What I Did This Summer

 

The sound of the tractor at work in the nearby field gathering in the wheat and corn late at night, was reassuring.  All year round we saw and heard the tractors on the roads and down the lanes fetching and carrying.  But then in August/September comes the reward, the harvest. It gave me cause to pause for thought.  At least something useful to sustain life and limb had been produced.  There will be food!  The Law of Nature is that things grow, but if things are to grow well, then effort and hard work are needed.  To produce the wheat and corn, the fields had to be ploughed, seeds sown and cared for, watched over and kept safe from predators.   In some ways, not unlike raising infants and children.   I watched this hard work over the summer, observing the colour changes to the local fields, the growth spurts after rain. And so the fields changed from brown to green to gold and now back again to brown.  But not for long.  The cycle will, thankfully, soon begin again.

A week ago I helped to clear the bowling green of weevils, grubs, larvae and worms – by hand. From a small patch we filled a small bucket.  These are not encouraged at the Bowling Club:  they burrow and chomp at the grass roots and the birds come to dig them out making holes in the surface of the Green which needs to be smooth and even.  Although the worms have a role to play in the farming scheme of things, here on the Green where they cover the grass in worm casts making the smooth roll of a bowl impossible, they are public enemy No 1.  And worms too like to dig and delve.  They are like pieces of elastic when being removed.  Not sure what they hang on with, but they are very tenacious.  I am reliably informed that the farmers around here are short of worms.  Perhaps we can do a swap - our worms for their water sprinkler.  We could even throw in some cotton underwear to bury as soil improvers.  Bargain!

Apart from gardening, pulling weeds and mowing the grass, and going away on holiday, I watched the houses opposite taking shape.  The walls went up, roofs went on and last week a fully formed chimney was hoisted on top like a cherry on a cake.  A day later the advertising hoardings were pinned to the perimeter fence.  The name of the development will not be Sixpence Terrace or Lord Nelson Row but Egerton View: no-one saw that one coming.

And now we wait for Autumn and Winter to arrive wondering what these might bring.  Nature is full of surprises if nothing else.