Silage in October?

We’ve had a warm, wet summer, in fact a normal summer. As you know, I love to follow the farming season.

This year, there has been loads of grass, and some fields have been cut three times. I was surprised when farmers cut a couple of weeks ago.

Now we have a bit of sunshine, they’re at it again. Surely there can’t be much nutrition in it? Snow is forecast on Sunday, so there has been much scurrying around with bakers today.

How late do you cut in your part of the world?

Early Mornings

Bluebells

I know they’re not!

Dave and I were watching an Abbie Barns Film on YouTube of a walk in Cornwall. On it came shots of a bluebell wood and luxuriant green grass filled with wildflowers. I breathed an ‘oooh’, we’ll be seeing them again soon’. It made me realise how when in the past I’ve seen such shots I’ve just sort of dismissed and squashed such yearnings.

I’ve always missed the richness of the English countryside, up here in the mountains, it’s more sparse, short lived – except for the dandelions in May. How many things do you repress when there is a longing for them?

So in a year or so, we’ll be back in the green, of daffodils and pink cherry blossom. It’s like some sort of floodgates is opened. For Saturday newspapers and Dairy milk chocolate. Daffodils in February.

How long will the thrill last?

Then we got into a conversation about walking with no struggling up steep gradients, tractor and steam rallies, horse shows, National Trusting, not to mention beaches. If you’re not into skiing and have to work hard through summer, there’s not a lot to do here. But how long till we miss the smell of hot pinewood and the pink of the mountain rhododendron on the hills in early summer?

 

 

Thomatal Kraftwerk

A powerstation or kraftwerk is going to be built in the field below our house. On the spot in this picture,you can see our sitting room window through the trees.

We were invited to a meeting to convince us that no one will hear the turbine. Then we all met in the field site.

Now I must eat my words! I’ve always said there should be small power stations on rivers, imagining a rustic looking shed with a little turbine. This will run from a pond further up the valley, with a pipe running down the road and dropping to us, where the turbine will be.

Apparently all the landowners have agreed, so it’s as good as settled, however much we may protest. They’re onto a nice earner.

There is an industrial precedent here, this is the old weir in the field that used to run to fill the water conduit for the old paper mill.

With a heavy heart, there is nothing we can do. If this was the UK, we could probably claim compensation for noise and loss in value of our house! They said my water meter reading job remains, but I am doubtful.

Poor Thomatalbach, what will happen when we have a dry summer or what will be the effect on the eco system?

Short story GIVEAWAY : Sheep!

A heartwarming story, free from Friday 23rd until Monday 26th. Some of this happened to me when we had a small holding!

Left alone on the farm to cope with a sick baby, what will Jenny do when there is an emergency? Plus an excerpt from The Baize Door, where Joanna sees for the first time how horses interact with us.

Frost

Today we had the first real frost of this winter. Dave and I walked in the woods with the dog and I knew, at last, the cold dry air had arrived and it feels like champagne. To have a warm coat but your face in the cool air, it’s a joy after the heat of summer.

Later on, when I took Swingle for her afternoon stroll the sun was now shining and in the still air, freshly lit fires had their smoke dropping down and looking like mist. I greeted Mr B who had cold hands again, but not like yesterday, perhaps I’ll get him some for Christmas.

Garden all tucked up for winter.

We swung down the hill and I could see Tony harrowing his field. I could smell the sour, late, crushed grass. Soon the cold air will absorb anything that smells outside -excluding slurry of course and there will be no scents in the air. I had David Essex’s It was only a winter’s tale playing in my head too.

There was a peace in the air and maybe it is also within me. God has been teaching me things when I had felt so far from him. I am seeing how bad-tempered I can be, blaming things on Dave, when it is my perception and I can see him realising when he has been unnecessarily grumpy too and making up for it. We have a time of peace until the ski season starts.  I haven’t felt like this for such a long time. Thank you.