The hot and sunny days that we had in April and May came to a bit of a halt in the first half of June, but with warm temperatures, the water level of the pond was slowly dropping. We had previously used rain water from the water butt at the entrance to the woodlands, but it was obvious that we needed more. We have now connected another water butt to the roof of the bee shed, which was further connected via a hosepipe to the pond, and with gravity, the pond level since the heavy rains of the 17th and 18th June, has filled up nicely.
Unfortunately, the heavy rains have knocked quite a few apples off the trees; we are hoping that those still remaining will provide a good crop in late September.
Fallen apples 
Three strong and healthy Bramley apples
At end of May and early June, our bluebells had almost stopped flowering, but as can be seen below, a single foxglove on the Oak Glade area is floweing strongly. We have weeded around this foxflove in the hope that when it starts to seed in the next few weeks, these will land on the ground and not on plants’ leaves.
At the entrance of the glade is a 30 / 40 feet high cherry tree, which as the photo below shows on the 6th June, was full of ripe cherries and a large number of ripening cherries. However, a site visit a week later showed that apart from several green cherries, the local wildlife had helped themselves!
Ripe cherries.
The bugs and beasties were out, with dragonflies, caterpillers, hoverflies and other insects being seen in large numbers.
Caterpiller in the grass.
