There are a whole lot of jobs to be done in the autumn..

This pond has become so overgrown that there was little open water anymore:

Now is the time to get in and clear ponds when the summer activity is over but animals have not yet hibernated. Also – the water is not too cold..

I used to dive in UK waters and so have some equipment mouldering away in the attic which has been brought back into action:

So that’s done.

What is not yet done, however, is getting the meadows cut, baled and taken away which is the biggest and most important job of the year. Having failed to find anywhere for the bales to go, we have decided to take control of this job ourselves and tomorrow we are going to buy this beast:

This machine will cut and collect the long meadow grass and we will cut in sections through the winter and early spring. We’ll also get a trailer to go on the back of the Landrover to empty the collector onto and make some large compost heaps for some of it, take some of it down to the dump in hippo bags and put the rest out for the fortnightly green waste collection. Using a mosaic approach like this, we won’t be swamped by an enormous amount of hay all in a one go and we can manage one section at a time.

This is the latest solution for dealing with the continuing problem of how to effectively cut and remove the arisings from these meadows. This removal is necessary so that over the years they become more nutritionally depleted which discourages bullying grasses and enables wildflowers to thrive.