Hay making weather.

 This has been the sunniest and driest June here since 2006, with rainfall half the average for June. Warmer than average and calm.

 Great weather for making hay.

 Zoe forking hay into the trailer.

June garden

Early Potatoes just coming into flower and Poached Egg Plant in full bloom, June 3rd.

Crimson flowered Broad bean

Pea flower.

Poached egg plant on the left, Peas on the right June 3rd.

 Alfie has been feasting on the peas.

Poached eggplant in the foreground, next the freshly planted leeks and behind, the main crop potatoes, June 7th.

When the Poached egg plant finished flowering I cut it at ground level to make way for turnips and cauliflowers.
I then used some of the plants as mulch for nearby rhubarb, The poached egg plant will self-seed wherever they grow and wherever the old plants are left to die down and drop their seed.

Looking down on the veg. patch June 20th. It has been a very dry month.

 Night time visitor!

A rabbit has been eating the sweetcorn, caught on camera by trail-cam.

Despite the rabbit sweetcorn is growing well. Potatoes in flower in the background and the yellow flowers at the back are parsnip in flower for seed, June 27th.

June polytunnel

This was our 2nd picking of early potatoes from the small tunnel (June 3rd) and our first picking of baby broad beans from outside. We eat the first broad beans pods and all, like mange-tout.

The raspberries are so successful in the tunnels. A net over the door keeps the birds away and they are good rain or shine. Raspberries like to hide under the leaves, there are always more than it seems at first.

These were a few of the first raspberries, June 2nd.

This photo shows the new fruiting raspberry cane (green) for next year coming up alongside the cane currently carrying this years fruit (brown). These are summer raspberries and after fruiting the brown cane is cut down near the ground.

I came across these toadstools in the big tunnel while I was weeding early in June.

The leeks have been growing on in the increasingly shady small tunnel. This is the last of 4 trays, just before they are planted out, June 7th.

First cherry tomatoes ripe on June 18th.

Alpine strawberries are fruiting prolifically in the big tunnel

Apricots in the big tunnel, This photo, June 25th, not quite ripe yet.

Peach tree in the big tunnel, The first peach was ripe on June 27th.

The turkey poults are still in the big tunnel, enjoying dust baths and pecking at greens, they are not causing too much trouble (yet) but they will go outdoors soon.

Birds nest in the bait hive.

We took the bait hive down from the eaves of the barn in April and it was filled with moss and horse hair! We forgot to put a nail across the entrance hole to make it too small for birds!  We put the box straight back up and saw a great tit going in and out a few times over the next few weeks.

  Then on June 22nd I was going into the small tunnel when I heard bees buzzing! The bees spent all afternoon trying to decide if this would make a good home, but there must have been competition from another suitable vacant hive. As evening came and the large swarm was still hanging in the crab apple tree I decided to put them in the hive Angus has recently built.

Angus took the bait hive down a couple of days later, cleaned out the nest and put a nail across the entrance so the birds won't be able to use it again. I did think that this was a very natural deep floor and probably what a swarm would often find in a suitable tree cavity.

Dragonfly and damsefly season.

The first Emperor Dragonflies were seen emerging from the pond on May 17th this year. The kitchen table was, for a while, littered with exuviae (the skin the dragonfly sheds after emerging out of the water) , Angus has counted more than 100 two year old exuviae from the small pond during May and early June and this week there were 18 more one year old exuviae.

Emperor Dragonfly exuvia May 19th

  1 year old exuvia

2 year old exuvia

This Emperor dragonfly had just emerged and it's wings were stuck together. Angus separated them and it was able to fly off.

 Large red Damselfly May 25th

Azure Damselfly May 21st 

Angus spotted this Scarce Blue-tailed damselfly on June 23rd.

 Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs. June 23rd

Emperor Dragonfly just emerged, June 23rd

We don't have a photo, but Angus saw an Emperor dragonfly eating a honeybee.... 

......the circle of life.

Turkey poults

Tivon took this photo of Argus, the proud father to be.

Our turkey hen hatched out 4 chicks, as turkeys have such a reputation for losses when raising their chicks we decided to intervene and brought them into the house and put them under a heat lamp.  One had been trying to hatch for a couple of hours, it was fine the next day and we were hopeful, but we did loose 2 in the first few days.

As the weather was very calm and warm they were brought outside for short spells.

Alfie wasn't to sure what to think of them.

 After about a month they were moved out to the big tunnel.

 Where they continue to grow.

and grow....

Alfie's umbrella.

 Alfie holding his umbrella

 Another day, another umbrella. 

(nasturtium leaf).

 Feeding Thistle.

Chopping onions.

Hammering in the workshop.