Hay making in the hungry gap

We made our first hay in mid June just before we all went off to the Green Scythe Fair. More about that later.

Hay making involves an early start (5am) to beat the heat and to make it easier to cut the grass as it is still damp in the early morning. It is beautiful to be in the meadow at this time in the morning as the sun climbs higher in the sky while you work. We cut all our hay by hand with scythes. As you cut a swathe through the grass you leave a row of cut grass on your left. The hay is left to dry until afternoon, then turned. In the evening we come down and pile it into long rows to stop it from getting too damp in the night and the next morning we are down to spread it out to dry, turning it when needed until it is dry enough to store.

Our horse Charlie carting hay with Ed and John

This meadow alone is not enough to feed our animals through the winter and we will have to cut more hay. We have more mouths to feed now with the two calves, and Jerseys are a bit more high maintenance than the hardy Dexters. Our hay meadow was looking in a lot better shape this year compared to last year though which I was really pleased about. Most of the field isn’t grazed because the animals would damage the young apple trees. This means it has the potential to get very weedy, with a lot of nettles, docks and a few brambles creeping in. With regular scything of the weeds at the right time we have managed to control them a lot better this year.

Tinkers Bubble again had a stall at the Scythe Fair, a one day festival near Langport, Somerset. Both horses were used to take things to the site, as some of us are involved in setting up the festival. Jim took Pedro the 10 miles pulling a cart full of tools, electric fence, tent and bicycle. Once there he was able to help cart things about, much more sensible than a landrover for going back and forth across a field.

We sold our apple juice, cakes, plants, baskets and hand carved bowls, spoons and jewellery. We also have info boards with photos of our land and talk to people about why we live on the land and what we are doing. It is great to have feedback from local people about our place in the community.

The communual garden is full of a variety of things, some brand new crops are being trialled this year like quinoa, oats and wheat. There is a beautiful strip of phacelia with lots of other self seeded flowers like borage, violets and poppies. The bees love it.  We have tried to do more of everything that we usually grow. We have a block of 120 sweetcorn plants. Last year they were all stolen by the badgers, just as they were about to be harvested. Better keep an eye on them this year!

We are finally eating our own potatoes again and the first courgettes and cucumbers. The strawberries have come and gone. The first gooseberries are ripe, just as we have eaten all the jams and conserves from last year. Oats on their own for breakfast for a short while only! There are lots of herbs and the garlic has been harvested and tied into plaits to hang in the kitchen. We have lots of butter at the moment as we are weaning the calf, Moon from her mothers milk. She is old enough to eat only grass now so we are getting all of Lady’s milk. All the better to make cheeses with.

Work continues on the sawmill and it will be ready for a sawing again very soon. It is vital to have it up and running as we are always in need of timber for building, fencing and repairing and of course much of our livelihood comes from selling sawn timber.