Bog Myrtle & Peat

The past forty eight hours have been spent in a frenzy of enthusiasm and anxiety. The prospect of making hay seemed like a remote possibility when the field was cut, but I optimistically set to the task in the reassuring knowledge that we could fall back on silage if disaster struck. In the event, we have come tantalisingly close to success. There was a period yesterday afternoon when the field was so dry that the hay bob was stirring up a dust cloud, and the tractor’s cab was filled with sweet-smelling cinders of airborne grass.

Black curtains of rain trawled the landscape all around, but our hayfield remained miraculously dry as the clouds parted and darkness fell in every direction but our own. As I whirled the grass in the sunshine, a flock of golden plover passed up from the Solway, turning their white tummies against the blue, plummy clouds. I cheered them on from the raised cab of the David Brown, waving my hat at them in a frenzy of joy and excitement.

In the early morning, it was a crowning joy to walk out from the kitchen into the crop, which was drowsy and heavy with dew. Crowds of meadow pipits lined up on the dyke-tops, and a cock pheasant left a trail in the half-wilted grass. By eleven o’clock it was dry enough to turn again, and every subsequent pass brought less green to the surface until the mounds were turning noticeably golden. Wracked with fretful enthusiasm, I broke a fast on alcohol and took my wife for a pint in the pub last night. We returned in darkness with a half moon rising through the mist and found the field had bled sweet scents of cut grass into the yard and all through the house. The dew was falling, and autumnal mallard rushed overhead to build an unforgettable atmosphere in the dying moments of August.

Irrespective of whether or not we succeed in making silage (and judging by the weight of this morning’s dew it seems less and less likely), this project has been an absolute pleasure. Although speaking from a position of pathetic inexperience, I find it hard to believe that the field will be dry enough to bale before the weather turns on Sunday, and I may have to accept round plastic bales as a fact of life. But that does not mean that I can’t aspire to success in future years. I now understand how it is done, what I should be looking for and what is required to make it work – that is not a bad start for my first real year in agriculture, and it is certainly a step in the right direction.

I recently started working with a drone pilot on a number of marketing and promotional projects, and it has been fun to have him along to film and photograph this first attempt at haymaking. Judging from the photographs (above and below), it is clear that these gadgets have great scope to offer a new perspective on things, and this kind of footage adds another dimension to our work together – more on this to come in due course too…