Winged Irritants

As September starts the garden is pretty quiet, we content ourselves with a little pruning and harvesting as the settled weather continues. Sometimes the harvest is wild as we found when venturing onto the Ha Ha to cut back the buddlejas , globosa and alternifolia are both pruned at this time of year as they flower on the wood produced the previous season, unlike davidii which is done in early spring. Anyway intertwined with a very large specimen were some luscious blackberries, so we had to pick them first. Two good punnets full all for free, sold to raise funds for keeping us in gainful employment through the winter! We nearly paid for them in other ways though, halfway through we had to abandon our task as a swarm of hornets descended to check us out, so we hoofed it back to the garden until they had dispersed. Nature doesn't mind if we take our share, but we must remember other creatures need some too! I must admit one of the things I look forward to about autumn is a few less winged critters, the flies were terribly bothersome that morning driving poor Nikky to wear a hat despite the heat.

I think my lens is fogged here but it does give a rather interesting effect

"Restless thoughts, like a deadly swarm of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone, but rush upon me thronging"
John Milton