It's 9.30pm (which is why the photo is rather dark) and I have just got back from a working afternoon in Truro to find that Long Lands has finally been mowed into incredibly neat strips of incredibly long grass. You can see how the tractor tyres have marked the soft ground. Haymaking has never been this late - usually it's the last week in June or thereabouts - and the extra month of growth, more than lush with all that rain, means that the amount of the stuff is likely to be Dutch barn bursting. The tricky art of turning and twizzling now starts, to get it ripe for baling. The chance of avoiding a wetting is minimal, but hopefully it will be a short shower rather than a drowning, and the hay will be of reasonable quality to keep the sheep in health over the winter. Long Lands is the main small bale hay field for the home flock, the other 20 plus fields to be rolled into big round bales as hay and haylage and taken off the farm. But this year the species rich Lower Quarry Heads will also be made into meadow hay, and it should provide a more varied forage for the ungulates. Time to hoik out the gloves and talk nicely to the arm and thigh muscles in preparation for the big hay hauling.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Making hay whilst the sun shines
It's 9.30pm (which is why the photo is rather dark) and I have just got back from a working afternoon in Truro to find that Long Lands has finally been mowed into incredibly neat strips of incredibly long grass. You can see how the tractor tyres have marked the soft ground. Haymaking has never been this late - usually it's the last week in June or thereabouts - and the extra month of growth, more than lush with all that rain, means that the amount of the stuff is likely to be Dutch barn bursting. The tricky art of turning and twizzling now starts, to get it ripe for baling. The chance of avoiding a wetting is minimal, but hopefully it will be a short shower rather than a drowning, and the hay will be of reasonable quality to keep the sheep in health over the winter. Long Lands is the main small bale hay field for the home flock, the other 20 plus fields to be rolled into big round bales as hay and haylage and taken off the farm. But this year the species rich Lower Quarry Heads will also be made into meadow hay, and it should provide a more varied forage for the ungulates. Time to hoik out the gloves and talk nicely to the arm and thigh muscles in preparation for the big hay hauling.
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4 comments:
You are a good person.
Don't you just love all the old field names? We've got 'plocks' and 'leasows', the curiously named 'guiseleys' (geese fields) and The Perries (pear trees grew there) locally - amongst many others.
And that meadow hay will be delicious - imagine how sweet it will smell on a winter's day.
Mopsa - check out my blog. I've put a picture of the sex shop magnet there especially for you!
Nice picture. Nightfall is obviously a good time for taking atmospheric picture.
Summer at long last.
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