As we move through this late summer season, harvest-tide, we continue to cut the long dried grasses and wildflowers that have now gone to seed. Although the strimming leaves a pale stubble for a few days, after a little rain the areas green up with soft new grasses and another flush of wild flower growth. It is good to feel the burial ground being tidied up again. But there are hard aspects to the mowing …
Little Mouse in the Stubble
The areas of long grass and wildflowers, heavy and falling over now, matting on the earth after heavy August rains, are ecosystems that have developed over the long growing season since March. They are filled with life! On our clay soil, many of the plants produce oil-rich seeds, especially valuable to the little creatures like the beautiful little soul in the photograph above.
Although we do our best to ensure the wildlife has plenty of time to move away from the machines, and we leave patches of thick growth where they can shelter, finding new homes, adapting gently as we all face the coming autumn and winter. That we disturb them at all hurts me, but caring for a nature reserve and burial ground means we must manage the ground, we cannot simply leave it to become wilderness, much as sometimes I feel the desire to do so …
