Monday 18 June 2012

A Quiet Day?








Visitors gone home, nobody scheduled to call today, I thought it would be a quiet, rather lonely day. When visitors have gone it always takes me a day or two to get used to the quiet again. But how wrong I was. What a pleasant and busy day it has been.

At last the sun is shining and it is a warm June day. Only forecast to last until Thursday, when it is due to turn cold and wet again, but this little "window" means one thing to farmers at this time of the year -SILAGING. So the first thing that happened is that our fields are being silaged; all the grass is already cut and every three or four hours it is being shaken up in an effort to get it dry quickly so that it can be baled and wrapped before the rain.

Then the Solar men came. We have decided to go over to Solar power and are having panels fixed onto a South-facing building in the yard. The men chose to come today to fix them, so there was plenty of activity in the yard.

Then friends who are over here from the States rang to say they were coming for coffee this morning and as they arrived so did another local friend, M - so what a lovely, chatty morning we had.

In addition to all this I had to go into our local little market town so it has been a busy day.

I managed to get in a walk with Tess after lunch. There are buttercups everywhere. Nicholas Culpepper wrote "Buttercups grow so common everywhere that unless you run your head into a hedge you cannot but see them as you walk." This is still true today and what a beautiful sight they are. I also saw the first of the wild roses - my favourite wild flower.

Once the silaging has been done and the bales have been collected up, then the cattle are turned into the field to 'pike' round the edges, where the cutter couldn't reach the grass. And then the crows descend in their hordes to poke their long beaks into the cut grass and seek out the leather jackets. Our neighbour's fields are already at this stage so I took a couple of photographs for you.

So, a busy day after all and an enjoyable one too. All that remains to be done is a huge pile of ironing (I couldn't resist doing two loads of washing as it was such a good drying day). Shall I tackle it tonight or shall I leave it until tomorrow when it will be twice as hard to iron as it will have dried too much overnight? Decisions, decisions.

5 comments:

Heather said...

After such a busy day I would be inclined to leave the ironing till tomorrow and put my feet up.
How nice to get those unexpected callers when you were probably feeling a bit flat after saying goodbye to your friends.
Farmers must be desperate for these few fine days and are no doubt working flat out to make good use of them.

H said...

My second hand memory of farming is that it's either relatively slow or a frantic rush with everyone working round the clock to beat the rain :)

jill said...

You have had a busy time sit and put your feet up,never know the ironing fairies may come and do your pile for you,if they do leave them a message for me please Iv got some to do as well.Hope you are well Pat,love Jill xx

Dartford Warbler said...

That sounds like a lovely, productive day. Thank goodness for a few hours of sunshine to help with silaging and hay making round the country.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Ironing done. Managed to get my 'second wind' after tea - very happy to see it up on the airer today.
Thank you for visiting.