A Summer’s Day

The challenge today on Slamseys Journal is to spend fifteen minutes sketching the everyday and while I’m not going to share my sketches, I’m more than happy to share the everyday happenings on a summer’s day here.

At last, the wheat harvest has started. The combine roared into this field this morning and has been steadily working up and down all day.

The wheat heap is slowly building in the barn. Always a good sight to see.

There’s time for a  drink of home-made lemon squash in the shade. The bull you can see in the background is made from recycled tools and bits of farm implements and stands in the place that used to be the bull’s pen. If you lift his tail or tickle his balls, a bell rings.

Wild poppies and mayweed flowers. A present from my two year-old grandson. Obviously no stalks. Just flowers. But they make a summery, if fleeting, floating arrangement. Did you know that poppies are the county flower of Essex?

Supper tonight, freshly picked from the garden. Carrots, peas, courgettes, beetroot, spring onion (yes, it is enormous), French and runner beans. I shall make HFW’s Half-the-garden-soup but add some potatoes and Feta cheese and call it stew. Supper has been put back three times so far as lorry drivers have rung to say they’ll be coming this evening to collect wheat. Luckily this isn’t a fussy dish that needs split second timing.

Raspberries for pudding. The summer raspberries have just about finished and the autumn fruiting ones are just ripening. Unfortunately, the wasps have also discovered them so the raspberries have to be picked carefully to avoid getting stung.

Sometimes, I take the everyday things for granted but, to quote Evan Davis “It’s not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.”