Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 64

COUNTRYSIDE, WILDLIFE & FARMING countryside news life Compiled by Tony Ridd DO YOU HAVE A COUNTRYSIDE STORY? CALL TONY ON 07966 292334 64 what to look out for... Blackberries Blackberries are at there best in August/ Sept. There is an old superstition that you should never pick Blackberries after October 10th (the old Michaelmas Eve) as on that day the devil would curse/spit/pee on them (your choice). It is said that when he was cast from heaven he fell into a bramble bush so every year on the anniversary of that day he spoils the blackberry crop! back to nature A countrymans diary Working outside, I have to admit to loving anytime of the year, I claim to have a favourite season – winter, but this is soon forgotten about, when the chicks start hatching, lambs are born out or certain jobs come along… ‘bale cart’ is one of these jobs! Not so much when we are carting hay, but in August, when the combines are cutting the corn and large parts of the countryside turn this lovely, dusty golden colour. I started on the local farm at the age of twelve or thirteen. Big balers were yet to hit our shores so all straw was bundled up into what are now described ‘small bales’. I was lucky because the farm I worked on had a tractor to load them onto the trailer, all I had to do was arrange each layer alternately, sort of like laying bricks! We’d pile the trailers up eight or nine rows high and in six weeks (weather permitting) would move over thirty thousand bales from the fields and stack them in the barns. Of course this is all done with big bales now, and is all loaded and unloaded by tractor. Today at home, we still need about 100 bales of straw for the horses and sheep, so I get to play farm-hand for a short time, loading up the trailer (by hand) and stacking them in the barn, emerging an hour or so later looking a little like a thread-bare straw doll and feeling like I thoroughly deserve a cold beer or two-ish.