After what looks like it must have been a drought-induced false start a few weeks ago, Autumn seems to be getting into its stride now, and many of the trees and shrubs we rely on for autumn colour are starting to do their stuff.

Where's that Steeleye Span when you need them?

Thursday brought welcome – but not overly generous – rainfall, and left the ground wet enough to deliver our first proper misty moisty autumnal sunrise yesterday; friends and neighbours are helping to stuff our larder with seasonal bounty from their gardens, and with breakfast time temperatures hovering only a few degrees above freezing, it’s really starting to feel as if winter must be limbering up in the wings.

The nursery closes for the winter next week, but with this seasons first bare root tree delivery scheduled for a couple of weeks time, it doesn’t look like activity levels will be dropping any time soon.

Being optimisitic sorts, we thought that the drought conditions we were describing back in September would be well and truly broken by now.   But sadly not – we’ve still had virtually no rain.

The soil is still just as dry as it was when we photographed our northerly neighbour harrowing back in September, so we knew there’d be some dust when our other neighbour started cultivating this week. His field borders the nursery to the south and east; sadly his ploughing was accompanied by a brisk south-easterly wind, so from time to time we were treated to the spectacle of there being enough airborne soil that we couldn’t actually see much of the nursery.

And now the entire site has a thick dusting of our neighbours soil over it.

Enough dust to write in -inside the polytunnel!

The Met Office are forecasting rain for tomorrow – hopefully it’ll be at least enough to settle the dust.

We’ve always thought of Shropshire as a wetter than average sort of place, so it’s something of a culture shock to find ourselves praying for rain – but if we don’t get a much-wetter-than-average winter, there’ll surely be trouble ahead.