Batch of buns and back to the drawing board....

Greeting friends!

I hope you are enjoying your June

Usually, by this time in the summer, we have dozens of wee babes waddling round the Hollow.

 BUT... this has been a bad year for babies. Not a single gosling egg hatched out of 21 eggs, poor Alice and Mathila...they tried so hard. No ducklings have hatched despite 3 sitting ducks. My peahen, although she sat on 3 eggs for over 30 days, only hatched one baby pea-chick which died the next day.

To top it all off, My favorite gander, whom I have had for 8 years, died of unknown causes.

 GEEEZ!

Okay, enough gloomy stuff, we get enough of THAT in this world.
Thank goodness for blogs, they are a wonderful escape. Now, I will keep it light.

Despite all the losses, our animal family is growing, as you can see below....

ALL NEW, but none are finished!
 
We did, however, finish the Dovecote, just need a bit more thatch roofing.

The top is for the doves, the bee-skeps open up to store seed and sunflowers,

which is put in the open bird feeder.

Doves are seed eaters, not bug eaters, else I would not have designed in this manner.

The 3rd shelf holds a bar bee hive for honey bees and beneath that is a feeder full of corn 

for my ducks and geese.

The bug haven stands at the end of the structure.

 The gardens are all weeded.

 I even had enough success with my Lavender to actually spare a bundle of it

without trimming it off all of the plants. I am very stingy about plucking flowers. I like to leave them in the garden for all to see. How about you?

I planted 24 Lavenders this year and all are producing blooms, although still youngsters.

 It is time to get back to illustration. There is a new book in the works which I actually started late last year. Thus far, 7 drawing are complete.

I am happy to get out the pencils once again. I miss my pencils when I am away from them for too long, for I love to draw!
So do tell, how are you spending your summer?