strength to strangle things. Slugs like the stems too. A lot of the colour comes from things in pots – the Russian rudbeckia has been truly astonishing, and likewise the zinnias. I don’t usually go in for this complete sweet shop of colours, and much of it was accidental, but now I’m finding it a real pleasure.
But hey Tish autumn has it’s beauty too, one of my favourite times of the year.
Oh I do agree. I love autumn – just not quite yet 🙂
Sorry about the pungent odors, Tish, and sorry that autumn is approaching faster than you would like, but your photos of your garden are wonderful, as is that amazing sky. I always love autumn. 🙂
Many thanks, Cathy. I love autumn too, but am not quite ready for it yet. Happily the weather people are telling us that summer may come back in the next few days.
I hope so, then, for your sake, Tish. 🙂
You’ve still got so much going on in the garden – it looks beautiful!
Thank you, Ali. The small and slightly bonkers school of gardening 🙂
Great shots, Tish.
Cheers, Mak 🙂
I’m sticking my nose deep in your fragrant collection, Tish, and ignoring the bad smells. 🙂 🙂 The leaves haven’t started to change colour here yet but one has a feeling it can’t be long. Have a lovely weekend!
I shall follow your lead, Jo 🙂 Have a good weekend too.
😃😃
I have to admit I love autumns, but it seems like the one you experience is a little bit challenging. Nevertheless, the photos are beautiful, and yes, they do convey a feeling of still summer.
Many thanks, Otto.
A lovely colourful collection of end of summer flowers Tish. Interesting short video, oh dear all that plastic, what a huge problem it is. As for the pungent odours, believe it or not, but our noses do get used to smells and actually switch off after a while. I know as I lived and worked on a pig farm for many years….
Now that is definitely a smell to come to terms with!
Sure was…
Beautiful captures Tish interspersed with interesting but if seasonal confusing muses 🙂
Definitely seasonal confusions, Abrie. Many thanks.
Every so often we get a waft of the ‘recycled rotting corpses’ smell, as I like to call it, from the fields on the other side of the lake. I suppose they thought that our noses would get bored now that we can’t smell smoke anymore.
That sounds nightmarish. Good not to have the smoke any more though.
Happy bees, beautiful flowers, and one perfect Lady Bug 😀
It was such a good bug to pose so nicely on the zinnia bud 🙂
Beautiful photos Tish. It’s lovely to see the bee and ladybird 🙂 Hope the temperatures stabilise and you get a lovely autumn.
Thanks, Su. After all the whingeing it’s warmer today. Happy weekend 🙂
😀 Hope you’re having a great weekend too. It’s very wet here so I’ve spent a blissful day putting paint on paper and trying (fairly successfully) not to be critical of the results.
I’m up before 6 every day and the last couple pf week there’s a big change in temperature and light, I’m wrapping myself up more, and don’t like it. I watched the clip about landfill, it’s horrendous, imagine 60 years until it’s safe and that’s just one site.
Your cheerful flowers stopped me from sinking into gloom.
The whole documentary was indeed horrifying. In fact it looks like Britain is doing a pretty good job of polluting the whole planet all on its own. BUT there are some great innovations on the horizon. One is plastic bags made from cassava. They melt in water. Also using the methane for power. Of course we all have choice (hard I know). It’s certainly made me think a bit more about what I’m throwing away, or buying in the first place, though it’s hard to avoid much of the packaging.
I’m relatively new to your blog but I’m already starting to appreciate that I’ll always see stunningly beautiful photography. With so many beautiful photos to choose from, the sky with the twin contrails stands out for me. Wow – love it!
I envy your cooler temperatures. It’s still unseasonably hot here and I’m looking forward to the humidity eventually – I hope – breaking.
Oh how very nice of you, Joanne. I appreciate your appreciative comments.