August 16th – Riding to work down Green Lane, Shelfield on a bright sunny morning, and something gently reminded me of my grandfather.

The harvest at Grange Farm has been ongoing, and the road had been treated to a generous sprinkling of spilled cereal kernels – probably wheat. This grain, spilled by machinery and trailers as they lurch from field to barn is a feature of rural and peri-rural areas at this time of year, and is what the old man called ‘gleanings’.

Locally, ordinary folk were allowed to collect the seed lost on the roads and lanes for their own use. Few would use it for food, but many fed it to pets and livestock. Grandad said that you traditionally fed pets you kept for pleasure, not profit on the gleanings, fancy birds like guineafowl. 

Guineafowl were locally called Gleanies from this practice.

I well remember the farm opposite where the old man lived until a ripe old age having guineafowl, which are noisy, shrieking birds. ‘Gleanies am off again, the buggers!’ he’d curse every morning.

On a side note, watch out for the gleanings as they’re slippery and soapy, and steal wheels and grip, particularly when wet.

A warm memory on a warm, late summer morning.

August 15th – I spun up The Parade and over to Burntwood on the errand, then returned via Chasewater and the canal. It was a good sunset – there wasn’t enough cloud to be terribly dramatic – and the place was alive with bugs of every description, but the atmosphere and light was wonderful.

One nice thing about this time of year is the sunsets should improve, and I’ll be in with a better chance of catching them.

August 15th – I had to nip out on an errand at sunset. The day had been fraught with a busy morning and a visit to the dentist in the afternoon, which always terrifies me, so it was good to get out and get my calm back.

Passing down a blocked off High Street, I realised they were finally resurfacing the road; none of the poncey micro asphalt or surface dressing here; they were planing a huge amount off ready to lay a new layer of blacktop.

About time too.

Fascinated, I watched the operation for a short time; wagons, tankers, diggers and engineers came and went with almost military prescision, right there under Morris’s nose. He had his back to them due to the noise, but I could tell he was enjoying the spectacle, if not the peace.

An interesting and welcome thing.

August 14th – Sorry, after this I promise no morale oak wasp galls!

This is an artichoke oak wasp gall, created the same way as all the others, this wasp selects acorn buds, which are corrupted into these neat little artichoke shaped growths to house it’s larvae.

These examples spotted on Clayhanger Common.

That’s it now, I think we’ve collected the set…

August 14th – Another tree I keep an eye on is the odd pear tree growing near the top of the bank between the canal and new pond at Clayhanger. I have no idea how it came to b there and suspect it sprouted from a discarded fruit core.

This small but dense tree usually fruits copiously, but this year is suffering terribly from blight and bird attack. The fruit on this tree have never looked appetising at all, to be honest.

An interesting thing though, and I’ll keep watching as it grows and develops over the years and hope that one day the harvest prospers. 

August 13th – More oak wasp galls, which I’ve gone all out to find this year for no other reason than they fascinate me.

On a small sapling by the canalside track at Hopwas, hundreds of thousands of almost annular, ring-like growths on the leaves, looking maybe like fungus or some odd egg. These are the delightfully named common spangle gall for the flat ones, and silk button galls for the rounder, more sharply defined ones.

These are all created by the same mechanism – a small wasp injects an egg into the leaf, and a chemical coating the egg disrupts the plant DNA to grow the gall, which leaves a light patch on the upper surface of the leaf where nutrients have been leeched away by the larva growing underneath.

I’m not sure why galls like this captivate me so much but they are absolutely fascinating.

August 13th – I left near lunchtime for a hopefully long, sunny ride; but although the day was temperate, the sun soon disappeared and I found no energy in my tank. I contented myself with a slow bible up to Chasewater, back to Stonnall, Shentone, Little Hay, Hints, Tamworth and up the canal to Hpwas and Whittington, before returning via Lichfield and Wall.

On the way, I passed through the Lammas Land at Shenstone – a lovely bit or parkland by the Footherley Brook, and noted the bizarre ‘shining stone’ sculpture was still resident in the stream for all the world looking like robot excrement.

Shenstone Park is still as beautiful as ever, with it’s carefully tended verges and rolling farmland, and I also noted the surprisingly voluptuous scarecrow is still scaring the crows at Fazeley.

A decent ride, but I really wasn’t feeling like it. 

August 12th – One local treat I look forward to in late summer is local growing wild apples.

I don’t know who planted the row of fruit trees of different varieties which I discovered in a remote spot 10 years ago, but they tend to fruit copiously and the delicious apples, ungathered, rot on the ground. Every year for a decade, I’ve made a point of passing, checking the crop and gathering a pocketful. This year the russets are a little hard and tart, but the cox’s are delicious.

A lovely little local secret.

August 12th – An run out after a busy day saw me investigating a few things I’d been meaning to locally. It was a bright but slightly hazy evening, and I took the opportunity to try some familiar zoom shots from near Fishpond Wood above Stonnall, and the perennial favourite Lichfield from the quarry gateway.

It was a bit too muzzy for Lichfield, but Wall came out beautifully, unlike the familiar towers of Shenstone. I suppose the mist and haze must have been sitting in a depression or hollow between us, unlike Wall.

Wonder what the science is here?

August 11th – Not far from Shenstone near Footherley, wheat and barley still languish in the fields, the harvest this year disrupted by poor weather. This crop in particular has started to look grey, and the farmer must be getting anxious. Already blackening, it won’t take much for mould to set in and the crop be ruined.

I hope they have enough dry weather to complete this weekend.