OCTOBER arrived yesterday, or perhaps it was the day before. I don't mean the calendar month of October, but October weather, drizzle, falling in fine curtains up and down the valley. This morning, the view of the black hill opposite was still furred and the thick damp air clogged the nose. Annoyingly, it was not quite so wet that it demanded waterproofs-yet, without them, my Dickies boiler suit was clammy and wrapped around my legs like clingfilm.
I'd only been outside for 10 minutes, shovelling silage into the transport box on the rear of the tractor. The silage comes from a long round clamp, covered with black plastic, like a giant liquorice stick. Uncharacteristically, I'd woken late, but the sharp vinegar smell of the silage had defibrillated the system, so I was shovelling like Stakhanov, trying to make up for lost time on a day of jobs without end. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that farming is an example of The Red Queen Syndrome, where, as the mad monarch says to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, 'it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place'.
Above me, a single buzzard wheeled in blurred circles, mewing pitifully. Beside me, the dog sat with its bottom held off the wet ground and a longing for the fireplace in its eyes. Nothing does mournful quite as well as a black labrador.
When the box on the tractor was full of the pickled grass and I, too, had had enough, I got in the cab of the tractor, which is doorless in a fit of romantic wanting-to-beclose-to-Nature I had got rid of the doors.
Denne historien er fra October 26, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra October 26, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds