Harvest
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Nature Notes
There is a Little of Spring in Autumn. On the last day of the strangest school holidays ever, the oats are being brought in from Home Field. Across the lane, fields of late-grown seed hay are being tedded; turned, woofed, floofed and dried before being teddered again into windrows and baled. The warm, biscuity scent […]
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Nature Notes
Harvest, home. Patchy holiday weather, patchy harvest weather. The two go hand in hand of course – harvest and a holiday from school – a relic from when everyone was needed in the fields. We rush out to pull the washing in as the combine roars into the field as if it were on fire. […]
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Nature Notes
Harvest Home. The last-but-one field on the Estate has been harvested. The straw lies in great wide windrows like yellow plaits across the stubble; all the gold of summer days laid out in thick, shining tresses. I get to ride up in the combine through the last of the oats, the lights and the sunset […]
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Nature Notes
Harvest Home. At last, harvest is in. Returning home, I swing the car slowly into our field entrance of a car park and come up against the header of the combine, powering down with the roar of bees. The field looks as if it’s been wiped out by a desert sandstorm, the air filled with […]