Big black clouds have come and gone and have clearly deposited a lot of rain on neighbouring areas, but not much on us.

The little rain we have had was the first that the chicks have experienced, as their outside run is now fully connected to their corner of the barn and they can choose whether to be inside or out. I watched some of them use their run while it was raining and they spent a lot of time shaking and fluffing out their feathers.

The sweet peas are flowering in front of the veranda, but aren't quite as spectacular as I'd hoped. Probably because it's been so dry and I haven't watered them as much as I should have done. They do smell lovely when we sit on the veranda, though.

Yesterday there was a disruption to the usual routine when a set of trainee journalists from the local college turned up to make a film recording our various green installations. This was a follow-up from the
green homes tour we were involved with in March. Mike did some talking, then they filmed various things. I stayed out of it! I think the end product will appear on the Internet at some point, so I will link to it when it does.

We're picking lots of peas at the moment and the greenhouse tomatoes are coming along well. This is one of the Amish paste tomatoes.

I'm also finding a lot of self-sown Riesentraube tomato plants coming up in what is now one of my brassica beds. Makes me wonder why I mollycoddle the tomato plants indoors for weeks, when they self-seed so readily outside!
I did a lot of weeding and some succession sowing of carrots, beetroot and lettuce at the weekend and have been watering those beds this week. I don't bother to water the more established plants, but obviously the greenhouse needs watering each night. The newly-sown carrots are already up, which seems very quick. With the dry weather the seasonal pond has dried up and, unfortunately, so did the tadpoles. There still seem to be a good quantity of adult frogs around, though. This one was watching me as I weeded the tyre garden. I still feel rather guilty about not trying to rescue the tadpoles - so that look in its eye seems a bit accusatory.