I'm afraid, as in recent months and more and more so it seems, I've hardly had time to visit the 800 yards this month, as we enter the last quarter of this blog year (I started this blog last November you may remember).

Firstly, for the first two weeks of August I was run off my feet at work and we had another wet wet wet fortnight, meaning my free time was mainly spent inside.

Then we (Anna, myself and the boy) went for our week's summer holiday on the Isle of Wight, which of course kept me away from the 800 yards then too.

I HAVE visited it once or twice since returning from the Solent though (see video below, shot today for example) and it's clear, like the rest of SE England (or England as a whole perhaps this summer?), the 800 yards is very verdant and lush indeed after something like four normal summer's rainfalls in seven and a half weeks of summer this year.

The only thing that looks brown up at the 800 yards this August is the knackered horse chestnuts (disease I reckon) and the pelts of all the rabbits - the rabbits don't seem to mind the rain at all!

Even the wheat in the field along a part of the 800 yards has gone from being honey-coloured to black - I am left wondering if the farmer has missed his harvest - was he hoping to get it (the wheat) in in mid July - but it really hasn't stopped raining since about then here. 

Can that happen these days?

Can farmers miss their harvests and leave their wheat to basically turn black in the fields?

Surely not you'd think?***

Anyway, other than rampant green foliage, grass, weeds and brambles lining the 800 yards, rampant rabbits and black wheat - there's not a lot to say this month.

Apologies if you were expecting a big update on the kestrels and owls - I can't provide you with one this month (yet!) as I've just not been around to see them.

OK... two months left in this slightly disappointing project - let's hope I have more to say in September when I assume, the frosts might return, the dewy cobwebs surely will and all these leaves may start dropping eh?

Until then, grapple fans....

*** Spooky.

We were watching the local news today and yes.. it seems like a farmer CAN lose their entire wheat crop in summers like this. First the quality of harvest is downgraded from use for beer and bread to animal feed.... and then (as I think is the case up at the 800 yards of 'mac), it's downgraded to worthless - and the farmer watches it rot in his field. How terrible is that (and how terrible has our "summer" been this year, after a wonderfully-hot and sunny Spring?).