Thursday 19th May 2016

The best thing about living in the country is the ever-changing view.  By that, I mean the scenery changes each season. The crops peeping through are a vibrant green in the summer, changing to a waving crop of golden corn in the summer, to the ploughed fields of autumn showing such neat rows of the rich red brown earth of Herefordshire, finally the winter could be brown, or have little spikes of green showing through, iced with frost or covered in snow or even drowning in a lake, something that has happened far too much the last few years. Due to rotation of crops there are further changes with maybe potatoes, wheat or spring barley visible from my bathroom window.

I have fond memories of my grandfather's farm where the fields had beautiful poppies and many other wild flowers such as campion, trefoil and cowslips round the edge of the field, something that is not popular with farmers today but as a child it was magical, I can also vaguely remember the corn was made into stooks that were carefully stacked into eight before the advent of balers - I'm not that old it's just that technology has advanced in such a short space of time. I've found a photo to show what I mean

As I was in a reflective mood, I decided to go across the fields again as the nettles and thistles are growing fast so it will no longer be a pleasant walk until either the crops are cut or the verge dies down. In addition, one of the fields has had a tractor working in there the last few days and I wanted to see what he was up to.

It began to rain before I set off and I remembered my brother-in-law gave me a waterproof gaiters so I dusted them off and popped them on.  I'm so glad I did, not only did they keep my trousers dry; it protected me from the nettles and thistles on the way as shown by the sort of selfie in the first photo. 

The next image shows the bright green I was aiming for, with the second showing the footpath with the main part of the field to the right.  It looks a little like just the grass had been allowed to grow and then cut; it certainly smelled like newly mown grass but greatly intensified. That farmer owns an anaerobic digester and they grow crops to add to it, perhaps that's where this went.

The last photo is coming back across the bridge over the stream, a place I just have to stop every time. The bridge before this one had a stile each end - a bit of a challenge, particularly when the whole thing started to list to one side.  The new bridge is nice and solid with just rails each side, open ends and this ever-changing stream running underneath.