The rain has enhanced the vivid and varied green colours of the trees and bushes, shrubs and vegetables. The greens are luminous in spring and at their very best.

One of the lambs is unaware that the cows are “top dogs” at The Gables. The lamb was happily eating from the cow hay and getting away with it!

The dry earth is soaking up the rain thirstly

The newly ploughed strip of ground (around the perimeter of the field) is especially in need of rain. The potatoes are beginning to show. They need moisture.

Yesterday we planted four rows of sweet corn – all different varieties. If only half germinate and grow we will have plenty to eat and share. The chickens don’t like to get their feathers wet so I have put some plastic over the house which is home to the Bantie and her eleven chicks.

The green poly tunnel provides shelter for one of the flocks

The “Pom Pom” girls are soaked but won’t retreat to their dry hen house

The “Poundland” lilies have done so well and J divided up the pot (which had become overcrowded) and overwintered them in the poly tunnel. We now have four pots of vigorous lilies under the pergola

They are plagued by the annual visits of the red Lily beetles – which overwinter in the soil, anywhere, and somehow find their way to the lily plants where they mate and lay their eggs. They are such prettily coloured beetles and they can only live on lilies but they nibble holes in the Lily leaves which can be irksome. I am prepared to live with the beetles as long as they don’t interfere with the Lily flowers. I certainly wouldn’t use a pesticide. Live and let live.