The field, continues it’s journey into summer, never has it provided more pleasure than this year, and it’s always been a delight, but being on our doorstep, it is a wonderful distraction from the woes of the world.
The weather we have had since lock-down has made it quiet magical. So many insects and butterflies After the heavy rain of the last few days, when the clouds clear and the sun breaks through, the bugs and butterflies rise up with the warmth from the ground. It makes me smile.
This was yesterdays treat, a dark green fritillary
The name comes, if you are wondering, from the colour underneath the wing.
They like to feed on knapweed
Knapweed is a plant we introduced to the field, about eight or nine years ago, having had work done to remedy a problem from theoutflow of the septic tank ( sorry you weren’t expecting that were you?) we took the opportunity to reseed the area with a native wildflower seed mix, some of the species decided the field wasn’t for them, but the knapweed liked the neighbourhood and flourished
The bees are delighted.
Uphilldowndale 
Knapweed is good.
That knapweed really is pretty. We have a nice fritillary, too — the Gulf fritillary, which has lovely silvery spots. I could do with a little less heat and humidity, but I’m eager for the next days, when the Saharan dust cloud will move away. Sometimes it provides pretty sunsets, but this year has been less than spectacular, so I’m ready for it to move on.
It is a very strange time indeed, are Saharan dust clouds an annual event?
They sure are. It has to do with the way the jet streams arrange themselves, I think. We actually don’t mind them, because if there are heavy dust clouds over the Gulf, they can help to lower water temperatures a bit, and so help to suppress hurricanes. They come and go: sometimes farther north, sometimes south.
How wonderful. Since childhood I have had a hankering to own a field and have day-dreamed about how I would spend my time there. Nice to know that someone has realized that dream.
Thank you, we are indeed very lucky, it is 29 years this week since we moved here, we didn’t set out to own a house with a field, nor did we know what we were doing with it, but we’ve had good advice and support from family and our neighbour farmer over the years.
That’s nice to know. I hope you have many years of happiness and pleasure from your house and field.
Lovely post and pictures. Lucky you having that on your doorstep. xx
Your posts are always a breath of fresh air! Head over to my place – there’s a nomination for you (hope you don’t mind?). C
Hello. I thought you had stopped blogging, only to find out that WordPress mysteriously dropped my following. This has happened with other people from time to time. I’m looking forward to seeing your posts again.
Best wishes to you and yours for the coming New Year 2021.
I hope you are all faring well and that you will perhaps find time and energy to uodate the blog at some point.