Country diary 1950: The End of a Freezing Day on the Farm
HEREFORD: In the evening, activity swirls as everyone races to finish before night falls. The dairyman’s white van, proudly labeled Jersey Milker, has collected the churns, and the egg packers have loaded the week’s cases. The threshing machine lies quiet now. Bags of oats have been unloaded and stored, and a wagon stands ready with baled straw, waiting for the farmer who will need it. Lights glow in the box windows one by one as the young stock are fed in sequence.
It has been freezing all day, and the sky is a clean, sweeping blue, with only a remnant of cloud on the horizon, gilded by the setting sun. Ewes are being driven indoors for the night, and the moon has risen to take its turn in the sky.
As I open my house door, as many cats as have kept me in view slip past, and Flossie hurries into her basket. I hope that the sharp, mosquito-like interruptions of the telephone will not break the silence for a while. I can only envy the bold conduct of an MFH (Master of Foxhounds) who, on frosty mornings when questions arise about whether it’s too hard for the hounds to go out, leaves the receiver off. A few fieldfares and redwings are about, and one pied wagtail.
Apples lie thick on the snow beneath the orchard trees, and among the great clusters of mistletoe a few yellow apples still hang.
