HASSGROPPERS

Autumn changes are coming early - leaves changing hue and there is a sense of tiredness in the garden - except for the wasps on the plums. Those that know says it is because of the dry warm spring.

To business - first - an orange Crocosmia (montbretia)

loved by R and surrounded by purple sage, blue shrubby clematis and so on. It is a beauty and I will not divide it this year - give it one more.

The blue agapanthus has also been good and a stimulus to get MORE! But where do I put them - R has stipulated that we have too much flowerbed already. I

will have to be constructive and imaginative (and devious?)

Having said that as R reads this blog I have just shot myself in the foot (at least).

R and I have just been sitting on a seat on the paving looking at all the mowing I have done when R noticed a small grasshopper laying eggs onto the moss between the paving stones. This seems such an unlikely place that I got out the reference book and this is the Common Field Grasshopper, Chorthippus brunneus which is a mouthful of a name even for a grasshopper. They lay up to 14 eggs in a foam like secretion that protects them from predators, disease and damp. (It will not protect then from the high pressure hose when I wash the paving.)

Which brings me to a pome - I prefer pome to poem - the former seems a bit more masculine. I wrote this many years ago after a real event when in the Near Intake with my daughter at High Arrow, Torver and we found green grasshoppers (Omocestus viridulus) (or viriduli? if more than one). She ran down to the house and told my father - well read the pome.

HASSGROPPER

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

went for a walk to try to espy

a grasshopper, (they're terribly shy),

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

found a sundew clutching a fly

in a pretty, red, tentacled leaf

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

watched a kestrel stand in the sky

watching us watching it from the field

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

heard a grasshopper ticking nearby,

rubbing its legs in the warmth of the sun

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

found the grasshopper, (terribly shy),

climbing a reed in the sphagnum moss

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

ran down the hill pretending to fly,

waving our arms in the bright blue sky

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

chased a cabbage-white butterfly

and climbed a gate which said 'Please Shut'

at the back of Grandad's house.

Isabelle, Izzy for short, and I

told her Grandad about the fly,

"And we saw a hassgropper," Izzy said loudly,

"A big green hassgropper," Izzy said proudly,

"You know, the one that's terribly shy,

and we chased a flutterby, Daddy and I,"

and Grandad laughed till he started to cry

and Granny laughed with tears in her eyes

back at Grandad's house.