Today as I write, there is not a cloud to be seen in the sky ... just aircraft con-trails. The last dew days have been just wonderfully sunny, warm and with a light, cooling breeze. The area around the old church has been busy and yesterday saw the movement of cattle across the road from one field to another, to make room for a special delivery later.
The mountain road is narrow and not really suitable for heavy traffic. The farm tractors normally take up most of the width as they travel back and forth but in the late afternoon a huge transporter came slowly and carefully down the road with much needed supplies.
This is winter straw being delivered for the cattle when they overwinter in the barn ...
and with not just one trailer but two in tandem & I'm told there are two more of these giants yet to arrive. It's amazing to think this will all be in a giant manure heap next year.
This is wheat straw from the more arable lowlands down country. A hefty load!
Meanwhile in the old churchyard, another harvest is ongoing after the big annual strim.
All the cut grass has to be raked up and taken off site, so that it doesn't compost down and enrich the ground. It has become like a hay field, but one full of rather ornate stones ...
This work is done by humans by hand, carefully working the rakes in and around all the sunken headstones and hollows of the graves, some going back as far as 1730. Local people who keep rabbits have done well out of the free hay that gets piled up and bagged.
The bulk of it has been taken away in two huge trailer loads and will get composted down in amongst a great pile of cow manure and last winters straw in a nearby field all except the areas around the yew trees because the berries are poisonous to man and beast alike. That has been safely composted elsewhere. The grass is raked up into heaps and some also goes to feed the sheep having been scattered in a field behind the old church. Several volunteers have been involved, it has been hot hard work with time out rests being taken.
Where better than to lay back in the midday sun than on a suitably leaning headstone!
There's still plenty more to rake up yet and two days of this lovely sunny weather left
before the rain is due in again.
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