Up Up And Away . . .

. . . and down in Strickley Hill

Guess what dropped in last night

A Changing Landscape

Before - 3rd September

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After - 4th September

Why Not Me?

It seems that everyone else in the family has seen the Kingfisher flying up the beck - some have even taken photographs of it.

But it remains elusive to me. I thought it was maybe because I didn't spend as much time out in the fields near its natural habitat.

But this morning it was nearer to home, probably taunting me. As I drove through the yard at 06.30 on my way to work, Henry flagged me down to say a Kingfisher had flown through the yard as the cows were coming in.

Somethings are meant never to happen.

And Some Fell On Stony Ground

Now this might look like an alien lunar landscape, or a dried up river bed in a land that never sees rain . . . .
But it's only a few miles from here on the A684. Have you read the Blog entry from yesterday? This is one of the fields we reseeded. And where do you think it comes in the sequence of events? After the ploughing? Or maybe after the harrowing?

No, it's after sowing the seed - on very stony ground.

It has been said that . . .

"This is the sort of field which, when picking stones, you have to 'walk around with your eyes shut!' "

James took the photograph and suggested a musical link to go with it. Listen to the chorus, and change the stoned to stones and be standing by the phone when we ask for volunteers as "Everyone must get stones".

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

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P.S. - do you know that if you click on a picture it will (usually) open up full size in a new window.

We Plough The Fields And Scatter . .

Well there's more to reseeding than that . .

We're reseeding a field on the Lots, plus the Front and Back Bank - ie

We plough the field
We pick stones
We power harrow the field

We pick stones
We level the field

We pick stones
We scatter the good seed on the land

We pick stones
We roll the field

Then it's up to God to feed and water it.
I hope there's not too much snow in winter, enough warmth to swell the grain (make the grass grow), not too many breezes, some sunshine and just the right amount of soft refreshing rain.

A View From An Expert

As you know we are reseeding some fields this autumn, and after the contractor had finished ploughing on The Lots we had an expert (aka Henry's younger brother) give his opinion on the soil. So I take no credit for the following, quoted word for word from Arthur's report. Normal Blog rambling will resume in due course.

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Brownearth is on the slopes and higher areas where drainage is better, and gley is on the flatter slopes where drainage is impeded.

The gley is blue-grey because the iron in it is ferrous, which means that one iron atom combines with one oxygen, because there is little oxygen in the soil. The lumps in soils are called peds. Gley is fairly structureless, so there are large peds, and plants don't like growing in it. Where there are rust-coloured spots these are called ferric mottles, and they occur where roots have gone into the soil, rotted, and allowed oxygen to get down to change the ferrous compounds to ferric (two iron atoms to three oxygen). The gley soil is also shiny because the ploughshare has streaked out the wet clay (like wetting a palette knife to smooth icing).

Brownearths are rust-coloured because of the ferric iron. They are well-drained with plenty of oxygen, so plants grow better. This means there are more grass roots in the soil, which break it up into breadcrumb peds (crumby peds sounds nicer!), and they keep it well-drained

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With grateful thanks to Dr. L. A. Robinson, B.Sc.Hons., Ph.D., PGCE, Adv.Dip.Ed.

Surely it's not the end of Summer?

A long time ago when we had proper weather and real summers August Bank Holiday was at the beginning of the month and heralded in four weeks of non stop sunshine, days at the beach, picnic and ice creams - and no need to think about school for ages. But now the Bank Holiday is at the end of the month, and seems to just remind us of what we have missed. It's no longer a time to look forward to summer, but a signal that it's rapidly disappearing. Shops are full of school uniforms and pencil cases; parents and teachers are counting the days till the start of term.

And the next Bank Holiday? Christmas!

Maybe I'm just a bit fed up as instead of making the most of the weather (which is actually quite good) I'm stuck in a cold air-conditioned office.

Back at home the farmers have been busy all week. As part of our Organic Conversion we have taken The Lots back in hand. The parcel of land away from Strickley has been let out on a grazing licence for a few years, while we rented in some fields that joined onto ours. We may have continued with this for a few more years, as it is very handy for stock, but the landowner doesn't want to be involved in our conversion plans and we will be giving it up at the end of November. So this week Henry and James (with help from young farmer Robert) have been on The Lots tidying up wall gaps, moving sheep pens etc - getting ready for the contractor to plough two of the fields. We're reseeding about 30 acres this year, with the sort of mix that suits our organic plans.

And there's no time off this morning either - one of the ACR's in the parlour is playing up, so that's to be sorted before tonight's milking.

Maybe I do have the best of it in a nice cool office.