This piece was done in response to the loss of an entire broad bean crop…We like broad beans, we like them a lot. So, having found a freezer with enough space to store our vegetables over the winter, I planted extra broad beans on the one for you, one for me, one to freeze, one for seed principle, and tended them lovingly. Perfect little plants developed abundant flowers which set well, turning into exciting clusters of beans that promised a bumper crop. We picked the first few pods and they were wonderful.Then I had to work intensively for a week and wasn't able to do anything in the vegetable garden or even to visit it in daylight and check progress. No matter, I thought, it's only a week, a few of the beans might have got too large, but most of them will be fine. So, the work deadline having been duly met, I collected a bucket and went off to pick the crop.Nothing.Not one.Every last single pod had been raided, nibbled open and the beans taken. As I lifted the debris, searching for any that might have been missed I uncovered a tribe of voles in the ruins. Have you ever tried being cross with a vole? It's simply not possible.They are so small and beautiful with those little round ears and shiny whiskers, all I could do was stand there and watch them hastily leave the scene, try and be thankful that at least they'd left us the potatoes, then record the devastation in my sketchbook.Hrummmph!
