Shade chores

10am and my work is done.  I set the alarm for well before seven am so I could get a few hours of cool work in the shade before the blast.

I had just one thing on my list. Rake.

And it’s amazing how fast you can work when you know you only have a few hours before it gets uncomfortably hot.

I started with the huge bank below the road on the first terrace.  I have no idea how Nicolas manages on this steep slope with a heavy whirring killing machine.  Well, I used to do it, so I do remember that you stand with quite a list by the end of the session.

But what I never managed to do was to save the treasures. All morning as I raked I marvelled that he managed to spare all the flowering thymes.

And the hollyhocks, the St John’s wort plants in flower.  And some rather fetching annual grasses.

My photos of these random plants are not stellar. It was deep shade and cool.

And I didn’t want to slow as the sun was sneaking up over the mountain.

So you are stuck with the view of dozens of little piles dotted all over the terraces. I’ll collect them another day.

And then oddly, just as I was ready to finish the hot work a big black cloud loomed and everything went dull and cloudy.

Marvellous! An extra hour to sneak in before the thunderstorm (predicted for 5pm) came early.

I grabbed the fork (not hard, it was still stuck in the soil where I left off last night) and did another ten feet of weed clearing of the orchard bank.

Most people weed with a trowel. Not here. It’s hang onto the fork and heave.  I have a dry as dust bank held together with rocks and stones.

I think I am going to stop at the next apple tree and call that the project done for the summer.  There is a lot to do in the potager and it has been neglected.

So here is the shade work done for the day.

And now I really must unplug the modem and the phones before the next big storm. I have only just replaced the fried phones from the last lightning strike.