Country diary: Itching and scratching after a day of hay-baling | Andrea Meanwell

Tebay, Cumbria: Dry days are suddenly here - so it's time to make hay long into the eveningIt's approaching 9pm and we are returning to the meadows for the last trip of the day "leading" hay bales into the barn. I sit on the back of the trailer as it bumps along, marvelling at the number of beetles on the hot metal flatbed. They crawl out of the bales as they are loaded from the field on to the trailer, and there is now a mixture of hay seeds and beetles covering the rusty floor. Once we get back into the meadow, I push them all off the back of the trailer, and they fall on to the freshly mown meadow and scurry off. Both beetles and seeds are better off here than left in the barn.There has been no shortage of biting insects this year. My forearms are scratched from the bales, and my shoulders and back are covered in bites. I don't know why we have such healthy numbers of insects when overall the populations are falling. Perhaps it's because we use so few chemicals, and have a river and so many trees in the valley. Once the load of hay is brought in, I'm tempted to jump into the River Lune to ease the itching - until I check how often sewage is released into it further upstream. That puts paid to any ideas of night swimming. Continue reading...