Cutting Back

Though it doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, autumn has crept up on me these past couple of weeks.

Low sun and pale mist greet me when I arrive – soon the mist down here in the valley will be heavier: cold, dense and wet.
Dock seed-heads (of which there are far too many) sparkle with dewy cobwebs.
And I need to step (and mow) with care – fermenting windfalls hum with drunken wasps.
Other insects are still busily feeding
and whatnot.  The first frost isn’t far off – perhaps they know it.
For me, the full-stop to summer is the mowing of the meadow.  Last year the ground was too wet for Sam and his enormous mowing machine to do the deed.  But this year he is hurtling around this part of Sussex, cutting a growing number of wild-flower meadows.  He is so busy that he cut ours on a Sunday – so I wasn’t there to watch him deftly dodging around the new deer cage slalom (which I have since strimmed around).
But here’s a photo of him (and since you ask, his ‘Ryetech Flail Mower Collector’) from two years ago.  Having twice cut the meadow myself, I was so very, very grateful that the ground was firm enough for Sam to come this year.  (He had a lousy 2012 – ours wasn’t the only meadow he wasn’t able to cut).
With the meadow dealt with, my attention turns to strimming the pond margins and ditches which I have left wild all season.
It’s a long, hot job and not one I enjoy.  If you have ever used a petrol strimmer, hedge trimmer or chainsaw, you may have experienced ‘white finger’ – an unpleasant condition caused by the vibrations of certain power tools.  The blood vessels in the hand go into spasm leading to a restriction in the supply of blood to the fingers, a loss of color (hence the name) and a tingling, numbing and possibly painful sensation.  It is a cumulative disorder with no cure.  For this reason I limit strimming to an hour or two each day but even so I sometimes experience pins and needles for a while afterwards.
As well as the concern that I might be permanently damaging my hands is the worry that I will kill a frog or toad, a snake or newt.  As far as I know, I haven’t yet – and often carry one or other off to safety.
It’ll take me another week or two to finish all the strimming; hopefully before heavy rain flattens all that long growth and makes the task even more onerous.
Then, after the first frost, I will tackle the more sedate, satisfying, non-vibrating and blissfully quiet task of cutting back the beds and borders.