Raptors, hay and other things

Our main task over the last week has been cutting the hay; or for my part overseeing the process! In the past we have arrived late in the summer to an overgrown field and ended up giving the hay away to the local dairy farmer who uses it to feed his cows. This year however, we have had a bit more time to appreciate our resource and start to manage it. The first thing we did was fertilize it and pray for rain. There was a little, but not really enough to get it going. However, by last week the field was as thriving as it was ever going to get this year, and ready for cutting. Our dairy farmer friend arrived with his big tractor and cut the field in a matter of hours. The sound and sight of this tractor attracted every bird of prey for miles, and at one point I counted about sixteen hovering around; diving the tractor to get the fresh grasshoppers as they lept out of the way. After the cutting, they feasted in the field for a few days on the remains of the dead wildlife until they were so full they couldn't fly! As our neighbour said, this must be where the phrase 'having a field day' came from as they gave the impression this was raptor heaven. Mostly they were buzzards, with one or two smaller hen harriers and maybe a kite or two.

A few days after the cutting our farmer friends returned to fluff the hay into piles ready for baling. (I'm sure this has a technical term but we don't know what it is). After fluffing the race was on to bale; Ian with his small tractor and a square baler and the farmer with his larger round baler. The agreement was that he could take 10 large bales in payment for cutting the field and we would keep the small bales for ourselves and to sell. All was going well until the small baler malfunctioned due to incorrect string and in the end the farmer got 12 bales and we got about 230 smaller sqaure bales. We inlisted the help of our neighbours to load the bales onto the trailer while I drove the van and we collected them all up, stacked them and covered them. We were in a hurry to get them in before the rain the following day; only the rain never came.

On the subject of bird of prey, when we were sitting eating our chocolate cake the other week there were two birds of prey circling above us which our neighbours identified as kites. They were then 'joined' by a third much bigger bird. A fight ensued and eventually the bigger bird was driven away. Our neighbours reckon the bigger bird was a short-toed eagle but if so it is a bit off its usual course as they are found more toward the Pyrennes and the mountains. However, the dry weather and shortage of food may have attracted them further East.

Heavy metal

Today Ian is at a friend's house trying to repair the ancient tractor that he bought several years ago and I have a day to myself in the house. This is probably the first time since we have been here and I promised Ian that I would catch up on some 'proper' work at my desk while he was away! Well, I managed until now but what I really want to do is catch up on some blogging, without my thoughts being interupted by sounds of engines and cursing as something else breaks! All I can hear today is the drone of the flies as they get more and more exited by the approaching hot summer.

So, what is the cause of Ian's cursing? Well, he can never resist a good bargain when it comes to heavy machinery and one of the things we towed back from UK was an old roller; apparently we need it for when we do the drive. This was a bargain but sold on Ebay as 'spares or repair' so Ian set about repairing it only to find that it needs rather more repair than he had hoped! It goes forward and 'rolls' but apparently does not perform its secondary function of vibrating!

He has also been spending quite a lot of time on the digger and dumper trying to move earth. After the builders went we were left with two very large piles of earth that we have called Mont Blanc

and The Eiger

Truck loads of earth have been removed but the size of the piles never seems to decrease. While Ian was clearing Igor he accidently hit a snake with the digger bucket. The snake was probably searching for food in the pile. It was about a metre long and most probably a grass snake just awaking from hibernation. Unfortunately he wounded it but didn't kill it outright and then we didn't really know what to do. We probably should have killed it as it was unlikely to survive its injuries, but at this point it decided to try and fight back and so we had to let it go; maybe to be dinner for one of the birds of prey that fly over the field. Our encounters with snakes so far have been seen two, mortally wounded two!



So, just as I was halfway through writing this entry Ian returned declaring that the tractor was ready and we could go over an pick it up.