Drought

[puddleshark]

No Autumn Lady's Tresses orchids on Stonehill Down this year. In fact, nothing flowering at all on the short-grazed brown hills, except hawkweed. I wonder what the poor cattle are finding to eat... Perhaps they are nibbling the gorse.









Stopped off at the little tea room at East Creech Farm on the way back, for coffee and a croissant. The duck pond there has almost dried up, only a tiny shallow puddle left in the centre, with the poor disconsolate ducks standing in it.

Comments

[sartorias]

Depressingly familiar colors.

[puddleshark]

I was shocked by how scorched the hills are. It's not quite so bad down in the valley bottoms, but it is still incredibly dry.

[mallorys_camera]

Wow. So brown it looks like California.

[puddleshark]

We've had next to no rain since April, and it really shows. It used to be that there was only one summer in living memory where the Dorset landscape looked like this - 1976 - but two of the last three summers we've seen drought like this.

[lamentables]

Wow, I thought it was bad here, but we have a little more green than that.
Am focusing on the glut of tomatoes and plums to take my mind off the grimness.

[puddleshark]

There has been rain this summer, but it has all veered north of us, and we've somehow ended up with East Anglia's climate.

Maybe next year I should try growing tomatoes again... Every time I do that we get a summer of rain, and they never ripen.

[watervole]

Ouch. I hope the flowers have deep roots and manage to come back next year....

[puddleshark]

I do hope so. It's not quite so bad down in the valley bottom - there are still a few flowers for the bees and butterflies, in among the very yellowed grasses. But the hilltops are scorched nearly to bare earth.