Working outdoors in the sunshine

What a glorious day we had yesterday!

Actually, the days have started to be warmer lately, but we still have cool nights, so the pool is STILL not open.
A little way north of us in Le Mans, the famous 24 hour race was stopped because of the heavy fog and I'm sure that's part of the unusual weather we're having this year.
Edit: It was the Nurburgring 24 hr race that was stopped due to fog, not Le Mans -N24 stopped after 8 hours

Anyway, back to our work.
We have four fields to mow for hay this year. It's getting late, but we've not been able to cut the grass so far because it wouldn't have had chance to dry. I spotted that we had a few days of sunshine coming and we made our plans.

One of the preparation walks for cutting hay

Tora found something

The grass is a little longer than we'd like, we've been advised to cut it just before the seed heads flower, but it wasn't possible this year

The Vineyard Paddock and the top strip of Lake View Paddock were planned in for hay-making. Yesterday we walked the Vineyard Paddock to check for ragwort - a toxic weed that can kill horses (and other animals). We pulled a few stray bits from the paddock, but I spotted clumps of it growing in the hedgerow and we had to scramble through broom, trees, undergrowth and blackthorn to get it all before it casts its seeds and becomes a worse problem.

To the left is the Lake View Paddock. We fenced-off the top strip of that field

You can see the white temporary fencing we've put up to stop the horses going into that part. They have enough grass in the lower part, so we decided to use the rest of the grass for extra hay

View from the top of Lake View Paddock

The upside of that scrambling about, getting bitten/stung by something and scratched by the thorns is we have a NEW project to get into... another one?
We discovered a lot of 'wild vines' growing in the undergrowth and I think, if we can cut back the broom (I want to do that anyway) and the weeds, we can cultivate the vines and restore at least part of the original 1950s vineyard.

The tractor with the mower attached

The perspective of exactly how deep the grass has grown

The grass is a bit seedy, but beggars can't be choosers

The first cut - forward view

The first cut - backward

Later that afternoon, Trev (@s0u1) mowed the southern end of the Vineyard Paddock and went to fetch the ride-on lawnmower. He then spot-mowed the ragwort 'florets' I found while walking in front of him, and collected that grass to put on the compost heap. We didn't want to risk any ragwort in the hay we're cutting. Ragwort tastes bitter to horses and while it grows, they instinctively leave it alone, but when it's cut and dried, it loses the bitterness and they eat it without realising. The poison is accumulative and never leaves their system, so it can kill them even years later.

As Trev was working, I set to and built two raised beds for the side of the stables. We need to put the horse-muck somewhere and raised beds are as good a place as any and once the beds are full, they can start the process of decomposition to turn into compost so we can grow stuff there. I'm planning on growing carrots for the horses, so it's a neat circle of nature.

Just a couple of metre-square boxes to match the steps we're going to make.

The wood is part of the 'paquets' purchased from our local woodyard. We've spent approximately €1000 (rounded up) on lumber and so far we've estimated that work we've done using the purchased lumber would have cost in excess of €2000 plus if we had bought the wood from a store (and we have LOTS left)

Trev then mowed the rest of the Vineyard Paddock and moved on to the top strip of the Lake View Paddock. We've started to name the parcels of land so we can easily identify them. Our friends John and Liz told us about the names they've given to parcels of their property and we loved the idea and adopted it. We'll be making signs at some point and I'm looking forward to that!

Top corner of Lake View Paddock, looking towards Long Drop Woods

Same place, top corner, but looking back, towards the house. This is on the far northern border of our property on one side of the road

Top corner of Lake View Paddock, next to the fence for Long Drop Woods

Same view, with the subtle difference that the first circuit of mowing has been made

Progress! The trees on the left are a little copse at the top of the field. Unfortunately, someone has dumped lots of metal and junk there over the years, so any cut grass that we can't really put on the compost heap, gets dumped there. Over the years, it will cover the junk and fill-in the ditch to make a nice (and fertile) area of shade

Round and round he goes, where he stops, nobody knows!

I wasn't well yesterday and sat indoors for most of the afternoon.

Today Trev is changing the Mower on the tractor for a Tedder. We bought it last year and it proved invaluable in collecting the hay. It makes it SO much easier.

The Tedder is a device that pulls all the wisps of dried grass together to make them into rows or 'Windrows' which you have probably seen in fields where you live. He'll turn the Windrows a couple of times to ensure the grass is really dry before we collect it up and store it in the barn.

One Tedder, fitted and ready to work

We don't have a baler and so we collect the hay into builder's bags (white bags which can take 1 tonne of building material such as sand, gravel or hardcore). The first year we made hay, we got around 21 bags of hay. Last year we got 24 bags, plus a couple of tarpaulins full too (make-do and manage). I wonder what the tally will be this year.

The builder's bags we used last year

Fashion in the Fields - lovely hat!

We still have some of last year's hay left, which is terrific for us as it takes the pressure off, but we also have the Dordogne Field and the Long Field (work in progress with that name) to cut and fetch in, PLUS we may yet get another harvest (another cut) before the year is out.

Enjoy the pictures, I'll update you on the Tedding tomorrow.

Last year's haul!