Time marches on

I haven't mentioned the dead field for a while.  I am pleased to report that it is no longer dead.  In three months we have gone from this

to this.

After a walk Tilly and I took through the field in April, when nothing was growing, not even a 'weed', I wrote to the British Crop Production Council, to express my concern for the practice of spraying the field to kill every living plant, before planting it up again.  I was told this is a 'chemical plough'. This is the farming of the 21st century.  Apparently it is better for the soil. I'm afraid I remain sceptical, but I have to express relief that the field margins were sown with a mix which is attracting the pollinators, so yesterday's walk wasn't nearly as dismal as the last one, back in April.

Tilly and I haven't walked round the block for quite a while, so we left the potato field and carried on along the lane.  The crops are beginning to ripen

and the hedgerows are full.  This one has meadow sweet, hogweed, blackberry flowers - all sorts of lovely stuff.

 

Next weekend there is the East Fortune Air Show.  We are expecting the Red Arrows around 1.15 pm and later a display from the RAF's awesome, but totally terrifying, Typhoon combat aircraft.  On our way home we passed this field of linseed.  There was a flying display going on there which equally matched the speed and skill of the Red Arrows.  The iridescent navy wings of swallows were skimming over the field, swooping and soaring, every which way.  It was bewitching and fabulous to watch!  When my little Melbourne Munchkin was here a few weeks ago, we walked through this field, along these tracks.  The field was flowering then, a beautiful blue, and we made up a ditty to chant as we walked.  

And then, closer to home, the little girlie and I walked along a grassy track into the wood.

That has all grown over now.  It didn't take long for the grasses to cover the traces.

I can't help a feeling of melancholy, walking past the linseed field and the grassy track.  My little granddaughter and I had some happy times together in these places!  I am not sure when I will see her again.  Soon, or certainly soonish, I hope.  I have just finished reading a lovely book, Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver.  There is a line within the last few pages - 'Women and grandbabies, there was nothing on this earth to beat it.'  Too true.