IN THIS full thrust of summer on our little farm, you’ll want me to wax about the gushing hedgerows, the meadow grasses spurting skywards, the thrumming of insects, that sort of thing. Yet for all the beauty of it, what really strikes me is the sheer power of the thing.

Maybe because of our frosty May, when seeds failed to germinate and waves of slugs pounded seedlings, the vehemence of the growth in June has quite bowled us over. The veg garden looks like the Amazon, full of vast curling things, and the grasses in the fields are racing to reproduce themselves. The chickens, turbocharged by mealworm and the long daylight, lay eggs at full throttle. You can’t keep up.