Country diary: It's a race between the tractors and the threatened rain

Comins Coch, Ceredigion: In the valley, their lights continue long after midnight in a last push to secure the cropTowards evening, the heat grows less oppressive, the stored energy of the day seeping back out of the walls and buffering the cooling air. The settled weather has brought frantic activity to the valley, as farmers race to cut, wilt and bale the silage crop before the threatened rain arrives. As bales are carted away and the fields empty, the cut swards show up as pale patches on the hillside, an acute visual reminder of the rate of progress. The drone of tractors and forage harvesters fades in and out of hearing as they haul slowly across the unevenly sloped fields. Long after midnight, their lights continue to weave patterns across the landscape in a last push to secure the crop.The sky is already beginning to lighten just after three in the morning, the pale blue glowing from below the north-eastern horizon, outlining the angular profile of the Cambrian Mountains and casting the low lines of cloud into sullen relief. The short, intense shower that wakes me fades into the distance, leaving the evocative smell of wet earth and the sound of rain dripping from the leaves of the beech trees. Continue reading...