haymaking

  • 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

    Driving Away. My son has a car. We pick it up with him from a former farmyard in Aldermaston where it sits beside a newly roofed grain barn. There are swallows on the wires like a musical score and enough room in the boot for a bass guitar and amp. The swallows fly in and […]

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  • Nature Notes

    Pulling Ragwort. I love the ritual of pulling ragwort. We make a heap of it, slapping bites from horse flies with the clap of a flat palm and a smear of our own blood. For a few weeks, I’ll wear an unscrubbable half-moon of dark juices beneath my fingernails and know its July stink and […]

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