As Busy As A Bee

Another hot, scorching Sunday and did I take it easy like I should have?  No, I did not.

First of all it was a morning bike ride into town for a shopping trip - but the reward was an ice-cream on the beach on the way home ...

Back home and a quick shower and cool drink, before heading out into the garden to do major cleaning of the chicken run.  Followed by major cleaning of the chickens.  Well, not quite, but in the summer and if its a very hot day, I sometimes give them a warm "bubble bath" with Johnson's Baby Shampoo to clean up all of their feathers.  I towel them dry and then the sun quickly does the rest.  But the chickens do seem to enjoy their bath - they're just not very happy to have bedraggled feathers when they come out!

Raz looking a little annoyed with damp feathers

Whilst all of this was going on, I spotted next door's cat snoozing in the shade of the bamboo

And coming back to the title of this blog post, the busiest of all were the bees.  I am pleased to see that the bees are at last able to benefit from this prolonged period of dry weather and as we have a lot of lavender now in full bloom in our garden, the word is out among the local bee population that our lavender is the place to be - I'm amazed to see the number of different bee species that visit but, most of all, it is the honey bee - so glad we can be of service as the bees have had a tough time of it in recent years and to promote their survival, need all the help they can get from us urban gardens.