misty mornings

Walking along the bridleway in the mornings the mist has been hanging above the fields the past couple of mornings.

In Great Forest field, the oilseed rape has been cut and safely carted to the barn leaving fields of stubble.

 Wheat in Grove Field - almost ready to combine.

making hay

The grass in Little Forest was cut on Saturday. Here you can see the wonderfully named mower going through the crop.

With cutters on the front and back, it makes a wide cut through the long grass.

The green grass lays spread out across the field, left to dry in the sun.

The grass is turned a couple of times, bringing the wet grass underneath to the top and spreading it out . The sun shines and the grass dries out to become hay. By Wednesday the grass had dried out - you can see how it's changed from grass green to much lighter green - and the hay put into rows.

As soon as the hay has been rowed up, the tractor and baler come in and drive along the rows. The baler picks up the hay, compresses it into a bale, ties it up and shoots the bale out the back.

By the end of the day we have a few fields of hay bales, ready to cart away.

There's a bit of film here showing the rowing up and baling - it's not very good quality because we have such a slow broadband connection that it takes hours to upload anything of higher definition and my camerawork is a bit jumpy.

farmers and hedgerows

The beans in Grove Field are on flower and the smell is wonderful.

The view this morning from the mound at Great Notley across our neighbour's oilseed rape crop to The Ley

and the view up to the farm. The tall Wellingtonia tree (just to the right of the picture) stands in our garden.

All those hedgerows and trees. So it seems that farmers haven't ripped them all out after all.