A 'cage' in a clump of moss and liverwort

I found a net cage in among some moss and liverwort. The whole thing was about 8 millimetres long and 4 wide. There was at least one creature moving about inside it and I spotted a small spider moving around on its outside.

RhodoDEN

I've been sawing branches off the largest rhododendron. The idea, ultimately, is to prevent low branches from rooting and spreading the monster further, and for me to be able to walk around the trunk without having to stoop to avoid getting biffed on the head. Below is my first den test. That branch above the chair will have to go; it's a right biffer. I'm saving the bigger branches for stove firewood when they've dried a bit. The small stuff has fed several bonfires.

The view east

View down the garden

Got a log in my eye and had to ask Toad to remove it.
He thought my £10-note tissue was money – I wish!

Common Cat's Ear still flowering

Which bit is the cat's ear

Avocado seedlings

Those plants growing on a compost heap

alongside a crop of Hare's-foot Inkcaps

with little bract-like leaves on their stems...

Well, I began to have an idea so I hoiked one out to check if I was right. I was. It's a crop of seedling avocados! Must be cosy in there. I might pot one of them up for indoors, or may be I'll just leave them in situ and see what happens.

Meanwhile, making the most of the unusually dry weather (actually, September's often a good month weatherwise in western Scotland), I'm off out to continue indulging my inner pyromaniac. Some while ago, Toad said he'd make me a shed up at the top of the garden. That was before he'd made any sheds. Then he made a bike shed and realised it was harder work than he'd anticipated. Further shed-building being now a pipe dream, I decided to raise the canopy of the monster Rhododendron ponticum in order to make myself a den in which I can use my Kelly Kettle. The larger branches I will stack for firewood, the smaller ones feed the fire.

And here's a wee bitty heather from a usually boggy brae in Scotland, UK:

Alligator teeth and hares' feet

On my jobs list today was tighten alligator teeth and oil its jaws. This alligator:

Then I made some more sawdust cutting these lengths of old rhododendron branches

and swept the sawdust onto this bit

to encourage more Hare's-foot Inkcaps to appear there. I hadn't seen any of the actual hare's-foot stage yet, but I did today. However, that comes later in the story.

When I'd angled them against a rock and stamped on the thinner branches to break them and had chopped the thicker ones that stamping didn't work on, I stood on the eucalyptus bench to view the spider webs in the still uncut bit of lawn. From there I began an anticlockwise circumnavigation of the upper garden just observing what is new and how things are and what I need to do next.

Behind the shrub and fern in the top right corner of that pic is a new patch of yarrow flowering away between yet more branches of rhododendron and buddleia that I haven't got round to yet. There's a lot of yarrow leaf all over the upper lawn but it hasn't flowered before so I'm going to leave this pile until after the flowers have set seed.

Up from the yarrow was a new crop of small toadstools. I shal go and collect one or two to have a closer look at later.

Across the top and under the falling down cypress tree there is an outcrop of what I think is the same fungus that was growing around the trunks of what I call the halfway trees–a clump of wild cherry, rowan, holly and flowering currant plus, recently, a self-seeded downy birch. I should say another self-seeded downy birch; there are dozens; I just have to decide which, if any, to let grow.

Still haven't managed to identify this species of fungus (nor several others, come to that!)

Down a step or two from that recumbent branch is the old rowan beset with what looks like the Root Rot fungus (the cypress has it too, which is probably why it's falling over).

Glistening Inkcaps have started to reappear on the rowan as well. The trunk was half covered with these last year.

Down a little from the old rowan is a flowering currant bush. I stuck a pruned branch of it in the ground eight years ago and it is now at least two metres tall with a similar diameter. It has a lot of fruit this year. Bird food.

Now comes the surprise! Down again from the flowering currant is an old compost heap which I'm leaving alone because five little plants have appeared. Last year there were dahlias. Could this be them again?

Also on that compost heap, the biggest Hare's-foot Inkcap yet! The pink bits are Himalayan Balsam flowers falling over the fence from the field. My circumnavigations also have the purpose of hoiking out HBs that are growing within the garden. The bees can have the ones in the field.

And, after I gently pushed away that bit of grass at the bottom of the inkcap stem, a little "hare's-foot" appeared.

Grintastic! Below you can see the furriness inside the 'cup' of the curled open inkcap.

Making my way back across to the shed, I enjoyed this seed head of Common Cat's-ear,

the only remaining African daisy

and a tiny fungus of which we get quite a few but whose name I still know not! For scale, that is a Self-heal seedhead behind it. It has a delicacy similar to the Hare's-foot but on a smaller scale.

By which time I had wet feet and soggy socks. Should 'a worn me wellies.

Glen Fruin verges in September

Spider silk on common gorse

Dwarf Gorse (Ulex minor)

Dwarf Gorse

Seeding Meadowsweet (left) and Valerian in flower

This display of orange is what made me stop.
I think it's a sedge, but I don't know. Suggestions welcome.

Base of flowering stem and leaves on separate, non-flowering shoots

Peening my scythe blade

Every now and then one's scythe blade needs a bit more than the sharpening it gets with every use. Tiny dents in the edge of the blade need hammering out. 

Peening jig set in an old log

Cylindrical peening 'nozzle',
which slots onto the jig,
plus blade, plus hammer

Me peening: moving the sharp edge of the blade along bit by bit
between the jig and the nozzle and hammering the edge smooth

Then you sharpen your nicely hammered edge again and get scything.