It was a wonderful, sunny, last day of September today and yesterday was a good weather day too, and I wandered in and around the village both afternoons with the camera.
Logging has been going on during the last week or so and I wandered up the lane towards the main road to the very muddy turn off where the huge lorries have been loading up the felled pines. The dog who was with the tractor driver wasn't happy to see me there and I was a little worried until his owner spoke sharply to him and he reluctantly left me in one piece.
The machinery has certainly churned up the path for a long distance.
The biggest trunks are apparently off to China and the smaller lengths are going to a paper making company in France.
There aren't a lot of fungi about yet. I met a couple who found a cep yesterday by the lake at Kerne Uhel, but they had nothing in their baskets when they were chatting with me. I know that the one on the left above is a Coprinus comatus, commonly known as the Shaggy Inkcap or the Lawyer's Wig as it was confirmed by the people at First Nature.
I've no idea what these above are, but love the way you can see the gills from the side so that they look like wheel cogs.
There were several huge heaps of potatoes on the side of the path which seemed odd. They looked healthy enough so I'm not sure why they were dumped.
This was one of the few horse chestnuts I saw. Most chestnut trees here are sweet chestnuts like the cases with long prickles in the bottom photo.
In the woods I came across a small building and then a larger ruin of a house. I believe these were abandoned in the war when the Germans were here.
The light was lovely in filtering through the trees. This was a small stream which suddenly takes over from the path and has to be negotiated or, as I didn't have wellies, I walked carefully along the very soggy, muddy bank.
The medlar, which I have never seen growing before, was on a neighbour's land, as was the yew berry - such a strange form with its hollow end.
These were windfall pears which I picked up in the hope that they may ripen in the warmth of my sitting room. They are very big - the middle front one is 6"/15cm long and very hard - unlike any pears I've seen before although a friend thinks they may be William pears.
Some of the horses in the lane came over in the hope of a snack, but I had no pockets, and the goats were grazing by the bridge over the mill stream.
The foxgloves must be one of the last of the year and when I got home I found a delphinium flowering again under the honeysuckle.
The weather this year has been most bizarre and I don't think the plants know whether they are coming or going.
A small thistle with insect, honeysuckle berries, an umbillifer seedhead, probably cow parsley and some very strange colour holly berries - almost rustlike instead of the normal scarlet.
My holly bears no berries now. The blackbirds took them all during August, before they had quite turned red from their white beginnings. I shall have to pick some from the lanes for Christmas decorations this year.
I came home with no fungi and no berries, but did have a bagful of dandelion leaves for the rabbits and those very hard pears for me.
Three things I like:
1. Purrdy has happily returned to relaxing in the sitting room now that she is the only housecat.
2. The lovely soup I blitzed from the vegetables and stock I cooked under my roast chicken yesterday.
3. Being able to sit and read outside in the sun on the last day of September.
