Now that the hay bales have been carted away from the field (to be used as horse feed), we can see what's been lurking in the long grass, including lots of little frogs like this one.
The muck and straw removed from the stables is heaped up ready to be spread in the autumn. Over the last few days spiders have covered the top with cobwebs,
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.
At the end of Barn Field,
just behind the barns, we have a sand school that’s used by the livery yard
riders. This is a specially constructed arena that allows riders to exercise
their horses all year as it doesn’t get muddy in winter or hard and compacted
in summer. A compacted stone base was laid, covered with a geotextile membrane
and topped with a silica sand and recycled rubber mix.
The Mott
Next to the arena is The
Mott, which separates Barn Field and Little Forest. This is just a wide ditch though the fact that it's been given a name suggests it may have been more
important in the past. We've had so little rain over the winter that it's dry at the moment.
Little Forest looking west
Little Forest is another small grass field (3.59 hectares); we took
a cut of hay from this field last summer and will do the same again this year
and then fence it so the horses can be put in here to graze.
Little Forest looking back towards the yard
The hedge on the left of the photo is made up of
many species
including hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, holly, field maple , dog rose and
bramble, which makes it very good for fruit and nut foraging.
