A couple of weeks ago, a friend came round with his drone and took some aerial photos of our house. It was only after looking at those did I realise that we really do live in the middle of a very large field. It's all owned by a farmer in a nearby village. The tarmacked lane between the main road and the next village cuts through roughly the middle of it as it winds its way between farms and small hamlets and we live alongside that road.
We refer to the farmer as "our farmer" and we can differentiate between farmers by the colour of their tractors. Ours has the only blue one, the others are red or green.
We have been frustrated that for two whole years the bit of field that actually surrounds our house has not been cultivated at all. Last year our farmer dumped four huge dung heaps strategically around us, causing an annoying problem with flies, and grew a crop in the bit across the road but nothing else. This year, he did some weedkilling and sowed something over the road but then left it all. The crop, whatever it was meant to be, was soon swamped by weeds and our house has been surrounded by huge triffid like nasty weeds. Once the weather warmed up we were a bit concerned that they might be a fire risk.
Nick had already strimmed a border around our property then with an actual heatwave lasting several days forecast he went out and strimmed some more, hoping to create an effective fire break. The other farmers were up and harvesting from early in the morning, around six am, stopping at lunchtime because of the fire risk in the afternoon heat. It only takes one spark caused by a tractor striking a bit of flint in the earth to create a crisis. There has been no sign of the blue tractor for months.
Nick's strimming activities were not without consequence as he ended up with an absolutely hideous rash on his arms. The redness and blistering were caused we think by the six foot high hogweed that's one of the numerous plants that have flourished all around us due to the lack of actual farming.
Then, completely out of the blue, the blue tractor turned up a week ago and our farmer cut down all the weed-ridden crop in the field across the road and also a bizarre pattern of mowing around and behind our house. It crossed our minds that he too was concerned about a fire risk. He widened the clear path around the house that Nick had started and also cut around the abandoned neighbour's house.
Then, he turned up yesterday, on the major bank holiday known as the quinze aout, when all of France is partying (or so it seems) and baled it. It was half done while we were out during the day and we came home to find him hard at it, creating the usual puthers of dust, and he came back during the evening when we too were out partying and finished it. The field is now full of very neat brick shaped bales. I have to wonder what he can do with them as they are ninety percent nasty weeds rather than wheat.
It has improved the view from our house no end but we hope he comes and finishes the job at the back of us as it now has a bizarre crop circle kind of pattern where he mowed some of the weeds down.
No comments:
Post a Comment