Last of the summer

Birds strut across these stubble-fields in Hopwas getting the last of the seeds after the crop has been cut & baled. The sight is another symbol of the passing of summer.

I like the way the crop has been baled. The piles looked like mini-battlements, and ran in a line for half-a-mile. Perhaps the farmer had a sense of the dramatic.

Open space for all creatures

St Augustine's Field was donated to the people of Rugeley some thirty years ago as an open-space.  It is now used by the rugby club as well as by dog-walkers - which means the players have the unpleasant task of cleaning the pitch of excreta before each match.

It's not a very prepossesing site, being enclosed by a fence on all four sides and having Rugeley Power Station as its view.  But, at least the principle is right.

Blonde wheat

It's one of those things... we always think of wheat as golden-brown.  In fact, it is honey-blonde.  Well, it is at this point in the growing-season anyway.

Golden fields

This spell of hot dry weather, which itself followed days of successive warm rain, means that the harvest is already under way, and actually has been for some days.
In the light of the late afternoon, the wheatfields produce a startlingly golden effect.

Poppies red in the fields

Wild poppies are studding the fields right now. 
They are all the more sombrely significant as August's World War One commemorations draw nearer.

Difficult-to-follow instructions

I am always careful, when walking in the countryside, to close gates etc ("Observe the Country Code"!) but it's difficult to follow the instruction on this sign....           ...because there is no gate.

Hazy days of summer

The warm days go on.  For middle-England to have a summer where temperatures are constantly in the 60s (Fahrenheit) and above is pretty unusual.
But some liberal rainy days have also meant that growth in the countryside is succulent. The blackberries, and the corn, are ripening quickly...

We're having a heatwave...

It's a heatwave - officially.  Today Staffordshire got a Level Three status on the Heat-Health Watch alert from the The Met Office.
Temperatures are in the mid 20s and up.

And I can confirm that.  It's hot.

Red splashes in the fields

The red poppies are making brilliant splashes in the fields, and all the more colourful for being mixed in with plants of different hues.

Hot today - but who knows how soon it will change again?

Dried up bean fields

Not sure what’s happened here. The stalks on this bean field on the A38 in south Staffordshire seem to have withered, and the beans in the pods are black and desiccated. I know it's been a dry summer, but...

Weird.

A good year for...

The weather has cut Staffordshire in two this summer - while the north of the county has had some strange sudden days of soaking wet rain, the south of the county has often missed out, remaining very dry. But the almost constant warm temeperatures have been common to both.

So, in the north, the trees and shrubs bearing apples, damsons, and currants are groaning under the weight of fruit. In this field, near the A50, the maize-cobs are growing firmly.
However, in the south, there are signs that some ponds are on the verge of drying up.

Link: Farmers' weather fears (from The Express & Star)