Eating Together

Van Gough's 'Wheatfield with Crows' had not been harvested, but it did have tracks through it, so perhaps their reason for being there was the same: clear ground on which to land and this year's crop of insect larvae becoming available for eating. This chance encounter was the largest flock of Corvids I have seen for years - the picture is only a sample of them. I found the abundance exciting and reassuring. I can't guarantee if they are crows or rooks, but I think the latter. Oh, and it's not wheat, it's barley. I'll call it Barleyfield with Some Kind of Corvid

This is taken over the gate from the apiary. We were there not to look at bees - except a casual check to make sure they are still fending off wasps. We were there to dump apple pomace, having spent the day scratting and pressing to produce early juice. We wouldn't normally juice early apples - it can be over sweet and lack complexity of flavour - but MrsM's brother & wife have a new house and garden, and were excited to create juice from the apple-trees that came with it. In the middle of the chaos we had lunch together at the brewery - a rare event, because we never eat at the café on our doorstep

I do think the ripening fruit has taken the pressure off the hives: it is much easier to chew plums and apples for sweet juice than to fight your way into a beehive. It's even easier to just go and suck it up if someone has chopped up the apples for you and squeezed out the juice. We had a great-deal of yellow-tailed help. Getting a full trug of pomace into the car without an attendant horde of yellowjackets is lots of fun, and could catch on as a party game. We kept anti-histamine tablets and cream close at hand but, remarkably, didn't need them