August was all about one thing round here - hay. Well, more specifically, scything, as hay itself is more of a by-product - my main aim is to reduce the fertility of this field (by cutting and removing the grass), and therefore eventually increase the biodiversity, ultimately restoring something like what would have been a traditional hay meadow habitat. Anyway, I started slightly later than I intended, as I had covid towards the end of July, and it took a couple of weeks to get back up and running. And I started in a different corner of the field this year, aiming for a diagonally upwards direction. So I started at the bottom left of the field, and slowly, an hour at a time, edged in rather curved lines, up the field. It was hard going though. Theoretically, it should have been easier than last year - heading diagonally upwards means you're depositing the cut hay slightly downhill to your right, rather than slightly uphill. I made a good attempt to peen the scythe, which should make it easier to scythe. That worked a little bit, and I did get quite a bit cut and removed, and stacked up in the shed. I was doing all this on my own though, and it proved to be too difficult to make wheelie bin bales like I did in previous years (with help), and so it's all been piled haphazardly in the back of an outbuilding. Not very scenic, and a bit of a nuisance, but we are all about practicalities here. I was still having a tough time scything though, and tried switching to my longer scythe blade. This lasted about five minutes, until I misjudged the length, and impaled a water butt, meaning I had to abandon the scything to rescue the precious water leaking rapidly into the field. The longer scythe blade was quickly abandoned after that, not least because what I'm trying to scythe isn't beautiful swishy meadow, but rather an assortment of clumpy, uneven grass. About this point, I sent the scythe blade to be professionally sharpened. I also decided to start again in a different corner of the field. This meant I'd be heading downhill, and therefore depositing the cut hay slightly uphill, which isn't ideal. However, the grass by this point had flopped over rather a lot, and general consensus seems to be that it's best to cut with the grass flopped over away from you, rather than towards you. Between this, and the newly sharpened scythe blade, things started moving an awful lot more quickly. This is where I started on 20th August. Ninety minutes later, I'd done the first row. And by the end of the following day, after eight hours of scything over the two days, I was starting to feel like I might actually get to the end of the field this year, for the first time ever. By the end of August, I'd done seven long rows, along with cutting and raking the bit I'd started with originally. Getting there. So, twenty four hours of scything in August, and while that doesn't sound that much, it was mostly achieved an hour or two at a time, after work, or in between weekend activities. You'll have to wait (not very long!) for September's update... In other news... We lost Bonny chicken, of course, which we are all very sad about. I'm so glad she had her final days hanging out in the hay field, rooting for critters. The apples were still looking good at the end of August, although nowhere near ready to pick. I'm afraid there's nothing much else to report from the homestead for August. All my spare energy went into scything, so there was no weeding, or any other garden activity, aside from the occasional bit of sitting on a bench. There was no painting of the kitchen - I wonder how many months I'm going to be saying that?
September's update soon (I hope...)
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Last week we had to have Bonny chicken put to sleep, and as I was looking through my photos of her, I realised that in many of them, she was hanging around with her pal Bunty. Bunty went missing earlier this year, and as we always hoped she'd come back, I never did a memorial post. At this point, I think we need to accept that she's gone, and so here we'll remember both Bonny and Bunty together. Bonny and Bunty, along with Chippy, who we lost last year, were our only batch of chickens who haven't been rescues. We got them in June 2020 as point of lay hens, four months old. They were timid and jumpy, and our existing rescue ladies must have seemed quite intimidating. They soon got into the swing of things, and Bonny soon tried an experimental sit on my leg - something she never repeated. Bonny was always quiet and shy, always wanting to be with the others, but often at a little distance. Except with Bunty - they were very close and often found marauding off somewhere together. All chickens love digging, but it really was Bonny's special thing. She loved digging. She even managed to put her shyness aside and get close to us if we had a spade and there was half a chance of a worm. Her legs were so powerful, and if she wasn't with the others at the end of the day, she'd usually be digging in the woodchip pile or the windbreak, looking for critters. Bunty was less cautious, but still never got as comfortable with us as the rescues usually do. She did make an exception for showing her disdain for the chicken lockdown last winter though. We got these three young chickens because we thought they'd last longer, and be a core flock while as the rescues came and went. It hasn't worked out like that. Chippy died at just over a year old, then Bunty went missing a few months later, and now Bonny has gone two, at just two and a half. Most of our rescues have been older than that when they've died. Still, they had a good life while they were here, I hope. Here's Bunty. And here's Bonny. As far as we knew, Bunty wasn't ill, but she mustn't have felt like herself to just wander off one day and not come back. I can only assume she tucked herself away somewhere, and then was found by a predator. I hope it was quick. Bonny did get ill towards the end. She laid more and more lash eggs, never a good sign, and the vet gave her a hormonal implant. She looked like she might be improving, then went rapidly downhill, lost a lot of weight, and started losing her balance. It seemed that she had a tumour (at least as far as you can tell without surgery). I'm glad her last few days were spent wandering around the hay field. So goodbye Bonny-o, and goodbye Bunty-o. We miss you both already. It's never easy saying goodbye, and even harder when they're still young, it seems so unfair.
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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