Mowing Season 2016.

As this mowing season 2016 had just begun, it had already ended. This year it all went very quickly, thanks to this piece of mechanization Hendrik had included...
In previous years he dragged the hay up the hill on his back. But now he took the car.

This may seem to be a bit funny, but do not regard this to lightly, for our small car is not to be trusted on these hills and slopes. It is not so much for the descent, because you are down hill very easy. It is the up hill that is the problem. It requires us to be careful, for we should not alert the neighbors or the whole village, to drag us back up up on the hill, unnecessarily.
But now as the path is dry, our car can do the trip just fine. With the seats folded, the load capacity is exactly the right size for a daily harvest of 70 packs of hay.

In the summer Hendrik is up at 5 am. We have an alarm that will sound a roosters crow, so the morning we experience in style. Hendrik mows the hay in the evening, when it is dry, and tramples his packets in the morning, when the land is moist. The packets go in bags and the car drives them up the Monte.
On the 22nd of June Hendrik started mowing and on the 9th of Juli he was ready.

So here is the result, the about 875 parcels waiting for composting, which starts not before September. When maybe it will rain, we put black plastic over the hay. The water bottles prevent it from blowing away. The rain supposes not to do the composting for us. Hendrik likes to start the composting in a controlled manner... he likes to do it himself.

The previous years, when Hendrik did not use the car, he therefore walked three times up the hill, with finally 3 x 10 packets to carry upstairs. It took longer and it costs more effort. Now that he is getting older our small car is big help. And for the quantity also... 70 packs or 30 packs, it makes a significant difference. And in time it makes a different also, because now he is ready at 8 am. Earlier, this job lasted until 11 o'clock in the morning. A bit of 'mechanization or rationalization on the compost farm'... :)

'Hay on stem'.

This is how this world looks like, in the first week of May:

On the left the sheep graze. On the right the land that we want to mow.

 

At the course of June, the flowers on the previous picture look like this:

'Hay on stem'... A wonderful material to mow and for composting.

A (dried) Vetch. A very welcome legume.

But also the thorny "Cardo" is usable.

*

Stella.