Thursday 23rd August 2012

And welcome to Thursday. Outside the sun is shining and the fields are mostly harvested.

Oh yes, harvest.



Last night on the way home from work we saw that the large fields at Westcliffe were being harvested; well, most have been and the final long field, whose end is over the brow of a hill near the lighthouse was half harvested. Does that last sentence make sense? I hope so.



So, back home and unpack the car as we had been to Tesco for the week’s shop, grab the cameras and out again to get our shots of the scene. We drove to Westcliffe and parked the car in the layby, and whilst Jools checked for sloes in the hedgerow, I walked across the road, through the low hedge and into the field to record the scene before me. About a third of the field had been harvested and the straw turned into bales; another third had been harvested but the straw lay on the ground waiting to be baled. And the combine was dealing with the last third. I got a shot of it as it disappeared over the brow of the hill, and then turned to concentrate on the bales and patterns in the field.



Once I got my shots, I walked back to the car and on the way I snapped the harvester as it came back down the hill, making wonderful patterns and shapes. In the end another 106 shots had been taken all in about 15 minutes.



And on to the DIY store to get more bird seed. Not for the birds though, seems like the peanuts I leave out on the low table has now become the supper place of choice for one of our local badgers. So, most nights we are awoken by the noise of a badger crunching its way through half a pound of peanuts and seeds. I had not seen a badger alive before, just the ones that failed to make it across our roads, so to see one half on the bird tale eating away is a warming site. So, a couple of kilos of peanuts and other assorted seeds and dried worms, it was back home for a cupper and another one of the saffron buns from the weekend.