Friday, August 16, 2013

June 21st Haymaking event

We have offered to look after the Poundbury orchard.  This orchard is almost next to the farm, and contains 60 heritage apple trees, planted by local school children to commemorate Prince Charles’ 60th birthday.  It fits in well with what we do, and it also has a lot of long grass in it….

We held a haymaking event at the Summer Solstice in an attempt to get to grips with the grass in the Poundbury orchard.  It was an all day event and luckily the weather was good.  We armed ourselves with scythes, and with varying levels of expertise, sliced our way through the grass, with breaks for people to go home, have a cup of tea, come from work, etc.  We achieved a lot, but there’s still masses of grass to be cut.

Judy giving instructions in the art of scything

Go Jenny!

Badger just doesn’t stop!

Some were more active than others…

Dusk falls, the moon rises, and there’s still an awful lot of grass to go

In the evening we had a bonfire and played games round the fire, then some of us brave souls camped.  Sleep was in short supply, however – the A35 turned out to be extremely noisy all night, there was a rain/wind storm and tents fell down, it was cold….  We were all a bit bleary in the morning. 

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