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| Fallow Deer |
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| Alpine Tractor with Mower |
For a few weeks this summer, we placed a map in the village shop to collect deer sightings, and, thanks to 30 or so contributions, we now have a map showing where deer are most often seen. Deer are creatures of woodland margins that retreat into the shadows when they feel danger, but move out into the clearings when they want to graze, so we were not surprised to see that here, too, they concentrate along the fields closest to the woods. They are present in the common woods to the north and west of the Hudnalls, and in Oakhill Wood (Madgetts) to the south, so they are approaching from three points of the compass. Once in our fields, they find that many are small, ringed by trees and high hedges, and seem to have no inhibitions about ranging out towards Harthill, leaving only the village centres and a belt from around the Mackenzie Hall to the Hewelsfield cross-roads untouched.
What are the lessons? Amongst several that come to mind are: be careful where you buy a house if your ambition is to have a colourful and productive garden; spend hours carefully protecting individual plants; learn to love deer and confine your gardening to spiny shrubs, springs bulbs and a few deer-proof herbs; or, face the need to cull deer in the woods and perhaps also some of the fields before they get any more numerous. Fencing is an obvious recourse, but fences need to be high and strong, and well pegged down at the base. Deer have a reputation for claustrophobia, so one might try to get away with lower fencing of small plots, but they are clearly more intelligent and less neurotic than that implies, for they still raided fenced strawberry beds and ate the lot – twice in two separate locations– even though they were near the houses.
So, our thanks to everyone who contributed. There are many gaps, so more observations are welcome. All we asked was how often you see deer close to your home or in the nearest fields. We would particularly like to know more about when you started to see deer near you; and from anyone whose observations contradict the general pattern shown on our map. And, if numbers change in future, we would like to know about that.
Grassland Management
Following two very demanding
years for the project, earlier this year we took a
hard look at the way we manage things. In those two
years we had not been able to provide as good a
service as we would have liked, chiefly because of
extremely difficult weather conditions.
We have now negotiated a new arrangement with our partners in the Monmouthshire Meadows Group, so that we can concentrate efforts on our own side of the Wye Valley. We have agreed a new way of sharing our resources. They now have ownership of one of the two tractors, the Massey Ferguson 135, whilst we have retained the Alpine tractor. They also now have the tedder, the minibailer and its wrapper. And crucially, they have their own contractor, on their side of the valley, enabling John and Robert to concentrate efforts on our side. The decision to offer the minibailer to Monmouthshire was not taken lightly, but we felt that we could offer a significantly more efficient service by using John Childs’ own bailer, which produces large round bails, and covers a given area much more quickly than the minibailer.
Despite a good early start to the year, as June progressed and the haymaking season approached the weather took a turn for the worse. This was the year we had been promised a barbecue summer, but a run of more than two dry days simply didn’t occur during July and August. In order to make hay we need to start with reasonably dry ground, and then we require about five days to cut and then turn the hay to dry it, before rowing it up and bailing. A further complication is that as the summer progresses and the days get shorter, there is less daytime drying time, and additional time for night dew to form. All of which helps to explain why placing an order to have a field cut and bailed is not the same as booking a plumber, say, to come to your home to do a job. The plumber can usually offer you a date when he will start, and you can expect him to turn up then. But of course agricultural contracting, with its dependence on the season and the weather, doesn’t function like that.
However, after all that gloom and doom about the weather, the dry weather in September has allowed us and others to catch up with much of the hay making.