Harvest continued....

1st September 2013

    Pinch, punch, it's the first of the month!
    These are mornings of mist and chill. My gloves went on for the first time in an age. Into the parkland, Mr Reynard, with a white tip to his tail, crossed my path. And as he trotted, he stopped now and then to watch me. The Greylag Geese left their grazing and arrowed to the water at Clearhedges, honking as they went. The Buzzard family were over Clearhedges Wood, early for breakfast. Pretty heifers were grazing peacefully and stopped to greet me. I met Mr Fearless, the Rabbit; I told him that I had just seen Mr Reynard. He was too busy munching to talk. The only sound now, was the KRARK! of a Rook.
    I fed on berries of all sorts for breakfast, until my belly gurgled, and had coffee with the black faced Suffolk Sheep for company. They are always very friendly. And all about me, Swallows and Martins were feeding and twittering; fattening themselves for the long journey to Africa. Some of them, for the first time. There were little freshly dug holes filled with turds by the hedgerow. Are they the Badgers mark?
    I thanked Doris for the loan of her bench and continued down to Basted Mill. In the bottom field, sixteen Suffolk boys were contemplating their lives of leisure and sex. The little river was in a reflective mood, the soft light revealing its serpentine course through the valley.
    Toward Scathes Wood, I trod through golden stubble and husks of wheat. At the top of the hill the view extends from Basted in the east to Sevenoaks in the west. Only those who may look can see the beauty of the valley; the Sun in the south east brightening the Autumnal green. Much of the wheat is in now. Then, at Shipbourne, the air was thick with dust from the harvester working in the field west of the church. And tractors with trailers carting off the grain for storage.
    Dene Park Wood was quiet - perhaps I was the only one there - and I followed the Sun south for Clearhedges. Here, the Buzzards were making such a racket! Were there half a dozen birds up there in the tree tops? The ground was dry, hard and dusty, through the fields to Hadlow. The Sun, hot now, bade me take off my fleece.
    Then it was time for home, in the hot Sun, to make Damson jam!