I reckon June must be my favourite month, especially when the weather has been as nice as it has.

On several occasions it has even been warm enough to sit out and eat our supper in the garden, enjoying the evening sun without the usual swarms of flies that you get later in the summer.

Potatoes are meeting across the rows and all the barley is shooting. The carrots look especially good, although there has been quite a battle to control what seem like indestructible aphids.

But I can’t help thinking that something’s going to come along and ruin everything. I may well have been thinking the same thoughts at this time last year and look what followed.

Our hay and haylage has been baled and stored. Unfortunately, the forecast of a couple of showery days meant we had to bale the hay a day earlier than we’d have liked and have consequently had to have the fan blowing through it for several days to stop it sweating. I dread the electric bill coming, as it seems fairly hefty these days even without fans running 24 hours a day.

I was rudely awakened the other morning by a loud tapping on my bedroom window. As it was 5 o’clock, I got up to investigate and found a crow sitting on my windowsill pecking at the glass.

When it saw me it flew off and I went back to bed. The next morning the same thing happened again and has been occurring every day since.

Apart from helping me get up to go spraying some mornings and forcing me to listen to the dawn chorus every day, it is getting a bit annoying. I have thought about shooting it, but whenever I get the gun out it has well gone. Any ideas?

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